31.12.2012 9 comments
With winning all rounds in the 2012 VRC Worlds 1:10 nitro 200mm class at the Sao Paulo track in Brazil, 2011 champion and 2012 World Series winner Frank Hättich from Germany has finished 2012 in the same dominating style as 2011. In the 60 minute long VRC Worlds main final Frank was a class act, setting himself almost 4 laps apart from runner up Paul Patto from Australia, and 6 laps on third place podium finisher Graham Raistrick from the UK. The top-3 all opted for 2 tire stop strategies, but Frank simply outran his pursuers with 0.2 to 0.3 seconds per lap. Just imagine, a fastest lap of 16.110, a worst lap of 16.830 and a race average without the pit stops of 16.406 on a total of 214 laps! Paul Patto averaged 16.720, good old Graham Raistrick on a very impressive 16.911 considering his respectable age (50) among all these r/c racing hotshots, proving that virtual racing is not just for kids!
Frank has completely specialized on 1:1... read more
28.12.2012 12 comments
David Joor from Houston Texas has written VRC history by winning the very first VRC Worlds in short course truck racing. But only just, after 10 minutes of racing he had just 0.09 seconds on Martin Sørlie from Norway and 0.52 seconds on David Barcena from Spain.
Joor found himself in trouble after hitting a marshal chair at the far left corner, costing him some 2.5 seconds. From then on it was a catch-up race for Joor and it took him till 25 to pass Barcena who made costly error on the table top, and in lap 30 finally got passed Martin Sorlie but with Marcena right on his tail. A fantastic win for David Joor, a Team Tekin team driver who generously passed on his first place prize sponsored by Tekin to runner up Martin Sørlie.
Joor vs. Sørlie laptimes analysis
Joor vs. Barcena laptimes analysis
Watch the Main ... read more
20.12.2012 17 comments
Race replays
This software update introduces the first stage of a new exciting race replay system.
All your event runs will be recorded and the replay file will automatically be uploaded to the VRC server! Your best run per round will be saved and will be made available in a new section in the Events dialog: Replays.
In this section you can select up to 9 runs and show them altogether in one race, so as if they are racing together. You can watch this ‘merged’ replay or race with them.
We have decided to release this new feature before Christmas in a relative early stage of its development. For example at this moment all cars start from the same position in both qualify and race mode. We will introduce a more sophisticated start system early 2013 which will make the start of the races even more realistic.
Multi-player upstream bandwidth restriction
The member who hosts a multi-player session can set the available bandwidth and this will then restrict the number of racers who can join his ... read more
18.12.2012 10 comments
Are you ready for a new exciting racing season in 2013? We are going to give you 4 seasons in 2013 in stead of just one! For each of the classes we have set up a 12-week racing series of which the best 8 results will count for the Series championship. And the 6th and the 12th round get extra points to keep the pressure on the front runners till the very end! Season 1, 2 and 3 will have 12 races, season 4 will have just 8 races with 5 to count as December is allocated for the traditional VRC World Championships in each of the classes.
The 4 on-road racing series (1:10 and 1:12 electric and 1:8 and 1:10 nitro) travel to 4 continents to visit some of the most exciting tracks in R/C. For the Season 1 Short Course Series just the first 6 events have the venue assigned, the venues for the remaining 6 rounds will be announced later. Expect some new thrilling off-road tracks to be part for the second part of Season 1 as they come available during the first quarter of 2013.
Plenty of racing for everybody in 2013... read more
17.12.2012 9 comments
18 Year old Miika Laurila from Oulu in Finland has swept the 2012 VRC Worlds 1:12 at the Bangkok track beating 1:12 experts Helge Johannessen from Norway and Jörg Knippendberg from Germany. With an incredible pace of 11.409 average (!) he never gave the 2012 Series Winner Helge a chance to come even close. Miika vs. Helge
The race for second place between Helge and Jörg was immensely close, just 0.242 seconds between them at the finish line. In lap 32 Jorg had fought back to take the lead but Helge managed to squeeze out just 0.242 seconds in the remaining 9 laps. For 95% of the race there was less than 1 second between them! Helge vs. Jörg
Zak Smith from the UK and Thomas Hofstedt (Norway) finished just outside the podium one lap down on Jörg, but just 2.5 seconds between them. Zak vs. Thoma... read more
17.12.2012 5 comments
T-REX BACK WITH A VENGANCE….
After an absence of a few years Pongtorn ‘T-Rex’ Trayrananon, the 38 year old and former VRC World champion Thai has clinched the 2012 VRC Worlds title in 1:8 nitro Sportscars. In the 1 hour main final at the fast and flowing Clermont Ferrand track in France, T-Rex reigned as in his old days. Even hot favorite and Race2theWorlds winner Kevin Pignotti could not resist the immensely high pace of the Thai. Check out the very interesting lap time comparison chart: T-Rex vs. Kevin
Take a look at the lap time consistency of T-Rex, average lap time 14.806 with a fastest lap of 14.572. Impressive! A true World Champion!
Interestingly T-Rex opted for 2 tire changes, one in lap 65, and a second one in lap 151, where Kevin changed tires only once in lap 119 exactly half way his race. T-Rex was able to maintain 14.7-14.8 pace throughout the race where Kevin was dropping to low 15 seconds towards ... read more
14.12.2012 18 comments
Today we have added a 3rd lay-out to the well know Mike's Hobby Shop track: the 2012 Short Course Showdown. This lay-out was used for round 7 of the nationwide 2012 Short Course Showdown Series organized by Scotty Ernst. With this track we have also released 2 new ambient sounds for indoor tracks which will make the racing experience even more realistic. All off-road and on-road indoor tracks are using these new ambient sound files.
You control the volume of the ambient sound files which are played while you are at your pit table and when you race in Sound options. We suggest you set the ambient sound level to 25-30. We will change this as a new default value for this setting. You can also opt to have ambient sound only when you are actually racing.
Check out Mikes Hobby Shop 3!
Check out Scotty Ernst Short Course Showdown Round 7 SC 4x4 AMain Mikes Hobby Shop Carrollton TX
07.12.2012 11 comments
In 2013 the VRC Pro Series competitions format will be changed to 4 seasons. Each season will have 12 races in each of the main classes, of which 8 results will count for the Series championship. All events will start with Free practice on Wednesday, Qualifying starting on Friday till Monday, semi final on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the Main final on Thursday and Friday.
This year there will be a 3 day overlap so racers who have not made it into the Main final of the event can start free practice on the next event already while the finalists battle it out for victory in the previous event. This new format keeps the weekend free, as usual, as there will always be a Friday or Monday to get your qualifying in.
The 13th week of the season will feature a big fun event in each of the classes. The 4th season will be only 8 races to keep December free for the 2013 VRC Worlds events.
With such a busy racing schedule the Monthly’s will be skipped, also because there is now ongoing racing in each of the class... read more
03.12.2012 16 comments
Reigning 1:10 nitro champion Frank Hättich from Germany has left no doubt about who is the best racer in 1:10 nitro 200mm class. Winning 9 out of 10 races he competed in is truly exceptional. Frank is a VRC Pro fanatic but a few years ago he decided he would fully concentrate on just 1 class and that's paying off. The only race he finished second was at Messina where he had to concede to Kevin Pignotti, nothing to be ashamed of.
Good old Graham Raistrick from the UK drove a very consistent 2012 series finishing not lower than 7th in any of his events, a formidable performance considering his age and still being able to take on the youngsters in this class! Italian Brian Poliseno takes the 3rd podium place finishing in the top-10 every race.
A total of 527 different racers competed in this series. With the strong top-10 finishes of Graham, Zak Smith and Eric Browley the UK won the Nations Cup in this class.
03.12.2012 13 comments
Barnabás Tóth from Hungary has convincingly won the 2012 World Series 1:10 ISTC. The 14-year old won 3 events and finished second twice to be the undisputed 2012 winner. Nicola Marrone (Italy) and Zsolt Kálnay (Hungary) completed the podium.
Barnabás has only been racing r/c since the summer of 2010 and only races electric on- and off-road with Yokomo. In 2011 he won the 17.5T stock class in Hungary. Like Yokomo-LRP ace Ronald Volker he won the Hungarian Tamiya ETW series and finished 10th overall in the Tamiya Euro Cup last season. In the summer of 2012 he won both the 2-WD and 4-WD Hungarian summer off-road series with his B-Max2 and B-Max4. He uses VRC Pro a lot to develop his r/c racing talents and his results in the real and virtual world are certainly proof of that!
