The 2012 JBRL Nitro Series is in full swing and the second stop on the series took place last weekend at Revelation Raceway with over 200 entries.  Many of the world’s best were on hand including the current World Champion Cody King, Ryan Cavalieri, Adam Drake, Mike Truhe, Ryan Maifield, Travis Amezcua, Dylan Rodriguez, Richard Saxton and Steve Hartson. The layout started out smooth and high speed, but by the end of the weekend is was very technical and rough. It was Adam Drake who dominated the event by winning three classes.

In the 1/8th nitro buggy class the competition was intense.  TLR / Novarossi / Pro-Line’s Adam Drake took the TQ honors followed by Maifield, Cavalieri, Truhe and King rounding out the top five.  Drake had a clean start to the final, but made a small mistake on the second lap that caused him to go off the track and into a mud hole.  Drake regrouped in fourth and quickly moved past Cavalieri and King.  Drake then set his eyes on the leader Maifield.  Maifield and Drake started pulling away from the field and Drake made his way around Maifield and started slowly pulling away each lap.  With 5 minutes to go in the final Drake started taking it easy on a few sections of the track and this caused him to make a couple of mistake and for Maifield to close the gap, but Drake held on for the win followed by Maifield with Travis Amezcua finishing third after bumping from the B main.

Expert Nitro Buggy
1. Adam Drake (TQ) – TLR 8ight 2.0/Novarossi/Nitrotane/Pro-Line Holeshot 1.0 (M4)
2. Ryan Maifield – AE/LRP/Sidewinder/JC
3. Travis Amezcua – Xray/Novarossi/Sidewinder/AKA
4. Cody King – Kyosho/Orion/Byron’s/Pro-Line
5. Ryan Cavalieri – AE/Orion/Sidewinder/Pro-Line
6. Dylan Rodriguez – Kyosho/OS/Sidewinder/Pro-Line
7. Mike Truhe – TLR 8ight 2.0/Orion/Nitrotane/AKA
8. Richard Saxton – AE/Reedy/Sidewinder/Pro-Line
9. Steven Hartson – AE/Reedy/Sidewinder/JC
10.Chad Nevin – AE/Reedy/Sidewinder/Pro-Line

In the 1/8th nitro truck class Dylan Rodriguez TQ’ed. In the final, Maifield, Rodriguez and Drake pulled away from the pack and had a great battle.  In the end Drake’s Novarossi powered TLR 8ight T 2.0 with Pro-Line M3 Holeshots held on for the victory over Ryan Maifield and Dylan Rodriguez.

Expert Nitro Truggy
1. Adam Drake – TLR 8ight T 2.0/Novarossi/Nitrotane/Pro-Line Holeshot (M3)
2. Ryan Maifield – AE/LRP/Sidewinder/JC
3. Dylan Rodriguez (TQ) – Kyosho/OS/Sidewinder/Pro-Line

In the 1/8th electric class Drake had problems in both rounds of qualifying stripping two plastic spur gears and ended up in the B Main. Drake won the B Main by a large margin and started 13th on the grid in the A Main. In the 10 minute A Main Drake worked his way through the pack, but the leader Hartson was gone until he made a few mistakes which allowed Drake to close, then take the lead and pull a way to more than a 10 second lead. Drake’s TLR 8ight E 2.0 powered by Tekin electronics and Pro-Line M4 Holeshot 2.0′s was on rails in the final.

E Buggy
1. Adam Drake – TLR 8ight 2.0/Tekin / Tekin/Losi/Pro-Line Holeshot 2.0 (M4)
2. Steven Hartson (TQ) – AE/JC
3. Ryan Hughes – Tekno

Source: TLR [tlracing.com]

The first round of the Factory Tracks Midwest series was held last weekend at AMS Raceway in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Over 180 entrants competed in every electric off-road class imaginable, from 2wd buggy to 1/8th E Truggy. The AMS facility provided an excellent venue for the event, which is the only indoor race on the FTMS calendar. The layout provided some high flying action for the fastest classes, but was still very manageable for all skill levels. Electric 1/8th buggy has become one of the more popular classes in the Factory Tracks Series, and the large number of entries in this year’s season opener is a good indicator of things to come. After overcoming some mechanical issues early in qualifying, TLR/Horizon driver Dakotah Phend put his TLR 8ight-E 2.0 on the pole position. Once the A-main began, there was no looking back for the TQ, but there would be plenty of action in the rest of the field. Mike Sontag would take the second spot and Chris Peterson would take the final podium position.

Source: RC Races [rcraces.com]

Qualifying was intense and with the amount of talent at this race mistakes had to be at a minimum, otherwise you would drop down the list fast. The Losi cars were clearly dialed and well balanced for this day and this track. After 3 rounds of Qualifying the mains were posted and everybody went back to their pits to make some final adjustments.

After all was said and done the TLR team proved to be up for the challenge of intense competition and a challenging track layout.

Here are the results for the Team.

- Dave Henry – TQ and 1^st place in E-buggy

9^th – A-Main Nitro Buggy

- Bryan Cote – 3^rd  - B-Main Nitro Buggy

5^th   - A-Main Nitro Truggy

- Tommy Giovinazzo – 1^st - B-Main Nirto Buggy

4^th  - A-Main Nitro Truggy

- Chris Capelo - 2^nd – C-Main Nitro Buggy

10^th – B-Main E-Buggy

- Ron Lupel – 3^rd – C-Main Nitro Buggy

9^th A-Main E-Buggy

The 2012 Silver State Nitro Challenge was once again held just 30 minutes outside of Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada in Boulder City. This years event was held April 19th-22nd with scortching temperatures in the upper 90′s even reaching to the 100′s throughout the week. Team Orion would be very well represented at this years Silver State with Jared Tebo just coming off his big Neo12 win, current ROAR Buggy National Champion Ryan Cavalieri, and Current Buggy World Champion Cody King.

Pro Truggy Qualifying
It was Team Orion/Kyosho Factory Driver Jared Tebo who would dominate qualifying by TQ’ing all 3 rounds to take the overall TQ. Team Orion/AE’s Ryan Cavalieri would qualify 4th overall, and Team Orion/Kyosho’s Cody King 9th overall.

Pro Truggy A-Main Event
The Pro Truggy A-Main Event was set for 45-Minutes. At the sound of the tone, Tebo got a great jump off the line with his Team Orion powered ST-RR Evo. After the first couple laps were complete, it was Tebo leading AE’s Ryan Maifield, Hot Bodies Ty Tessman, and his Team Orion teammate Cavalieri. The racing would be very close for the next 10-minutes, then Tebo and Cavalieri began to pull away from the field. At the halfway point of the Main, it was now Cavalieri with a 12-second lead over Tebo. Tebo who was fast all weekend long put his head down and began to put in very fast and consistant laps to catch Cavalieri. With 8-minutes to go, Tebo was able to work his way by Cavalieri and pull away. Tebo was the only driver to make it by for the extra lap making him the 2012 Silver State Truggy Champion! Cavalieri would hold on for 2nd overall putting in a great drive and would also give Team Orion the top 2 spots on the podium.

Pro Truggy Overall Finishing Order:
1. Jared Tebo (TQ) – Team Orion
2. Ryan Cavalieri – Team Orion
3. Taylor Peterson – Alpha
4. Cody King – Team Orion
5. Ryan Lutz – Alpha
6. Ty Tessman – OS
7. Dylan Rodriguez – OS
8. Jeremy Kortz – Werks
9. Mark Pavidis – OS
10.Adam Drake – Nova-Rossi
11.Jesse Robbers – OS
12.Ryan Maifield – LRP
13.Ryan Lopez – Nova-Rossi
14.Matt Castellano – OS

Pro Buggy Qualifying
In the 1/8 Pro Buggy Class, it was once again Team Orion/Kyosho’s Jared Tebo who went onto TQ all 3 rounds of qualifying to guarantee him the #1 starting position. Team Orion/Kyosho’s Cody King would qualify 4th overall and Team Orion/AE’s Ryan Cavalieri 6th overall.

Pro Buggy A-Main Event
The 1/8 Pro Bruggy A-Main Event was also set for 45-Minutes. As the tone went off, it was Jared Tebo getting the holeshot and leading the field around for lap 1. As the first round of pit stops began, it was Tebo leading, Maifield in 2nd, and Cavalieri 3rd. Tebo would suffer a big setback just after the first round of pit stops and fall back to 10th. Maifield would take over the lead with Cavalieri in 2nd and now Tessman in 3rd. Reaching the halfway point of the A-Main, it was now Maifield taking over the race lead with Cavalieri 8-seconds back and Tessman still in 3rd. With about 10-minutes left Maifield was still leading, but now by less than 1-second over Cavalieri. Tebo has put in an impressive drive to get back up into the top 3. With 8-minutes to go, Cavalieri was able to get by Maifield and stretch out a 5-second lead that he would hold all the way to the checkered flag! Maifield would finish 2nd with Tebo finishing up a great weekend in 3rd and once again putting 2 Team Orion Engines on the Podium!

Pro Buggy Overall Finishing Order:
1. Ryan Cavalieri – Team Orion
2. Ryan Maifield – LRP
3. Jared Tebo (TQ) – Team Orion
4. Ty Tessman – OS
5. Cody King – Team Orion
6. Adam Drake – Nova-Rossi
7. Chad Bradley – Werks
8. Carson Wernimont – OS
9. Matt Castellano – OS
10.Ryan Lopez – Nova-Rossi
11.Mark Pavidis – OS
12.Jeremy Kortz – Werks
13.Dylan Rodriguez – OS
14.Richard Saxton – Reedy

Source: Team Orion [teamorion.com]

The organizers of the 2012 IFMAR 1/8th scale offroad World championship have gotten in touch with us, finally breaking their silence on the event to confirm the location and the running of a warmup race for the event. The event itself will be run on an all new track is located on Highway Richieri in Club Aeromodelista Jorge Newbery, 7 minutes from Ezeiza Interncional Aiport and 15 minutes from downtown Buenos Aires (Capital Federal). In front lies an international resort that is accessed from the track by footbridge. The track will get its first race at the AAPARTT Cup which will be held from the 26th to the 30th of September, 2 months before the December date for the actual Worlds. The event has also got its own official website which hasn’t got any information yet but can be found here.

Kyosho factory driver Jared Tebo has taken his 4th Neo title from 4 starts with a dominant showing at the Indoor event at Harper Adams in the UK. Starting from pole position he was kept honest by Canadian Hot Bodies star Ty Tessmann, who despite being faster on track, couldn’t make up the extra fuel stop he had over Tebo. Tebo would eventually take the victory by some 18 seconds over Tessmann with Associated driver Ryan Maifield in 3rd, just in front of team mate Ryan Cavalieri. Full coverage on Neo Buggy here.

Source: Neo Buggy [neobuggy.net]

It’s Neo time again, but will it be Tebo’s time again? After a comparatively low key start to 2012 by his standards he returns to a venue and an event he has triumphed at every time he’s attended – a daunting record that he will be trying his hardest not to relinquish. Pretenders, there are plenty, former winners, a few – Yannick Aigoin in 2010 & Adam Drake 06, 08. The entry list for this year’s event is packed to the rafters with strength, speed and depth, the talent descending on the sleepy town of Newport in Shropshire will more than rival any World Championship, over 4 days 240 drivers from 32 countries will be taking to a track on a layout no-one has previous practice on, an even playing field. New for this year is the shortened qualifying from six rounds to five and the changes to the higher finals – the 7 from each semi make the final with the last spot going to the winner of the ‘last chance saloon’ – a race for the semi finalists who didn’t make it… After that comes the grid shootout, after all grid position is rather important for Neo, with lots of cars on track, and few opportunities to pass, starting P1 instead of P15 can affect your race result to no end. The finalists get 1 go per shootout to set their fastest lap, the guys with the slowest 5 laps start 15th- 11th, the process repeated with the top 10 with bottom 5 starting 10th – 6th and then the top 5 determining pole to 5th. Expect a shake up, as drivers who can hit their own 110% limit but keep it on all four wheels now come into play versus the more consistent drivers, should be interesting!

From the major European countries there isn’t one with a weak team, UK naturally with the likes of Bloomfield, Boots, Cragg & Willetts. France hopping across the channel with Yannick & Jerome Aigon, Sartel & Savoya. Germany boast Euros hero Marcel Guske, Neumann, Keller & Kaeufler, Portugal; Matias, Duraes, Monteiro, Spain; Batlle, Vega, Baldo Bros & Candel. Sweden’s hopes rest with Ronnefalk, Svensson & new JQ racer Gus, the three-man Czech team of Ales & Martin Bayer & Jiri Mara & Austria’s Hupo & Bauer whilst our first South African entry we expect Steenmans to show off his skills. We shouldn’t forget Japan – Adachi & Hara-san – two finalists right there, now incidentally both working with Hot Bodies… hmm! Whilst headliner McBride had to pull out late on, Matt Griffin should fill the Aussie void after an impressive showing at the Nitro Challenge in February.

This past weekend kicked off round 1 of the JBRL Nitro Series in Beaumont, CA at Thunder Alley R/C Raceway. There was a huge turnout with a total of 235 entries that came from all over California, Arizona, Nevada and even a few from Illinois. TLR had many of their top level drivers including Adam Drake, Mike Truhe, Matt Castellano, Drew Moller, Matt Schreffler, Colby Poh, and Jacob Hass along with many other TLR drivers in attendance to contest for the 2012 JBRL Nitro Series championship.

Adam Drake took the TQ in Pro Buggy, Pro Truggy and Pro E-Buggy. In the Pro Buggy class Adam Drake won ahead of teammate Mike Truhe with Cody King in third. Adam Drake won Pro Truggy and Pro E-Buggy from start to finish. The E-Buggy final turned into a bit of a mud race as storms rolled in. Shortly after they made a decision to cancel the remaining three races and the final finishing order for Pro Buggy would be determined by the qualifying order.

Source: TLR [tlracing.com]

The 2012 Dialed Inc. Off Road Championships is an all-new event that was held last weekend Shreveport, Louisiana at T&T Speedway. The classes consisted of 2wd/4wd Short course, 1/8th electric buggy/truck, 1/8th nitro buggy/truck, and a special invitational class based off the Reedy Race format, six heats of 10 minute duration, truck on Saturday and buggy on Sunday.  They also used gates starts to add a little excitement to the invitational class.  The track was built by Joey from The Dirt and a crew of helpers from the local area.

In the invitation class racers battled six times with buggy and six times with truck.  The finishing order was based off the best 4 out of 6 finishes to determine the overall class winner.  Then your 4 best scores from each class were added together to determine the overall Invitational Champion.  Truck was raced on Saturday and TLR / Novarossi / Pro-line driver Adam Drake couldn’t have asked for a better day with winning all six of his 10 minute races and being crowned the Truck Champion.  On Sunday the buggy racing kicked off after a short practice session. Drake was able to win 4 out of his 6 buggy races and set the overall fastest time to win the overall buggy title. By winning both truck and buggy Drake was crowned the Dialed Inc. Invitational Champion.

Source: TLR [tlracing.com]

Last weekend saw the first of five rounds of the Swedish Cup in 1/10 electric buggy 2WD and 4WD class. The first race was hosted by Tomelilla MK at their indoor track, this time using the same layout as the last year’s EOS Pilot race. For this series, the AKA 1/10 Rebar tires together with the red AKA insert was used as a regulation tire for the first time in Sweden. On Saturday the race started with 2WD and practice and four rounds of qualifying. Local TLR driver Henrik Nilsson opened strong and won the two first qualification rounds and David Ronnefalk the other two. On equal qualifying points Henrik took the TQ on better time and started from pole position in the A-main.

In A1 David made a good run and managed to pass Henrik and take the win 2 seconds before Henrik. On third place ended David Hassel. A2 had a crazy start with almost all cars involved in a big crash in the second corner. Johan Balsberg was a driver that managed to avoid the crash and got a big lead. Henrik got some problem after the crash and retired after 2 laps. David was almost last but started the big chase through the field and drove the fastest laps that day, but it was not enough and Johan took the win before David and Mikael Johansson.

At the third A-main Henrik got a good start and had a clean drive all the final with David chasing and trying to pass, but on the second last lap David hit the pipes and flip over and Hassel could pass and take the second spot after Henrik and before Ronnefalk. Once again Ronnefalk and Henrik had the same points and Henrik had the better time and secured this first round in 2WD.

1. Henrik Nilsson – TLR/SpeedPassion/Prospec/ThunderPower
2. David Ronnefalk – Kyosho/Team Orion/Team Orion/Team Orion
3. David Hassel – TLR/LRP/ORCA/Team Orion

Day 2 it was the 4WD class and in the first qualification round It was a chase between Kennie Ekenstierna, David Ronnefalk, David Hassel and Mikael Johansson, and Kennie was the one who drove the cleanest round followed by Ronnefalk and Hassel. In the second round Hassel made a really clean and fast run and won the round 4-5 seconds before Ronnefalk and Niclas Månsson.

Ronnefalk who really wanted the 4WD win made some adjustments on the car and made an amazing drive in the 3rd round and beat Hassels Q2 with result with 6 seconds, only 0,4 from a 15 lap round and a medium time that was lower than the other drivers best time…just to show that he can. Kennie and Marcus Sandberg ended 2nd and 3rd in that round.

Then it was time for round 4 with possibility for three drivers to take TQ, but once again Ronnefalk got away and won this last round and secured TQ in front of Niclas Månsson and Hassel.

In A1 Ronnefalk got away in the start but made two small mistakes and let Hassel pass and win this first final with David second and Niclas Månsson as third. Ronnefalk was irritated by his driving in A1 and really refocused on the A2, and once again he made a clean and fast run and took the win 10 seconds before Niclas Månsson and Kennie Ekenstierna. In A3 it was time for a new clean run by Ronnefalk and he secured the win 8 seconds before Kennie and Hassel.

1. David Ronnefalk – Kyosho/Team Orion/Team Orion/Team Orion
2. David Hassel – Kyosho/LRP/ORCA/Team Orion
3. Niclas Månsson – Associated/Advanced/Advanced/Nosram

Thanks to Pierre Ronnefalk for the report.