We have had word from our Team Durango drivers in France that the DEX410 in the hands of Cyril Baldini has clinched the French national series with one round remaining!

The fourth round of the French national series took place in the south of France in Pau.

Cyril took the TQ spot on a challenging dry track that had medium to low traction on the Saturday and was slightly wet with low traction on the Sunday morning.

The grip levels increased for the finals, Cyril won the first and second of the three legs of mains and so won this round of the series. That makes it four round wins out of four, and with only one round to go Cyril takes the French 2010 national championships! Congratulations Cyril!

There were a total of 5 DEX410′s in the A final taking positions 1,2,3,5 and 8, so a great result all round for the DEX410.

The series has taken part on a variety of surfaces including indoor on carpet, dirt, grass and clay. Cyril has shown the DEX410 works superbly on all types of surface, this has allowed him to dominate the series this year.

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Nathan Waters wins inaugural oOple Invernational using Team Durango DEX410.

3 other DEX410 drivers in the A-main

Nathan with the spoils of an excellent weekends work (He didn’t TQ though!)

Full report to follow soon!

Hupo Honigl reports from Round 2 of the Austrian National Championships was held at the Traiskirchen track in Vienna, home to the upcoming 2010 1/10th European Championships.

Team Durango drivers attending were: Hupo Honigl, Martin Kreil, Rene Trauner and Phillip Stocker.

Qualifying:

4wd:

My car felt very good already in practice, as the  track rubbered in and started to ‘Blue Groove’ I altered the diffoils to maximise the grip on the changing track surface. Because of the increased traction and the grip available from my car, I decided to motor up dropping my lap times even further.

During qualifying I broke the track record and also single fastest lap ever seen at the track, showing the awesome pace of the DEX410. Jorn Neumann and Peter Pinisch qualified in 2nd and 3rd for the A main with Martin Kreil qualifying 4th.

2wd:

Qualifying was not so good in 2wd as 4wd, the car was really good and had a fast pace, but I was also having bad luck preventing me from qualifying higher up than 3rd. Jorn qualified TQ with Peter in 2nd.

Finals:

4wd:

My car was awesome in the finals and I took legs 1 and 2 to win the meeting overall. Martin Kreil got the bad luck bug in the finals and missed out on some good runs. Rene Trauner drove well in the finals taking a 2nd and a 3rd but unluckily missed out on an overall podium finish by 6/100ths of a second.

Philip Stocker also drove well in the finals (Only his 2nd 4wd race ever).

2wd:

After my bad luck in Qualifying, I was determined to drive 100% in the finals and prove the speed of the DEX210 prototype. The finals were excellent fun with some close racing and battles between Peter Jorn and myself. The DEX210 worked really well in the finals and I was able to again win the first 2 legs of the finals giving the DEX210 is first win and a double for Durango.

Overall the Austrian Team had an excellent weekend with some valuable set-up information learnt for the Euro’s. I think we can look forward to some excellent results for the Team Durango drivers at the event.

Check out the set-ups online here:

Our Chinese distributor sent us this report of a race that took place last weekend.

‘The first China selection race of the ‘Asian EP Buggy Party’ was held in the AJ RC Arena in ZhongShan, China on the 6th June, the indoor track was technical and slightly dusty. All racers enjoyed a great day of racing with great gifts coming from many generous manufacturers and Esteed Hobby Shanghai.

The race was held with three 5 minutes qualifies and three 8 minutes finals. In the 4wd class Team Durango China team manager John Ho was very close to getting TQ. The 4wd A finals provided a thrilling race with John taking the final victory with his Tresrey optioned DEX410. The first two positions in the B final were also won by DEX410.

The next race will be held on 25th of July in Shanghai United Raceway. The winner of this point series will earn a ticket to Thailand for the grand final which will be held in January next year.’

Congratulations to John and all at Team Durango China.

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Eastrax hosted the the 2nd round of the Mid East Regional championships in a very windy Lincolnshire on 30th May. The Eastrax venue is a 100% astro turf track with a challenging layout of jumps and well placed track undulations.

The track had been heavily swept and hoovered by the Holbeach/Eastrax massive to remove the pesky 48dp sand which seems to reside in the astro-turf. This led to the track being even more grippy than normal, making getting a clean run super difficult.

The team had a few set-up alterations to try after Hupo’s recent visit to the UK, Adam started off with the set-up he found best after testing with Hupo at RHR, this was running a soft front diff compared to the rear. Nathan and Paul Fox decided to stick to their trusty Eastrax set-ups and would try the soft set-up during the day.

Qualifying.

Nathan simply TQ’d all 4 rounds of qualifying dominating each round with a fine display of driving, he was challenged in each round but no-one was able to match his outright pace and consistentcy over 5 mins. Nathan tried the softer diff set-ups later in the day, but was unsure as to it’s advantages on the track.

Adam started slowly, getting used to the Eastrax venue and also the new set-up on the car. The softer front diff didn’t seem to suit this style of track 100%. Whilst it was good at getting into the corners, it felt a little vague accelerating out of the hairpins over the bumpy sections. As the day progressed Adam moved to a more ‘normal’ Astro turf set-up.

Paul simply had a nightmare, with no luck in round 1 or 2 as the ’48dp’ sand claimed one run and a DNF in round 2 left him looking for runs from both his last two runs.

After Qualifying the top ten was dominated by Team Durango DEX410′s with Nick Gurnell and Andy Wesson putting in impressive drives with their DEX410′s:

1 Nathan Waters  DEX410

2 Adam Mackman

3 Adam Skelding DEX410

4 Ian Mellish

5 Nick Gurnell DEX410

6 Paul Fox DEX410

7 Richard Drury

8 Daniel Austin

9 Andy Wesson DEX410

10 Paul Wragg

Final

The finals were delayed a while while a few rain showers passed, by the time the A main was ready to roll the track was bathed in sunshine. Nathan got away cleanly from pole followed by Adam Mackman, Adam Skelding dropped right to the back after a ‘bad start’. Paul, Nick and Andy made good progress on the other hand up towards the sharp end of the pack. Nathan was kept honest for a good portion of the race by Adam Mackman and only late on in the race was he able to breath easily. Adam S made his way from the back of the field upto 4th by the 3 minute marker. Paul Fox was running in 3rd at this point and ‘thought Adam was out of the race’ running quite some distance back, but 1minute 30 of ‘angry’ driving soon had Adam on Paul’s G/box with 3 laps to go. Paul held off Adam’s challenge a clean pass was going to be hard to pull off.

With no team orders (and no shortage of fuel) it was going to be a straight fight. Going into the final lap, Adam tried a line over the left hand box jump at the end of the straight which allowed him to jump to the apex of the next left hander, a risky move but it came off with Adam landing and blocking Paul’s car into the next corner. Paul fought back for the rest of the lap but the pass stuck with Adam finishing 3rd ahead of Paul.  Andy Wesson and Nick Gurnell rounded out the top 6, with Nick being dissapointed at letting his good start seemingly go to waste.

Another good day at the races for the DEX410 with 50% of the A using the Team Durango chassis.

Andy, Adam, Nathan, Nick and Paul with their DEX410′s

Nathan currently leads the series with two perfect scores.

Well done to all from TD.

Set-ups can be found here

Team Durango driver Ole Steen Karlsen sent us this report from round 2 of the Norwegian Cup held 29th-30th May.

‘This weekend the second round of the Norwegian Cup was held in Oslo. This is my home track and I got some good practice the week before the race.

After a successful day on Saturday where I won the 2wd class I got some training on Saturday night with the DEX410 and it was fast, and I felt ready for the 4wd race on Sunday.

In 2010 we have started to run 8min heats here in Norway. In the qualifying I had some problems with run time and over heating the motor in the long 8 min heat. I was placed 8th on the grid in the A-final after just finishing 7.30 min in the qualifying heats.

In A1 I thought the problem was solved and I drove up to 2nd place after 7 clean minutes from 8th on the grid, but when I was on the last lap the motor stopped, and I ended up 6th.

In A2 I changed the motor and was ready to run 8 full min. I got up to 3rd place and crossed the line after 8min in 3rd.

In A3 I also got up to 3rd after some good fighting through the field, as in A1 and A2.

I finished 3rd overall. I am very happy making the 3rd place after a difficult qualifying, and I am very happy with the performance of my DEX410 and my driving through the field in the finals.

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Jaco van Eeden sent us this report from the second round of the South African national series.

‘This past weekend saw South Africa’s finest off-road racers come together for the second of four national events. This round was hosted by Superbowl club in Germiston, South Africa, which saw a total of 97 entries including 17 entries in 4wd modified class. Of these 17 competitors six were driving the Team Durango DEX410.

The Superbowl track is made up of loose gravel which was compacted and was watered down after each race, this made it very difficult to determine the correct set-up, due to constantly changing track conditions.

Friday’s practice session consisted of constant set-up and tyre changes as the track kept changing. Even at the end of Friday’s practice, the Team Durango drivers were still not satisfied with the car’s set-up and tyre choice due to the inconsistent track conditions.

Saturday’s qualifying saw Team Durango driver Charles Hollander qualify in second position on the grid and myself, having a few electronic problems, qualify 5^th and Werner Golomobick qualify in 7^th position.

Sunday’s final made for spectacular viewing as the pace was very fast.

In the first leg of the A final I obtained a second position. Unfortunately Charles Hollander was not able to start the first final due to motor problems.

The second leg of the A finals saw some bad luck for the Team Durango drives who finished down the order, leaving some work to do for the final leg of the finals.

In the third leg of the A final we finally found the correct tyre and were happy with the set-up of the car.  Myself and Charles Hollander had a great run and finished first and second in the last leg of the A-final.

Overall positions were: Jaco van Eeden second, Charles Hollander fifth and Werner Golomobick sixth .

In the B-mains there were also 3 Team Durango DEX410 cars running with Mark van der Berg, Andre Coetzee and Rikus Janse van Vuuren.

The reliability of the DEX410 was perfect as there were no breakages!!! Overall a great weekend for Team Durango.’

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