Team Durango driver Graham ‘G’ North sent in this report from the NW Regional Series.

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Sunday the 23^rd of May was the 3^rd round of the BRCA North West Regional Championships held at the South Lakes Model Car Club venue in Kendal.

The weather was fantastic for the entire day and with the track laid out on a 100% piece of undulating grass we were all aware that the actual ‘grass’ wouldn’t last long and we would soon be racing on very hard dry dirt!

Mucho grip in the fresh grass track in practice had a few drivers dialing steering out of their set-ups to calm their cars a little, but with a view to watching how the track wore to perhaps dial it back in as the day went on!

Qualifying.

Damian Whittle had a super consistent time in qualifying taking four 2nds in round! Colin May just being a little too fast for him. Graham North got his act together as the day went on – having not raced on full grass for a long time – to post round scores of 7,6,3 & 3.

Honorable mention goes to DEX 410 driver Paul Crawford who after a terrible start to the day in round one with electrical issues knuckled down to qualify 10^th and make his first ever Regional A final.

Possibly the two most unlucky DEX410 drivers were the fellow friends and pit buddies of Paul, Phil Campbell and Shane Foot who qualified 11^th and 12^th respectively just missing out on the A final and showing the DEX410 had great pace on the changing track.

A Final.

4 DEX410’s would grid up for the A final – the most popular chassis in the grid. The start was fairly regulation order until close to the end of the lap when Graham North was hit from behind while being careful not to hit team mate Damo coming into the sweeping corner entering the straight. 9th place after being marshaled being his reward! While he knuckled down to climb up the order Damo had a great battle with Colin eventually getting in front of him and staying there until around half distance when a small mistake allowed Colin through. While Colin slowly inched away, Graham had got back to 3^rd position after his fastest laps of the day and was catching Damo. The fight was on for top DEX honors and as the race finished the two were split by just over a second, with Damian 2^nd, Graham 3^rd.

Graham and Damian with their DEX410′s

Graham and Damian’s setups can be found here for the grass track venue:

The weekend of the 1st and 2nd of May saw round three of the German South 1/8th scale buggy championships. This event was held at the track in Sand, the track that will be used for the German nationals this year and for the Euros in 2011.

This championship counts as qualification for entry to the German national championships, so it is attended by some top German racers. 114 racers in total attended this event.

Hupo sent us this report:

‘I did not change the car from the last race in Bischofsheim, and it felt pretty awesome from the beginning. I did not change the set up of the car the whole race, I just played around with tyres.

I set tq in qualifying and then won my semi-final.

For the final it looked like it might rain so I decided to use M3 compound tyres, which are little slower then M2, but safer in the wet.

At the beginning of the final I made some mistakes, and had to push hard for ten minutes to regain the lead.

In the end I won the final by 2 laps.’

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The BRCA National event calendar moved onto the Robin Hood Raceway (RHR) venue for the 2nd round of the BRCA National Championships.

The weather was forecast to be much more settled than the 2wd event the day before. The entry was full at 120 drivers (with reserves waiting in the wings) proving that the 1/10th off road scene is strong in the UK.

The team had had a good test day at the venue in April, (the weather on that day was much more akin to summer than April though!) Set-ups had been posted on the website giving any Durango owner the chance to get the set-ups the team had worked on to their car.

After practice everyone seemed happy with their car, only making minor tweaks to their set-up as the track temperature was colder than the test day so the grip level wasn’t as high.

Round 1.

In heat 7 Graham North (‘G’) layed down a super consistent run to post TQ at that time, a time which wasn’t beaten till Heat 10 when fellow DEX410 driver Nathan Waters cruised round the track to the first 12 Lapper of the day.

In between these heats Richard Coates (18th) and Adam Skelding (24th) had reasonable runs, but seemed be having trouble with the same jump. Chris Bowater also put in a fast time which would see him finish 11th in round. James Helliwell showed some awesome single lap speed in his run, but after starting at the back of his heat he knew he could improve on the 7th he finished with. Talywain ‘A’ finalist Craig Collinson continued his good run of form after making the 2wd ‘A’ on the day before to post the 10th fastest time in round.

With 3 DEX410′s in the top ten in round 1, confidence was high.

Round 2.

Paul Fox (18th) & Damian Whittle (32nd) got the ball rolling for the Team in round 2 with excellent runs in their heats. Graham North backed up his round 1 score with a 25th in round (a score he would later drop), Adam Skelding changed set-up from round 1 to cope with the increased grip from practice and posted the 14th quickest time in round 2.

Nathan Waters made a couple of early errors in his run but recovered to take the 10th fastest time with some very quick and consisent laps towars the end of the run. Richard Ralph got his meeting going with a 17th in round. James Helliwell made use of starting nearer the front of his heat to shave some time of his run taking him to 5th. The real suprise of the round was Craig Collinson, who in the last heat scorched round to take the 2nd fastest time in the round, his highest ever round score in a National event.

After 2 rounds it was looking good for Nathan, Craig and James to make the ‘A’ but they all still needed another ‘good’ score to make sure of their ‘A’ final place and push themselves towarsds the sharp end of the grid.

Round 3.

The track temperature started to drop and so did the lap times. The track becoming a little easier to attack with the lower grip levels.

Graham North again posted a fast time in heat 7 to set the standard, eventually finishing 18th in round. Adam Skelding and Richard Coates took up the challenge, but both just finished short of Graham’s time finishing 19th and 20th respectively.  Nathan got rid of the early crashes that plauged him in round 2 and posted the 6th fastest time to secure his first ‘A’ final with Durango. Richard Ralph drove super smooth in round 3 and took 16th in round. James Helliwell showed the pace he had been promising all day in round 3 taking on the TQ and beating it until the very last couple of laps when some small errors cost him time dropping him to 4th in round. Looking at his face you would have thought he’d finished dead last! Craig had a better run, ‘only’ (his words!) finishing 9th in round.

So with drivers unhappy at being in the top 10 in round, we knew we were onto something good and round 4 had more to come.

With the track at it’s coolest, lap times tumbled and the competition for places got much closer.

Damian set the early pace in heat 6 improving his time and score eventually finishing 29th. One place ahead of him would be James Dixon, who pushed Graham hard in round 4 and with super consistent scores of 30,30,31 & 28 ended up making the ‘D’ final. Graham was unable to beat his 18th after pushing hard finishing 19th in round.

Adam Skelding improved on his time, with a small error, he just missed out on the elusive 12 lapper to finish 12th in round. Craig and Nathan both failed to better their overall score but still posted top ten times for the round. Chris Bowater put in a good score in round 4 (17th) to bookend his 11th in round 1.

Richard Ralph finished off a very consisent day with 16th in round. James Helliwell crowned his qualifying with another ‘oh so close’ round on for a TQ time which would have been hard to beat he fell short of the perfect run with a couple of errors leaking in at the end of the run to finish behind eventual TQ man Paul Bradby and 2nd placed Lee Martin.

Overall Qualifying

1. Paul Bradby

2. Lee Martin

3. James Helliwell    Durango DEX410

4. Tom Cockerill

5. Tom Yardy

6. Nathan Waters     Durango DEX410

7. Grant Williams

8. Craig Collinson     Durango DEX410

9. Ben Jemison

10. Ellis Stafford

16. Adam Skelding   Durango DEX410

20. Chris Bowater   Durango DEX410

23. Graham North   Durango DEX410

24. Richard Ralph   Durango DEX410

27. Richard Coates  Durango DEX410

31. Paul Fox             Durango DEX410

38. Jim Dixon           Durango DEX410

40. Damian Whittle  Durango DEX410

With 3 cars in the top 10, 5 cars in the top 20, 8 in the top 30 and 11 in the top 40 the Durango DEX 410 was the most popular chassis amongst the cream of the UK national scene.

Adam Skelding once again took top F2 honours as at Talywain.

Finals

Leg 1.

Nathan got a howler of a start and soon found himself at the back of the pack playing catch-up. Craig made steady progress on the first few laps picking up a couple of places. James made a blinding start but a few corners later caught a track marking dropping him down to 4th. With the lead 2 making a get away it was soon a battle for 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th between Tom Cockerill, James and Craig and the fast closing Nathan Waters. At about 3 minutes these four were almost on top of each other, luckily keeping away from each other with some really close racing. Nathan managed to win the battle of the ‘rangos taking 4th with Craig 5th and James 6th.

Leg 2.

The start was almost a carbon copy of leg 1 for the 3 amigos, Nathan again taking a liking to making it hard work for himself. James hit the same corner and ran wide whilst Craig snuck up on everyone! Bradders and Lee Martin checked out in this leg leaving the rest to have a squabble as per race on. The Durango boys had their magnets on again and were soon seperated by no more than a couple of car lengths, staying this way for the rest of the race, a nightmare to watch but an excellent result seeing the cars freight training round.

Leg 3.

James finally got the start he needed and stuck with Paul and Lee for the opening couple of minutes. Nathan had a ‘better’ start in leg 3 with Craig again picking up valuable places in the opening laps. As the fight for the overall win between Paul and Lee raged, this gave Tom & James a look in for 2nd & 3rd.  Craig and Nathan were close behind ready to pick up any pieces. As Paul made a mistake in the closing minute, Tom was able to jump into the gap to take 2nd with James missing out on 3rd by less than a car length over the line.

So after an eventful 3 legs, the 3 amigos ended up as follows:

5th Craig Collinson

6th James Helliwell

7th Nathan Waters

After a great meeting the whole team are on a high, regularly beating their best national performances and pushing each other on to better and better results. Also the time being put in by all members of the team to provide set-ups for each other and all Durango customers is showing in the dominance of the car at the top end of National and regional series.

Well done TEAM!

Set-ups from the event can be found here

Thankyou to Jimmeh @ oOple for the photos – his more detailed race report will soon be on oOple.com

Team Durango driver Cyril Baldini continues his domination of the French National Championship with a stunning TQ and victory at the 3rd round of the French national championships.

The event was held at the Montigny track which was the venue for the 2005 Euro’s. The track was a mixture of grass, dirt and astroturf. Cyril used the DEX410′s ability to cope with the changing grip levels on a lap by tuning his diffs to get the correct balance to take TQ.

In the finals, Cyril had some bad luck and errors in the 1st leg, but closed in fast on the leader in the final stages of the race to take 2nd by 0.2secs.

Legs 2 & 3 were much easier for Cyril as he took flag to flag victories to secure the win and keep his 100% record intact.

Well done Cyril!!

Further photos of the event can be found at: http://tt10el.blogspot.com/

Team Durango’s very own Gerd Strenge ‘daddy’ of the DEX410 took the win at the National’s qualifier at the weekend.

After qualifying 2nd, Gerd dominated the final taking the win in the hotly contested NE regional race.

Stock specialist and Multiple German champion Ebi Beck  TQ’d and won the stock class in style with his DEX410.

Well done guys!

Team Durango is delighted to announce that our primary Northern American partners, HRP (www.hrpdealer.com), have launched their toll-free customer service telephone number.

Team Durango are ‘Serious About Racing’.  We are equally ‘serious about customer service’, so the fact that RC racers in the USA and Canada can call HRP specialists, free of charge, is great news for us and our customers.

With the launch of the new DEX410R only a few weeks away, Team Durango is ready to support all of our customers as quickly and efficiently as possible.  With the support of Team Durango and HRP, you can be sure of the very best customer service possible.

Team Durango Customer Service (toll-free) number: 800-277-6845

Our Japanese partner Tresrey sent us this report from the ‘TRESREY 2010 Off-road race round two,’ held on May 2nd at the TRS circuit, Matsusaka-city, Japan.

“54 racers joined the race making it the best attended race (again) that the TRS circuit ever had for an off-road event. 49 cars raced in the 2WD class and 44 cars raced in the 4WD class, including 13 DEX410s.

Takashi Nobuhara got TQ for both 2WD and 4WD classes. In the 2WD class, Takashi Nobuhara won the race from start-to-finish. Hideki Nakajima was 2^nd with Noriyuki Kawashima 3^rd. Team Durango/Speed Passion team driver Minoru Utsugi was 8^th in qualifying and finished 4^th in the final.

Of the 13 DEX410s in the 4WD class, five of them made the A-main.  Team Durango/Speed Passion team driver Kazuki Sasatsu, started from 3^rd position, and eventually won the race ahead of Kyoji Minagawa, with Team Durango ‘local support driver’ Akihiro Yasuda in 3^rd with his DEX410. Minoru Utsugi finished 5^th, Akira Ema finished 7^th and Satoshi Kawano finished 10^th, all driving DEX410s.

After the award ceremony, Tresrey held a ‘Big Draw’ with prizes that included two DEX410R kit exchange tickets, Axial kits and Speed Passion ESCs and motors.”

Thanks to Tresrey!

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