Red RC - RC Car News

Simon Kurzbuch (Switzerland)

Shepherd Velox V8 – Novarossi engines – Energy Fuel – Xtreme Aerodynamics bodyshell – Futaba transmitter – Futaba servos

Bruno Coelho (Portugal)

Xray NT1 – Max Power engines – Runner Time Fuel – SRC bodyshell – Sanwa transmitter – Savox servos

Simon Kurzbuch has retained his Euro Nitro Series title, the Shepherd driver becoming champion for a third time with his third win at the World famous Fiorano track in Italy. Coming into the final round of the season going up against Bruno Coelho for the title, the Swiss ace drew the first strike when he claimed the overall TQ moving him a step closer to the top prize.  In the final despite a sterling effort from Coelho, who kept him honest throughout the 45-minutes decider, Kurzbuch continued his form claiming win number three of the season by half a lap to take the 2017 title.  A surprise challenger to Kurzbuch, winning the season opener having not been a 1:8 contender previously, Coelho would have to settle for second in the standings on this occasion but finishing all four race in no lower than second place the Portuguese driver has already set out his stall for next season’s ENS.  Making his first A-Main of the season, Jesse Davis would complete the podium at Round 4 with a hugely popular third place, which where it not for a crash with Lamberto Collari while closing down Kurzbuch, could have seen the Aussie end the season on an even higher note. One can only expect Davis will be another driver taking the challenge to Kurzbuch in Season #5 of the ENS. Unfortunately for newly crowned World Champion Dario Balestri his chances of a good result ended at the first corner after the start.  With second place qualifier Andrea Pirani making a very slow start Balestri would run into the back of him, the impact lifting the body off his car and it needing to be returned by marshal to the pits for repairs. Rejoining the race to finish 10th of the 12 starters, Balestri joked afterwards, ‘your luck can change completely in a week’.

Continue reading this report here or view our complete event coverage here.

Simon Kurzbuch has retained his Euro Nitro Series title, the Shepherd driver becoming champion for a third time with his third win at the World famous Fiorano track in Italy. Coming into the final round of the season going up against Bruno Coelho for the title, the Swiss ace drew the first strike when he claimed the overall TQ moving him a step closer to the top prize.  In the final despite a sterling effort from Coelho, who kept him honest throughout the 45-minutes decider, Kurzbuch continued his form claiming win number three of the season by half a lap to take the 2017 title.  A surprise challenger to Kurzbuch, winning the season opener having not been a 1:8 contender previously, Coelho would have to settle for second in the standings on this occasion but finishing all four race in no lower than second place the Portuguese driver has already set out his stall for next season’s ENS.  Making his first A-Main of the season, Jesse Davis would complete the podium at Round 4 with a hugely popular third place, which where it not for a crash with Lamberto Collari while closing down Kurzbuch, could have seen the Aussie end the season on an even higher note. One can only expect Davis will be another driver taking the challenge to Kurzbuch in Season #5 of the ENS. Unfortunately for newly crowned World Champion Dario Balestri his chances of a good result ended at the first corner after the start.  With second place qualifier Andrea Pirani making a very slow start Balestri would run into the back of him, the impact lifting the body off his car and it needing to be returned by marshal to the pits for repairs. Rejoining the race to finish 10th of the 12 starters, Balestri joked afterwards, ‘your luck can change completely in a week’.

‘To TQ and win makes me very happy’, was Kurzbuch’s reaction after the race. With a 9th ENS race win from the championship’s 16 race history, he said, ‘It was a very good final.  The tactic for the race was to win the championship and I knew fifth place was enough for this so we played safe with the fuel and tyre stops’.  He continued, ‘Alex and my father did a perfect job as always in the pits but when you are leading you want to try to take home the championship with a win’.  Making 2 stops for fresh tyres all round each time, he said today’s win, the race the official last major international race of the nitro season, has made him ‘confident for next year’, adding, ‘this is revenge for the Worlds’.

While missing out on the 1:8 title Coelho still described his efforts as ‘impressive’.  Having claimed the 1:10 ENS title an hour earlier, he continued, ‘I think the result in 1:8 is even more impressive than 1:10. Last season in 1:8 we could not arrive in all the finals and now this year we finished all races in 1st and 2nd place’.  He added, ‘Everything worked perfect. It was our mistakes, not problems with the car that prevented us from winning other races’.  On today’s final, the Portuguese driver, ‘I pushed Simon hard but Collari would not open and when I try to pass him I flip and lost 5 or 6 seconds.  This cost me the chance to beat Simon’. Running the same 2 stop tyre strategy as Kurzbuch, he would later have an off of his own doing at the end of the straight saying, ‘I just was pushing hard and got it wrong but even without this I could not have caught him, the time was gone after my crash with Collari’.

‘Finally a good race, it was not perfect but my first A-Main this year and I got a podium so I’m more than happy’, was how Davis summed up the race.  Making Super Pole at the World Championship two weeks ago but having problems in his Semi Final denying him from making the Main, the unquestionably talented Infinity driver today took advantage of a single tyre stop strategy.  This put him right in the mix with him running behind and in close proximity to Kurzbuch but with around 7-minute to go he crashed into Collari, the 9-time World Champion coming across on him as he went to lap the Italian.  Asked about the incident Davis said, ‘Our strategy was going really good but then I had a crash with Lamberto.  After that the car was tweaked but it doesn’t matter because I’m really happy with third.  It’s a perfect end to the season’.

Coming from the B-main, which he finished second behind team-mate Andy Moore, Teemu Leino would finish 4th from 12th on the grid.  Describing the result as ‘pretty good’, the outgoing 1:10 ENS Champion said, ‘It been a very long time since I have had no problems in a final. Today I had not one problem’.  He continued, ‘before the final I discuss with Jesse that I think I will do just 1 tyre stop but after 18-minutes I need to change tyres so I ended up doing two stops.  Maybe this was wrong and it cost me a podium but maybe it was right because I would have had no tyres but after qualifying in the B to finish 4th in a nice way to finish the season’.  With team-mate Naoto Matsukura the final direct qualifier lining up 10th for the start, the Japanese driver would made a blistering start helped by the first corner incident to run in the Top 3.  Unfortunately however the electric World Champion was again dealt cruel luck as during the 3rd fuel stop the INS box came off and released without it his car came to a halt 3/4 of a lap later forcing him to eventually retire with engine damage caused by the missing INS box.

View the complete event results here.

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Dominic Greiner has taken a dominant 1:10 win at the season finale of the Euro Nitro Series, the Serpent driver completing the perfect return to the class in Italy showing just why he is the reigning World Champion. Having secured the TQ for the 45-minute final, the German drove a near perfect race with his rivals lacking the pace to mount any kind of serious challenge.  While Finals day in Fiorano would start out damp, organisers would delay the start of the A-Mains by an hour so drivers could battle it out for the final major nitro race of the season in dry conditions.  While Geiner quickly established control of the race, behind him the battle for second was between Xray’s champion elect Bruno Coelho and Alessio Mazzeo. With that battle really hotting up over the final minutes of the race, it was Mazzeo who would take second with Coelho just 3/10ths behind.  Finishing 2nd or 3rd mattered little to Coelho because either way he had secured his first ENS title a feat that would see the great all round driver do the triple crown – the Portuguese driver having already been crowned ETS and EOS champion earlier in the year.  Off the podium David Loppini would finish 4th after a good battle with Jakub Rozycki while Thilo Tödtmann completed the Top 6 to become Vice Champion.

Continue reading this report here or view our complete event coverage here.

Dominic Greiner has taken a dominant 1:10 win at the season finale of the Euro Nitro Series, the Serpent driver completing the perfect return to the class in Italy showing just why he is the reigning World Champion. Having secured the TQ for the 45-minute final, the German drove a near perfect race with his rivals lacking the pace to mount any kind of serious challenge.  While Finals day in Fiorano would start out damp, organisers would delay the start of the A-Mains by an hour so drivers could battle it out for the final major nitro race of the season in dry conditions.  While Geiner quickly established control of the race, behind him the battle for second was between Xray’s champion elect Bruno Coelho and Alessio Mazzeo. With that battle really hotting up over the final minutes of the race, it was Mazzeo who would take second with Coelho just 3/10ths behind.  Finishing 2nd or 3rd mattered little to Coelho because either way he had secured his first ENS title a feat that would see the great all round driver do the triple crown – the Portuguese driver having already been crowned ETS and EOS champion earlier in the year.  Off the podium David Loppini would finish 4th after a good battle with Jakub Rozycki while Thilo Tödtmann completed the Top 6 to become Vice Champion.

‘Everything was perfect, this is a good start to our preparations next year’, was Greiner’s reaction to his 3rd ENS career win, next year being the 1:10 World Championship in Miami.  He continued, ‘We changed the set-up to what we ran in Q2 and also used the engine we tested in the last qualifier.  The longer warm-up allowed us to set the engine perfect and I drove the whole race at 95%.  When you have the car and engine working this good you can do this.  I also told Thomas (his pitman) to take his time’.  With just one blotch on his copybook for the race when he went off at the second corner following the first fuel stop, he explained, ‘I think maybe the tyres got wet from the pitlane and it caught me out but apart from this small mistake it was a perfect race’.

‘I’m very happy with this year.  We put more focus into working on our nitro cars and winning the championship is the reward for this’ was how Coelho summed up his title win. Also contributing Xray’s competitiveness this season down to working with Alessio Mazzeo on car development, he continued, ‘The most important thing going into the final was to be in front of Thilo because he was the biggest challenger for the championship.  I didn’t need to fight anyone else and when Alessio was behind me I opened for him.  I didn’t need to battle with him’.  Becoming the ENS’ fourth different 1:10 champion, Coelho’s campaign has been the most successful of a champion with him winning from the TQ spot in both France and Austria and also TQ’ing in Germany only to suffer a mechanical retirement in the final, a result he could drop with his podium finish today.

Finishing second as he once again came strong towards the end of the race, he previously won in 2015 in the dying moments from then champion Jilles Groskamp, Mazzeo was delighted with his race.  He said, ‘One of the best race of my life racing with Bruno and Dominic, no mistake for the entire 45-minutes’.  He continued, ‘Dominic deserves the win for sure but the result also is a message that we must work hard to improve for sure’.  On his own race he said his only issue was that the idle on his engine was high and this caused the car to run on under braking.  Asked about his battle at the end with Coelho he replied, ‘Always in the last minutes of this race I arrive in a battle. It was fun to race against Bruno.’

Having made the final on each of the ENS’ four visits to Fiorani, Loppini was ‘quite satisfied’ with his P4 result.  His best ENS result, he was more pleased to achieve it given the fact that he hasn’t raced for 5-months.  Commenting on his performance in the race and his battle with Rozycki, the 23-year-old Xray driver said, ‘Alessio and Bruno were too fast for me. I couldn’t match their pace.  I had a good battle for the 4th place and I’m happy for my return to racing to get my best result’.  In the end Rozycki’s Xray would finish 2-seconds back from the Italian.

View the complete event results here.

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The fourth and penultimate round of the Jakarta EP Regional was held at Sunter International Speedway under sunny conditions. It was Suwardi Suliandy who secured the pole after three rounds of qualifying followed by Teddy Syach and Ronny Suwarto. The A-main finals saw close racing in each round, it was three different winners from each leg with Suwardi, Peter Anthonijsz and Arya Seta each taking a win a piece but in the end, Suwardi wrapped up the overall victory followed by Peter and Arya.

A main result:
1. Suwardi Suliandy (Xray/Orca)
2. Peter Anthonijsz (Awesomatix/Hobbywing)
3. Arya Seta (Destiny/Hobbywing)
4. Ronny Suwarto (Xray/Orca)
5. Teddy Syach (Tamiya/Hobbywing)
6. Christian Mamesah (Serpent/Hobbywing)
7. Chandra Yosef (Awesomatix/Hobbywing)
8. Imam Liyanto (Yokomo/Hobbywing)
9. Donnie Pangemanan (Yokomo/Hobbywing)
10. Denny Pangestu (Xray/Orca)

Thanks to Bowie Ginting for the report.

Andy Moore has won the B-Main in Fiorano from Infinity team-mate Teemu Leino to complete the line-up for the last ENS encounter of the season.  Starting out the damp day in Italy in the D-Main, the British driver would finish second in both the D and then the C final behind fellow countryman Mark Green to progress to the well stacked B-Main.  Initially pole sitter Carmine Raiola led the way but his race would end at the halfway point as he came upon traffic with contact sending up off the track resulting in a flame out. Having looked for a time like he was on for another bump up Green would crash out while vying for the lead. Behind Moore and Leino, Alessio Mazzeo would miss the cut finishing in the third, his cause not helped by the fact the Italian stopped twice over the 20-minute encounter for tyres.

Continue reading this report here or view our complete event coverage here.

Andy Moore has won the B-Main in Fiorano from Infinity team-mate Teemu Leino to complete the line-up for the last ENS encounter of the season.  Starting out the damp day in Italy in the D-Main, the British driver would finish second in both the D and then the C final behind fellow countryman Mark Green to progress to the well stacked B-Main.  Initially pole sitter Carmine Raiola led the way but his race would end at the halfway point as he came upon traffic with contact sending up off the track resulting in a flame out. Having looked for a time like he was on for another bump up Green would crash out while vying for the lead. Behind Moore and Leino, Alessio Mazzeo would miss the cut finishing in the third, his cause not helped by the fact the Italian stopped twice over the 20-minute encounter for tyres.

‘I’m the Bump up King for today’ was Moore’s reaction after to securing his first A-Main appearance.  The former electric Touring Car World champion said, ‘I had never driven a 8th scale in the wet before so the D-Main was a step into the unknown so I just cruised around.  I did the same thing in the C and the last one’.  On the B-Main, which he started last, he said, ‘I didn’t get a good start.  A few cars had crashed in front of me and I couldn’t avoid them and this caused the front of the body to tuck at the bumper and I raced the entire final with it like that’.  Running Kiss wet tyres on his Infinity he concluded, ‘I need to find another set of wets’ but with an improvement showing in weather apps, the ENS organisers have suspended racing for an hour in the hope drivers can fight out for the final ENS win of the season in completely dry conditions.

View the complete event results here.

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Daan Jacobs is on a roll this morning at the Euro Nitro Series season finale in Italy, the Dutch Serpent driver bumping twice in damp conditions to book his place in the 1:10 A-Main. Qualifying for the C final, Jacobs would make light work of that 20-minute encounter with many drivers opting not to run on the wet track. With the stakes a lot higher in the B-Main, only Dirk Wischnewski would opt not to start, the ENS race winner saying he didn’t have the right wet tyres to have any chance of being competitive. With the experience of having run a final already, Jacobs quickly moved to the front with pole sitter Toni Gruber unable to hold the lead for the first lap, being also passed by Marco Kaufmann. Kaufmann would drop back but his chances of becoming this year’s ENS Vice-Champion ended when the Xray driver suffered a flame out. While Melvin Diekmann would hold second for a lot of the race, having found is rhythm for the conditions, European Champion Gruber would find a way through to claim second and the final starting spot on the A-Main grid.

Continue reading this report here or view our complete event coverage here.

Daan Jacobs is on a roll this morning at the Euro Nitro Series season finale in Italy, the Dutch Serpent driver bumping twice in damp conditions to book his place in the 1:10 A-Main. Qualifying for the C final, Jacobs would make light work of that 20-minute encounter with many drivers opting not to run on the wet track. With the stakes a lot higher in the B-Main, only Dirk Wischnewski would opt not to start, the ENS race winner saying he didn’t have the right wet tyres to have any chance of being competitive. With the experience of having run a final already, Jacobs quickly moved to the front with pole sitter Toni Gruber unable to hold the lead for the first lap, being also passed by Marco Kaufmann. Kaufmann would drop back but his chances of becoming this year’s ENS Vice-Champion ended when the Xray driver suffered a flame out. While Melvin Diekmann would hold second for a lot of the race, having found is rhythm for the conditions, European Champion Gruber would find a way through to claim second and the final starting spot on the A-Main grid.

Locking his Serpent into second gear, Jacobs said the key to his pace was running on the outside line and not the usual racing line as it was covered in oil from the engines.  He said his tyres also helped, using a set of old Aqua tyres he was given by the late Jeff Catchpole, a well known figure on the 1:10 nitro circuit, with Jacobs saying his win was ‘something for him’. Looking to the A-Main, while he has the advantage of running 40-minutes in the damp conditions, he said the biggest problem would be tyres as the set he has been using is not going to go 45-minutes so he needs to arrange another set.

‘The best tyres won’ was Gruber’s reaction after the race.  The WRC driver said, ‘We had just 4-minutes (race warm-up time) to decide between 5 or 6 sets of wet tyre and pick which one we thought would be the best choice for the race’. While he struggled at the start, he said in the end he made ‘the right choice’. For the A-Main, he said while he knows now what works, he has to make sure he can get them prepared in time for the race.

View the complete event results here.

View our event image gallery here.