The Racing Factory Blog

Another weekend – another succesful race for the Racing Factory Team!

The past weekend we went to the sixth round of the eight round touring nationals. The race organised by the Vantaa club was held at the Tattarisuo medium size asphalt track and once again we were blessed with fine weather!

Once again the Tamiya TRF415 in the hands of our team drivers dominated the ProStock class and this time the dominance was even more pronounced than at the last race.  Just look at the stats:

- top three drivers all chose the TRF415!
- 6 drivers in the A final – that’s 60%!

1. Henry Salmén Tamiya TRF 415 MSX-MR
2. Jyri Konoila Tamiya TRF 415 MSX-MR  
3. Björn Södergård Tamiya TRF 415 MSX-MR

Congratulations to Henry on another superb win and to our other podium and A-final drivers!

The Team Brood Pro Checkpoint 17×1 motor for the ProStock class has proven amazingly popular and is dominating the class at the moment.

Results
Photos
More photos 

In the extremely competitive modified class Tamiya TRF415 driver Teemu Rytsy once again made the A-final finishing an impressive sixth overall just behind Teemu Leino and Simo Ahoniemi! Great job Teemu!

Last weekend saw the second round of the Finnish Off-Road Championships being held at the clay track in Vaasa.

The event had a very good turnout, with a couple of racers turning up already on Thursday to practice, including a couple of Norweigan top racers. Friday saw lots of practicing and towards Friday evening most racers had already turned up. Saturday would see racing in both 2wd and 4wd classes, with the 2wd event being a round of the national championship while the 4wd class was an open event, however with a very good entry. On Sunday there was only 4wd’s racing with that days event being round 2 of the national championship in 4wd.

The main reason for the big turnout for Thursday and Friday practice, and the visiting Norwegians, was obviously that this is the track that will hos the EFRA Electric Off-Road Euros later this summer. This was therefore a perfect occation to put in some serious practice in preparation for the big event the last week in July. Indeed, the weekend before had also seen current 2wd champion Neil Cragg and 4wd A-finalist Paul Bradby sped two days at the track testing for the Euros.

http://www.wasacross.com/

Now on to the Saturday race though.

After the succesful debut of the TRF501X at the first round held in Hyvinkää a couple of weeks ago, we were hopeful of another good race on the highly demanding Vaasa track.  

The 4wd class on Saturday would be dominated by the TRF501X buggy again with Jarkko Mustonen taking TQ with his TRF501X ahead  of another 501. Jarkko had only built his 501 just in time for the race and hadbasically no practise with the car before the race started. This did not hold him back though as he made an instant impact with the easy to drive TRF501X.

After the finals we had the amazing result of all podium spots occupied by TRF501X drivers with Jarkko winning comfortable ahead of Kenneth Södergård and Teppo Kauppinen. Jukka Penttinen also again made the top ten with the Predator X10.

Saturday Results:

1. Jarkko Mustonen – Tamiya TRF501X
2. Kenneth Södergård – Tamiya TRF501X
3. Teppo Kauppinen – TRF501X
4. Pauli Helin  
5. Harri Nyman 
6. Vesa Yli   
7. Jani Hovi  
8. Jukka Penttinen – Predator X10
9. Henry Salmen  
10. Jesse Kähkönen   

Sunday saw the good form continue with most TRF501X drivers posting quick times throughout the day, the car looking very stable and easy to drive on the now quite bumpy and difficult track.

In the end we again managed to get three TRF501X buggies into the top 5 while the Predator looked good as well with 2 X10’s in the A-final!

The win was decided between Jussi Lupopajärvi and Norwegian Ketil Pettersen in an entertaining battle with Jussi finally taking the win.

TRF501X drivers Tomi Mairue, Jarkko Mustonen and Mika Mänty took third, fourth and fifth respectively while Jukka Penttinen once again performed well with his X10 to be eight, two places ahead of Pekka Heikkilä with the other X10.

1.  Jussi Luopajärvi   
2. Ketil Pettersen   
3 . Tomi Mairue – Tamiya TRF501X
4. Jarkko Mustonen - Tamiya TRF501X
5. Mika Mänty  - Tamiya TRF501X
6. Jani Hovi  
7. Jesse Kähkönen   
8. Jukka Penttinen – Predator X10
9. Sami Salmela  
10. Pekka Heikkilä – Predator X10

We’re very happy with the way the TRF501X and our team drivers have performed in all races so far. In all cases each of the drivers have been able to be instantly fast with little or no practice and with very standard cars, underlining the excellence of the TRF501X design.

Our Predator X10 drivers have also continued to show the capabilities of this unique design with solid top 10 finishes in all races so far.

Good Job Guys!

Products used by our team:

Tamiya TRF501X
Predator X10
LRP Sphere Competition TC Spec
GM Genius 95
GM Evo 2 4,5T
GM Evo 3 4,5T
GM Evo 3 5.5T 
GM GP4600
Futaba S9451
Proline Holeshot Rear
Proline Holeshot 4wd Front

Muchmore and Robitronic Power Supplies and Chargers/Dischargers
Futaba 2.4GHz FASST Radios, Modules and Receivers
Hudy Tools

Pictures from the event can be found at these links:

http://www.rc-kim.com/vaasa/indeksi.htm
http://mikak.1g.fi/kuvat/Maastosarja+2%2C+Vaasa+9.6+La/
http://mikak.1g.fi/kuvat/Maastosarja+2%2C+Vaasa+10.6+Su/
http://copter.threewee.com/ripak/Kuvat/Maastosarja2_2007-Vaasa/