INFINITY INTERNATIONAL RC SPEEDWAY - SUZUKA
The third round of this year’s Asian Nitro Championship was held at the new Infinity International RC Speedway this past weekend. The newly built track is located near the famed Suzuka Raceway in Japan; the track looked awesome with banking sweepers and technical infield sections as common in “europe-style” tracks. Facility was also renewed and in the previous well known Hokusei area a new star is born!
Good number of entries for 1/8 class with the guest appearance of current World Champion Dario Balestri accompanied by Italian team mate Carmine Raiola to complete the Infinity Team for the inaugural race; the weather wasn’t good with some showers that forced organizers to reschedule practice and qualifying rounds. In 1/8 Open was Carmine that took the TQ enjoying this new layout quickly winning the first 3 rounds; in Masters class was Kenji that Tq’ed the event with strong performances on Sunday morning and in 1/10 was Aussie Jesse Davis that close in front current World Champion Naoto Matsukura and Andy Moore.
After 1/8 GT final the first of the 45-minute mains was up with the 1/10 200mm Touring class. Aussie, Jessie Davis that earned pole position and had every intention of taking full advantage it. It was a picture perfect start at the sound of the tone and Davis held his ground around for the first lap but a long main sometimes hide issues… About a quarter of way through the main, the World Champions were starting to show how they earned that title and the main quickly turned into the Andy Moore and Naoto Matsukura show. The two were stayed on the same lap for most of the race and it was incredible to see. Precision driving and to close to call passes, lead swaps occurred with Andy Moore able to make the last pass in the closing minutes of the main to edge out Matsukura for the win. Good job Andy!!!
In 1/8 Masters Kenji Taira was able to start and hold his front runner position for a portion of the main event, but unfortunately for him, a series of unfortunate events began to drop him back into the field opening the door for second qualifier Komuro Takahito (also driving IF18) to take the lead. Tak Woo meanwhile was steadily making his way up the field. With only 30m-minutes for the racers to make things go their way, drivers would need to combine their best driving with a good race strategy with their pitmen. With time running out, Takahito was able to build a huge gap lead when time had expired to take the win. In the battle with the series point leaders, Tak Woo was able to make up 5 spots to finish in the 5th position with Kenji Taira finishing in the 7th position. Well done Komuro San!!
Carmine Raiola after pole clearly aiming to keep the position for the win. Tadahiko Sahashi follow close the Italian driver in the early stage with Naoto Matsukura, Takaaki Shimo and Jesse Davis in his roots. Behind them it was a totally different story as much of the field was jockeying for position with some good action to watch… Current 1/8 World Champ Dario Balestri close quickly the gap from front runners after a contact that drop him down in the pack; marking point was the tire change strategy with Carmine still in a comfortable lead once at 8 minutes to go his glow plug died… Tadahiko acquired the lead, Chavit second and Dario third. Carmine comes out the pit like a thunderstorm and recover the leaders for a nice battle with Dario that ended only at last lap… By the sound of the end tone, second qualifier Sahashi managed to grab the big win with Chavit Saligupta coming all the way from the sixth qualifying spot to take second with Carmine Raiola rounding out the top 3. Congrats Tadahiko!!
As first race everything went really well… hope to see you there soon!
