LRP Column - November 2016

In early October, the LRP Nitro Offroad team travelled to Las Vegas for the IFMAR 1/8 Offroad World Championship - an event that everyone was looking forward to for the past two years. Surely, there are less attractive locations on the planet, so the expectations were quite high.
The hosts held up to the high expectations and had prepared a large flowing track layout. Their goal was to let the track start out pretty smooth and not maintain it during the whole event. The track became rough pretty soon, but it was great and made for some awesome racing as drivers could choose different lines in order to avoid bumps and holes. In the end, it turned out to be a pure driver’s track. We think this was the right decision and the event turned out to be great.

The practice already went smooth for us with Neil Cragg, Davide Ongaro and Steven Hartson in the top places. We had a good starting point with our engine setup and did not change it until the end. Especially Davide, LRP‘s youngest RC ace, aged 15, was looking forward to the Worlds to show his true potential. As usual, his parents were also in attendance for the whole time with his father Mauro as mechanic (together with Italian legend Very) and his mother giving him support over the whole week.

We got two drivers into the semi-finals with Davide making it into the main final, but Neil unfortunately missed the main final by 2 places. Davide had a great event with his LRP ZZ.21C Ceramic Long Stroke and the LRP Screamer-93 exhaust system powered Mugen car and started fourth for the 60 minute finale after finishing second in his semi-final. Only David Ronnefalk/HPI, Ryan Cavalieri/AE and TQ and reigning World Champion Ty Tessmann/HB did start ahead of him.

Davide had some bubbles in the beginning putting him nearly dead last at the start. But he came alive during the final big time by moving up to second place with some great overtaking on track. Unfortunately with less than 10 minutes to go, the pressure pipe on the tank cam off and he had to pit. Luckily the pit crew found the problem quickly and released Davide back on the track in 9th position, where he was able to move up to 6th position during the final minutes. Directly after the final we were a bit disappointed, but already 15 minutes later we realized, that this is an amazing result for a 15 year old newcomer and surely an indicator of much greater things to come. Davide himself stated after the race, that he was happy, but of course “second would have been better”.

I am pretty sure that Davide has many more shots at the title over his career and we are proud to be part of this for 2 years now. If he keeps on developing like that, only the sky is the limit for him.

The LRP-HPI-Challenge is still Germany’s biggest RC electric Onroad race series. More than 1050 different starters raced at a total of 104 events in the five regional series in Germany and Austria, with almost 3500 starts. These impressive figures are only possible with dedicated people. Not only at LRP, but also in the LRP-HPI-Challenge network and in many RC clubs. This kind of racing series perfectly underlines what our great hobby is about: coming together, having a good time and racing fair competitions.

The RCCT Münden club hosted the national final of the already 17th season of the LRP-HPI-Challenge and their team organised a great event. 145 drivers travelled to Hannoversch Münden, near Kassel to crown the national champions in the Rookie-Challenge, Classic-Challenge, 17.5T-GT-Challenge and Stock-Challenge.

Like at many RC events, Friday was practice day. Unfortunately, the drivers were greatly struggling with changing weather conditions, like so many times before this season. Especially during the qualifying, the drying track as well as the commencing drizzle made the setup choice really tough. The choice in the touring car classes were almost completely rain tyres. A successful tyre poker elevated one or the other driver a lot closer towards the TQ as expected and on the other hand other drivers found themselves much further behind than desired.

On Saturday evening, the traditional price giving ceremony for the winners of the regional series and the drivers of the Junior-Challenge (under 16 years) took place as usual. Amongst the winners, exciting prices from the LRP product range were raffled away.

Sunday saw an additional round of qualifying and of course the finals. Many drivers took up the opportunity of the last qualifying round and went full risk, turning the rankings from Saturday upside down once more.  The weather was now also stable and after grey skies in the morning, the sun was also smiling down upon the activities on the premised of the RCCT Münden. The drivers performed really great racing. In all classes – or better Challenges – spectacular duels, thrilling manoeuvres and tight racing could be observed. I was again impressed by the high level of competition, but also by the dedication of the many people who share their passion for RC. I’m already looking forward to season #18 of this unique race series.