2013 News

This race is one of my favorite races because of the track and overall atmosphere. Rick and Richard St.Cyr are great hosts and they have built a world-class track, which is challenging and fun! The track is like European tracks with grass run offs but what makes it unique is the elevation on certain parts of the track. Two years ago I raced here and had a great time. Last year I missed this race because of the EP Worlds in Holland but I am glad I made it back this year and will definitely come back next year. Rick and his family also hosted the “Famous” Saturday night BBQ dinner on the lawn right next to their home and track. The food was great and I had a good time. Oh… the night before, Rick brought out 6 go-karts for all of us to drive, I had a blast!! I also had a chance to drive the 8 scale EP conversion of the old MRX4s which Rick and Mark converted, pretty cool! Now to my race report: This track felt different compared to two years ago, I would say the grip was a … [Read more...] about 2013 Timezone Nitro Cup – Battle Ground, Washington (July 20-22)

After this event, I can say its one of my favorite races that I’ve attended. It was great to meet so many people and making new friends this past week in Melbourne. People were super nice and the race venue was top class. I was surprise to see so many drivers attend this race and there were also lots of spectators on the final day. I think Scotty puts on fantastic events and local organizers really worked hard. AOC Melbourne round is definitely one race that I will come back again for. Now to my race report – I entered AOC round 2 in two classes, the FWD (FF) class and the Modified Touring class. The start to my race week was horrible, my 3Racing prototype FF chassis caught on fire during charge and totally burned to the ground, so without putting any laps down during the practice day, I had to withdraw from the FF class. So my focus was on Modified Touring. I don’t normally race on carpet so I am very unfamiliar with car setup and overall driving style needed for the CRC … [Read more...] about AOC Round 2 – Melbourne, Australia (July 4-7, 2013)

We arrived in Joliet on a Wednesday and hoped we could get some run time on Thursday to get ready, but the track was quite dusty so there was no point to really run much. Friday afternoon, most of the guys arrived and the track had good traction to practice on. For Sedan, I was really hoping to defend my title and after the practice on Friday, Ai and I felt we did not have a competitive car as our setup was not the best on this track this year. So we made some adjustments and hoped on Saturday morning, we could practice and fine tune. For 8th scale, my car felt worse and again, Ai and I decided on the setup after Friday’s practice. On Saturday, before qualifying started, I had some time during control practice to test the setup and my cars (Both sedan and 1/8) started to feel drivable. I was relieved but a the same time felt my key competitors were in better shape, so it was fine tuning time and we needed to quickly find solutions to make the car better. Qualifying was … [Read more...] about BYRON NITRO CHALLENGE – JOLIET, IL (June 22 – 24)

Japan’s F1RCGP comes to Shanghai again for their round 6 race. Weather in Shanghai has been on and off rain so we did not know if the race was going to be held outdoors at the Shanghai TRS-JT track or be moved indoors to RCI. Up until the day before the race, it was finally decided to be moved indoors. Japanese driver Hironbu-San, owner of Hiro-Factory racing was the driver to beat, as he is very well known in Japan for his F1racing. Hideo Kitazawa also came over, as he is the organizer of F1RCGP. I entered three classes for this race, the F1RCGP s Scale class (21.5T Blinky), Asia Class (21.5T Boost), and GP Class (17.5 Boost). In the Scale class, F1RCGP used our SGP1 rules for race format, which were two 20 minute qualifying (Best Lap) and then 30-minute A Main final. My qualifying strategy was to go up on the control stand, make the fastest lap, then come down and see if anyone beats it, if so, back on again to try to top it. At the end, without using up too much … [Read more...] about JAPAN’S F1RCGP ROUND 6 – Shanghai (June 15/16)

We decided to stay an extra day to do more tests on various things. I would like to thank Cristian of Matrix tires, Okumura and Kobayashi-San from KO Propo and Jarb from Maxima Fuel for helping me with all my testing. A lot of hard work was put in to find what works best on the Kei Tune track, and I think we came away with an understanding of what is needed to go faster here. I look forward to the October Worlds!     … [Read more...] about Post Pre-World Testing

My goal this time was to make the semi-finals as I know on this track, it will be difficult to beat the Japanese. The first two days of free practice, I simply did not have the pace needed and was looking for solutions. The Worlds this year says no tire additives allowed but yet here at the Pre-Worlds, everyone (Japanese) were using tire additive. After asking why, the reason was this race was also the Japanese Nationals, which allows tire sauce. With tire additive, you go 0.5 seconds faster. After control practice, I managed to squeeze into group 5 out of 7 groups of qualifying. I still did not have the pace but the car MRX5 WC was feeling good. After 4 rounds of qualifying, I was sitting at 25th, but I was improving round after round so the final “Rocket” round, I was hoping to move up which I did, finishing 20th overall after 5 rounds of qualifying. That put me in in pole position of the B group in the quarter-finals. I had a good start and was leading the race but Yamada had the … [Read more...] about Pre-Worlds Japan (May 22-26, 2013)

The first round of AOC was held at my home track here in Shanghai with a new layout, extremely technical and non-forgiving. The indoor asphalt traction at RCI is always high provided there is no moisture in the air. Unfortunately due to the media coverage of the H7N9 bird flu in Shanghai, many drivers decided not to attend in the last minute, but we still got quite a few from Hong Kong. Ronald Voelker was the only big name driver who came and I was looking forward to it. After the first few rounds of practice, my pace was not as good as I thought it would be and could not figure out why my car was not working as it should. After much searching, I found the reason why. Normally at RCI, the only tire additive used is LRP and since everyone uses it, the track surface is always the same. But this time, many drivers from abroad were using all kinds of different tire additive and the track was really not its normal self, making the setup extremely difficult to find. Once in the finals, … [Read more...] about Asian On Road Championships AOC – Round 1 (May 3-5, 2013)

During my spring holiday, we decided to take the opportunity to do some testing in Japan at the Keitune Racing Speedway, this year’s Worlds track. But before we left Shanghai, we knew the weather may get rain, so I also packed my electric sedan in case, giving us the option to visit Yatabe Arena for the first time. It rained everyday except Friday, where it was sunny skies and comfortable. The Keitune track was bigger than I had thought, the straights although not as long as homestead Miami, it was long and had a big sweeper at the end. The track surface itself was a little bumpy at couple corners, but overall, Friday’s traction was low. Shimo was there doing testing with another Kyosho driver and we met a Yuni-San, who was practicing his 1/5 scale gas car. The track layout does not seem difficult but it’s actually quite tricky. Mugen Japan sent me new upgrades for the MRX5 to test, so the night before, AI put everything on. The new chassis felt and looked like the same … [Read more...] about Testing in Japan (April 2-6, 2013)

The newly opened SMP off-road track held its opening race on a Sunday that projected rainfall through out the day. When we arrived the track, it was wet from the rain the night before so I wasn’t sure if I brought the right tires or not. The track itself is an outdoor synthetic grass carpet type track, which should have high grip. It was a pretty big track but since I have never ran on this track, I really did not know what to expect. But I was anxious to race because I usually don’t get to race off-road at all. I decided to run 3 classes, 2WD, 4WD 1/10 buggy and 4WD short course truck. I did not have time or chassis to run the 1/8 buggy class, if I did, maybe I would have, I know… I’m crazy. I had a good qualifying with my Team C TM2 2WD buggy as it was a new car and it performed well. Thanks to Jim Skinner giving me a motor just for off-road, my Thunder Powered with SP Reventon speedo TM2 took TQ. In the 4WD buggy class, I had some issues and was not able to do better than 5th in … [Read more...] about SMP Off-Road Opening Race (3.17.2013)