2010年8月28日・29日の2日間、電動オフロードバギーの聖地とも言える茨城県つくば市の谷田部アリーナにおいて開催された1/10 電動オフロードカー全日本選手権オープンクラスにてTeam Durango DEX410 は笹津和希選手と安宍祐一選手のドライブにより、それぞれ5位と9位を獲得し見事ダブル入賞を果たしました。

昨シーズンからデュランゴのチームドライバーとして活躍している笹津選手、宇都木稔選手に加え、前年度2WDクラスのファイナリスト安宍祐一選手がチームに加わり、計3名のチームドライバー、2名のトレスレイスタッフ（メカニック・ドライバー）での闘いとなりました。これは参戦したファクトリーチームの中で最もコンパクトなチームとなります。

8月28日土曜日

最高気温35℃の猛暑の中で開催された予選計4ラウンドでは、激戦の中、序盤のラウンドで好成績を収めた笹津・安宍両選手がそれぞれ落ち着いたドライビングで好ポジションをキープし、予選総合結果は笹津選手6位・安宍選手9位・宇都木選手20位とし、決勝Aメインに2台、Bメインに1台のDEX410を送り込むことに成功しました。　翌日の決勝Aメインは京商チーム4台、ヨコモチーム2台、タミヤチーム2台、そして我々デュランゴチーム2台で争うこととなりました。

8月29日日曜日

迎えた決勝日、前日同様の猛暑の中、各チームとも最後の決戦に向け着々と闘いの準備を進めます。　我々デュランゴチームのドライバーもリラックスした会話の中にも程よい緊張感を保ち、それぞれの作業を進めます。計3ラウンドで行われた決勝でもTRSプロデュースの「GAINABULL（ガイナブル）」ボディーを搭載した2台のデュランゴ DEX410は鋭い立ち上がり、高いコーナーリング性能を発揮し、笹津選手5位・安宍選手9位でそれぞれフィニッシュ、全日本選手権での”ダブル入賞”を果たしました。Bメイン出走の宇津木選手もう総合17位でポジションを3つ上げてのフィニッシュとなりました。

今回参戦したチームドライバー3名の選手は市販のデュランゴ DEX410 2010 Specをドライブ。またパワーソースではワールドチャンピオンブランド”Speed Passion（スピードパッション）”のスピードコントローラー「GT2.0 PRO」とモーター「コンペティション Ver3 7.5R」を使用し、各製品のパフォーマンスの高さを十分にアピールしました。

㈱TRESREY

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The Japanese Nationals were held on the weekend of the 28th and 29th August. This hotly contested event is attended by race teams from all of the top Japanese manufacturers.

Tresrey, our Team Durango partners in Japan, sent us this report from the event.

‘Two DEX410s in A-final at 2010 Japan National Championship 4WD class !

2010 1/10th Japan National Championship Offroad buggy 4WD class was held at Yatabe-Arena in Tsukuba city, Japan on 28th and 29th August 2010.

The Team Durango team consisted of two drivers from last year, Kazuki Sasatsu and Minoru Utsugi, and our new team driver Yuichi Ajishi a former 1/8 Nitro Buggy National Champ.  Also two Tresrey staff joined the team as a mechanic and a driver. The Team Durango team was the smallest factory team in this race.

From the left, Jin Onodera(TRESREY), Yuichi Ajishi, Kazuki Sasatsu, and Minoru Utsugi

August 28th, 2010 Saturday
Four qualify rounds were held on this extremely hot day.  Both Kazuki and Yuichi finished in good positions in early rounds and they kept these good positions all day.  Kazuki finished 6th and Yuichi finished 9th overall and they both got tickets to the A-main!  Minoru finished 20th after the qualify rounds finished and made the B-main. So overall result after the qualify, there were two Team Durango DEX410 in the A-main!

Kazuki’s DEX410 in the pits

August 29th, 2010 Sunday
It was also an extremely hot day for finals. Both Team Durango DEX410 showed faster pick up and better performance through the corners during three rounds of final and Kazuki Sasatsu finished 5th with overall and Yuichi Ajishi finished 9th overall.

Yuichi Ajishi’s car

Minoru Utsugi also finished 7th in B-main (17th in overall).

All of our team drivers raced with Team Durango DEX410 2010 Spec kit.

TRESREY’

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We received news this weekend that the pre-production TeamDurango DNX408 won the 1:8 off-road German National Championships for 2010.

A full race report will follow soon.

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2010 Pro-Line Intl. – Semi A from NeoBuggy.net on Vimeo.

NeoBuggy.net have released a video of the semi-finals from last weekend’s Proline International event in Slough, UK.

For a full race report see here:

http://www.team-durango.com/blog/?p=1448

We received this race report from Kevin Brunsden:

“Day 1 - Practice day

This was the first time since taking delivery of the pre-production Team Durango DNX408 that I have had time to do some real testing. We started with a base set up of 40wt oil in the front shocks, black springs, 2.4 roll bar and 5000wt oil in the diff. In the centre diff  we were running 5000wt. In the rear diff we ran 2000wt oil, 50wt oil in the shocks with blue springs.

After the first run the car felt good and had a good balance but the traction was low so for the second run we decided to leave the car until the grip came up.

After run two it was showing we were lacking a bit of drive so we increased the centre diff oil to 7000wt. We also changed to a softer rear spring as we felt the car had no roll at the rear.

In run three the car was a lot better with more forward traction and side-bite. We set a faster time so things were looking really good.

For the fourth round I decided to change the front roll bar to try and increase the steering so I put on the 2.0mm roll bar and increased the caster to 14 degrees. The result after these changes was great! We were faster again with loads of steering and we were super-quick over the bumps.

For the final round of testing we decided to increase the shock oil to 55wt all-round because the car was getting a bit springy over the bumps. We also decided to move the front shocks to the out-board position on the wishbone and inner hole on the shock tower. We did this on the rear of the car too. The difference to the performance of the car was immediately noticeable. The car was quicker through the corners and over the bumps so again a faster time was recorded and we had the third fastest time so things were looking good for Sunday when qualfying started.

Day 2

For round one we used the same set-up as day one. Despite a slightly colder air temperature, we had a good run and drove safely to put in a ‘banker’. This resulted in a disappointing 11^th position.

For round two we used new tyres and a good drive gave us the Top Qualifier spot. The car was again easy to drive and very fast over the jumps.

Round three – no changes. A mistake in this round cost us so we only managed 14^th.

In round four it started to rain.  We had made a change to the front shock position and moved it back in-boad in the lower arm but decided to run the same tyres again. This was a bad decision as we finished 10^th in the round.

For the final round we moved the shocks back to the outer hole and put on some new M2 compound tyres and changed the insert to a closed cell blue. The result was more traction and a faster time again and a personal best time and third fastest overall, so we had qualified 8^th overall, tied on points with two other drivers

Day three

For finals day I had decided to make no changes to the car but did decide to change the tyre compound to the M3 from M2 to try and increase traction again. For the semi-final warm-up round the M3 seemed to be the right tyre. It was a fifteen minute practice and the car was very good and the tyres were showing no wear.

So now it was time for the semi-final. We lined up fourth on the grid and had a great start straight up to third. We stayed there until the first pit stop when we came out in second and we were catching the leader very quickly. It became apparent that the leader was on a ten minute fuel stop which would give him a bit of an advantage, but I just kept on pushing and after the last stop came out right behind the leader. With three laps to go I managed to take the lead and just drove away taking the win by over 10 seconds. The car was looking good for the final and we lined-up in forth place again.

Now for the main final. We decided to stay with M3 compound tyres but we were a little worried about wear during an hour long final.  We were going to push the tyres to the limits. Also, it looked like a lot of people were going to use the M2 compound but we decided to stick with the plan. It paid off and we had a great start, straight into third place. The times were fast and the car was running brilliantly! By the 10 minute mark we were up to second and started to cruise. A smooth run was going to be needed for a good result and after the hour was up we had finished second and with only two mistakes over the hour. I think it showed to every one how great the car was performing. Also, we still had tread left on the tyres which shows we did not have to work the car too hard to stay on the pace. All-in-all it was a great weekend of racing.  I am glad to have had the chance to show what the Team Durango DNX408 is capable of.  I am confident that the pre-production car will be very close to the final design which I believe is being tested in the next few weeks.  Watch this space!”

Thanks for a great race report Kevin.  Yes, we can confirm that the final version of the car will be tested this month. We should then be able to make an announcement about the availability of the car.

Team Durango

We received this report from Hupo about the first round of the 1:8 Nitro off-road German Nationals held on August 22nd.

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“The first of two races for the German Nationals was held in Sand, which is the venue for next year’s European Championships. The club made an awesome job with preparing the track and everything around it. The track was in very good shape, although there was heavy rain in the days and weeks before the event.

Tyre choice was critical, because in the morning the track was slightly wet from the humidity during the night. This meant you needed to run a softer tyre in the morning than in the evening, but the point where you had to switch from a soft to a hard tyre was not 100% clear…

Qualifying went very well and it was most of the time a battle between Reckward, Neumann and me. I won one qualifier and finished third overall at the end of qualifying.

The A main saw Jörn Naumann leading away quit easily. Reckward and I had a hard battle until his car stoped, and he had to retire. At the end of the race, Jörn neumann won ahead of me with Carsten Keller in 3rd.

My Team Durango DNX408 performed very well and I am now really understanding how the car behaves to certain set-up changes.  With a little more testing I think the car will be ready to go into production, which I know a lot of Team Durango fans are looking forward to!”

Last weekend saw the third round of the South African National series take place. Jaco van Eeden from Team Durango’s South African distributor Hobbyfreaks sent us this report of the event.

‘The third round of the Electric 1/10 South African National Championship was held at Swartkops Model Raceway this past weekend.

We had very good weather the sun was shining all weekend. The track was an old 1/8 scale track with hard packed surface. Being a 1/8 track meant it was a very long and very challenging track with some big jumps. A strong buggy with good handling was required.

The DEX410’s were on top, and dominated qualifying, lining up numbers 1 and 2 on the grid. TQ was held by myself Jaco van Eeden and 2nd place driver was Charles Hollander. There were another two DEX410’s in the A main with Mark van den Berg in 8th and Gary Styger in 9th.

The track was fast and challenging

The track was a challenge of both a cars strength and handling capability. The Team Durnago DEX410 proved it has both of these attributes and came out on top.

The final results were:

1. Jaco van Eeden (TQ)

5. Charles Hollander (Qualified 2nd)

7.Gary Steiger (Qualified 9th)

8.Mark van der Berg (Qualified 8th)

Four of the top ten cars were DEX410’s, showing that it was the fastest car on the track.’

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It doesn’t seem long ago that the BRCA National series kicked off at Talywain back in April and now we are at the final round in Stotfold.

The Stotfold track is one of the most demanding on the calendar due to its astro-turf composition and proximity to some large trees. The track never seems to quite dry out fully leaving a greasy section of astro whilst the rest of the track basks in sunshine and drys out quickly to some of the highest grip we encoutner throughout the year. This said, the track and facilities are in tip- top condition and is amongst the drivers favourite tracks to visit.

After the excitement of the finale of the 2wd championship the day before (Well done Tom Cockerill!) the 4wd had somewhat less to live up to. Lee Martin had already walked away with the championship, but the rest of the top ten were far from sorted and there was the all important F1 license grade to be fought for, some nails were certainly going to be bitten to the quick by the end of the day.

Qualifying:

Round 1

Elliot Boots (14th) driving his DEX410 got the ball rolling for Team Durango setting the time to beat in heat 7 with Wayne Collinson (31st) competing the ‘R’ version of the car also putting in a healthy time. The end of season form of David Orbell (16th) continued with another good showing in the following heat only just over a second off Elliot’s time.  2009 4wd Champion Neil Cragg returned to the championship for the first time to prepare for the 1/10th Euro’s in Austria. Neil’s pace was there to see from the outset, determined to put away the nightmare of the 2wd event from the day before although Rob ‘Hollywood’ Rasey will never go quiet about the 2wd final result! Adam Skelding (15th), just pipped David Orbell’s time and with Craig Collinson (11th), Team Durango were looking good. Nathan Waters finished the round off for Team Durango with an excellent 6th in round.

David Orbell has turned his season around and will be one to watch at the F2's

Round 2

The round was amost a carbon copy of round one with Nathan (7th), Craig (13th), Adam (15th), Chris Bowater got his meeting started with a 16th followed closely by David (17th) , James Helliwell (19th), Richard Ralph (21st). Graham North backed his 32nd in round one with a 29th looking to secure enough points to attain his F1 license for the first time.

Round 3

In almost another carbon copy of rounds 1 and 2 the  same drivers swapped postions with each other and the Durango boy’s ended up with the same scores for the 3 round. Nathan (6th), Craig (11th), David (16th), Richard (22nd). Wayne Collinson backed up his round 1 score with a 34th in round with his ‘R’ version, closely followed by Stuart Harlow’s ‘full fat’ version in 35th.

Round 4.

Nathan finished an excellent set of qualifying reuslts off with another top ten in round and was safe in the A- Main. With only Chris Bowater and James Helliwell able to improve their scores the nail biting began for those eager to see if they were dropping previous scores.

After qualifying the team were:

7th Nathan Waters

17th Craig Collinson

18th Adam Skelding

20th David Orbell

23rd Chris Bowater

28th James Helliwell

29th Richard Ralph

38th Graham North

Finals

Nathan’s A finals went well for once after what seems to be a torrid time of bad luck and being in the wrong place at the wrong time at other events this season.

Leg 1 An excellent drive in leg one from flag to flag saw him take 3rd behind the flying Kev Lee and Simon Moss holding off the 2010 champion Lee Martin in a full on wheel to wheel battle reminiscant of the oOple event earlier in the year.

Leg 2 seemed to be back to normal for Nathan as he collected Lee Martin’s back flipping car off the line, cart wheeling for what seemed like an eternity of the track only to be stopped by the catch fencing. The strength of the 410 showed through though and he was able to continue and still finish a creditable 6th after a disasterous start.

Leg 3

Another epic midfield battle saw Nathan take 5th, giving him 6th overall at the meeting.

Then the nail biting began.

Where would people end up…. Who would get their F1? The cut-off announced by ‘Master of Ceremonies’ Paul Worsley was 41st, and anyone above this would atttain the coveted F1 ranking. The series had also been one of the best attended on record, with 120 drivers completing 4 rounds or more and 160 different drivers competing in the series, making the 1/10th off road section the strongest section in the BRCA.

For the full Championship results the link can be found here:

Team Durango took the following postions:

Nathan Waters 11th

Craig Collinson 12th

Adam Skelding 15th

James Helliwell 18th

David Orbell 22nd

Chris Bowater 23rd

Richard Ralph 26th

Richard Coates 34th

Graham North 39th

James Dixon 47th

Damian Whittle 57th

Wayne Collinson 58th

Stuart Harlow 65th

Chris Stewart 68th

Team Durango drivers also took the following honours.

F2’s

1st Adam Skelding

2nd David Orbell

5th Richard Coates

Adam Skelding - Top F2

Richard Coates - 5th 'F2'

Chris Stewart - Top F5

With 9 Durango drivers attaining their F1’s, and 8 of these having their best ever 4wd season, it’s been a great debut season for the team and it’s not over yet. The F2  & F3,4,5 Championships still to come along with the fast approaching Euros, there’s plenty of time to add some silverware to the cabinet.

The 'Team' of 2010

Back Row (From Left to Right) – David Orbell, Richard Ralph, Nathan Waters

Front Row (From Left to Right) – Craig ‘Hulk’ Collinson, James ‘Ralph’ Helliwell, Adam Skelding, Richard Coates, Graham North, Chris Bowater, Damian Whittle.

Picture courtesy of Jimmy @ oOple.com

Hupo Hönigl competed at the fourth round of the Austrian national championships this weekend. He sent us this report from the event.

‘Austria is Durango-land!!!

The fourth round of the Austrian nats was held in Litschau, another beautiful track in the north of Austria.

This time there were 75 entries, a little bit less then normal. I think this was due to the very bad weather forecast!

But in the end the weather was different to the forecast, we had blue sky and about 28°C on Sunday.

The track went from very slick to a bluegroove high traction track which was very good fun to drive.

It looks like Team Durango has taken over in Austria already in its first year on the market – it is the most popular car in the field, and the number of cars is still growing from one race to the next.

Qualifying saw Roland Macho, driving a Durango, and me battling most of the time for the win, but the last round was won by Rene Trauner, another fast Durango driver.

I TQ´ed in front of 3 other DEX410s and we had 7!!!! in the top 10!

Finals were really interesting and fast on the bluegroove track.

I won the first 2 mains and therefore the meeting. The last main was really interesting to watch with Rene Trauner and Martin Kreil batteling right until the last corner.

Trauner finished 2nd and Martin Kreil 3rd, meaning Team Durango had the second 1-2-3 sweep in a row! Roland Macho was a little bit unlucky in the finals and finished 4th overall.

The other Durangos in the A final finished:

7th Holicky Thomas

9th Prihoda Marcus

10th Jeschko Robert

With another six DEX410s in the B final the result was nearly perfect for Team Durango!

With only one more round to go i´m already Austrian National Champion 2010.

For the other podium spots in the championship there will be a hard battle between Macho, Kreil and Trauner…’

Congratulations to Hupo from all at Team Durango on winning this round and the overall Austrian National Championship 2010.

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亞州杯電越賽-中國選拔賽第二場〔上海站〕上周未在上海聯合越野車場〔SUR〕舉行。SUR是一個非常具有挑戰性的場地. 整個賽道設計除了有大直道之外，亦由很多考技巧的彎角組合而成。當天的天氣非常好而場地可能由於多日沒有下雨, 所以地面變得有點偏硬及有點塵粉, 令抓著力只屬於中等。

上海聯合越野車場〔SUR〕1/10電越賽道

賽事是3輪分組賽+3輪決賽，而各賽員亦被限定在全日的賽事中都只能用一套輪胎, 所以在幹、硬的場地上如何控制輪胎的損耗亦是今次比賽能否取勝的一大重點！

今次參賽的Team Durango足有7台之多, 占了4WD組的大多數！經分組賽後, 總共有6台Team Durango打進了A組，而John Ho更以唯一的14圈優異成績同時取得了TQ。三回合決賽中的首兩回合，John的DEX410也一起步都能領放其他選手. 需然輪胎的磨損已頗利害，但憑著其豐富的經驗及DEX410超凡的控操性，令他拿下了首兩輪決賽的冠軍, 順利地也得到本場賽4WD組別的全場總冠軍. 而其Team Durango隊友駱永晟亦以410R取得了全場亜軍。

起跑時的DEX410及DEX410R，6台Team Durango車子打進了A組決賽

亞州杯電越賽-中國選拔賽第三場〔上海站〕將九月份在上海聯合越野車場〔SUR〕舉行。

这次總共有6台Team Durango打進了A組！

A組決賽最終成績：

1. John Ho Team Durango DEX410
2. 駱永晟 Team Durango DEX410R
3. Beckham TeamC/TC04
4. 王志傲 Team Durango DEX410R
5. Maruyama AE/B44
6. 梁志峰 Team Durango DEX410R
7. Bini   Team Durango DEX410
8. 劉南   Team Durango DEX410R

TQ-John Ho-Team Durango DEX410

Team Durango很高興看到在賽事裏有這麼多人選用Team Durango車子，同時亦恭喜John及所有Team Durango China的隊友所做出的驕人成績。

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