Euro Touring Series

December 2, 2016

Track Focus – Hrotovice

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Host – Mibo Sport
Country – Czech Republic
Location – Hrotovice
Venue – Sport-V-Hotel
Track type – Temporary
Surface – Carpet
Direction – Anti-Clockwise
Previous ETS races hosted – 6

The most visited venue on the Euro Touring Series calendar, the hosting of the opening round of the Season #10 is set to be its seventh but also its last with the Vienna Model Show expected to replace it. Only missing off the calendar once since joining the ETS in Season #3, it instead hosting in the inaugural round of the Euro Offroad Series in 2012, the venue while out in the Czech countryside has always proven popular with racers. The appeal of the venue is that the track, the restaurant, the bars and a bowling alley are all housed under the one roof – the V Sport Hotel. With racers completely booking out the hotel for the weekend, most international arriving via Vienna airport which is around 2-hours away, the low cost of the food & drink is also very popular with drivers. For many drivers racing this weekend’s ETS encounters will not be their first visit back to Hrotovice since last year as many have taken part in the popular multi round Michal Bok run Mibo Cup. Michal and his father are the kingpins of making this event happen and over the years have worked with the hotel to improve the venue with such things as the addition of LED lighting and most recently the addition of pit rooms which can fit 120 drivers freeing up the main pit area.

In terms of this year’s track layout it is once again built in an area 30 metres wide and 24 metres deep. Commenting on the layout, this being the place where he made his carpet debut 2-years ago, reigning champion Bruno Coelho said, ‘it’s very tight and technical so there is not going to be much difference between Modified and Pro Stock as you never use full throttle other than on the straight. It’s a fun layout’. Asked what he felt was the main feature of the track he picked out ‘the section in front of the driver stand’ describing it as ‘difficult’ because ‘you arrive super fast there’. Top Qualifier and winner here last year, Marc Rheinard gave the layout out a thumbs up describing it as ‘nice’ and adding the key to a good lap was ‘just stay away from the dots’.

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December 1, 2016

Coelho ready to defend as ETS celebrates 10th season

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This weekend (2-4 December), the Yokomo Euro Touring Series will celebrate the start of its 10th season when over 300 racers from 29 countries travel to Hrotovice in the Czech Republic for the opening race of the six round championship. From small beginnings when the first ETS race was held in Vejle, Denmark in March 2008, over the 51 races that made up the subsequent 9 seasons the championship has established itself as one of touring cars’ most coveted titles with both drivers and manufacturers. Only 4 drivers have achieved the top prize and defending that title in Season #10 will be Bruno Coelho.

The only multiple race winner last season, the only other race winners being the three champions that had come before him, Coelho will be looking to open his title defence with a win at the very same venue he made his debut. Having held more ETS races than any other venue, this being it’s seventh appearance on the calendar, Coelho made his carpet racing debut here in 2014. Just scraping into the A-Main qualifying 8th, next time round he made the podium behind Marc Rheinard and Ronald Volker but third time round, having since registered his first win on carpet, Coelho will be looking to reverse that result come Sunday evening.

Having enjoyed reigning over the ETS as champion for 5-consecutive seasons, Ronald Volker wants his title back and as the newly crowned World Champion the Yokomo driver is in confident form. Interestingly each season the German went onto become champion he did so by winning the season opener with last year the first time he didn’t win Round 1 or in Hrotovice. Sharing the top spot in the statistics for the most race wins with long time arch rival Marc Rheinard, a Czech win would see him overtake Rheinard for the first time as the championship’s most winning driver.

Kicking off his season perfectly in Hrotovice 12-months ago when he took the TQ and win, unfortunately the end result would turn out the same for Rheinard as he again finished runner-up in the championship. Champion in Season #3, the Tamiya driver has been Vice-champion ever since and with talk that this may possibly be the last ETS outing for Tamiya’s TRF race team, the loyal 4-time World Champion will be determined to win once more with them and extend Tamiya’s tally as the most winning manufacturer in the ETS’ premiere Modified class. Winning the inaugural ETS title with Jilles Groskamp, the iconic Japanese model manufacturer has enjoyed 21 races wins and 3 titles.

Outside of the three title favourites, Coelho’s team-mate Alexander Hagberg should be in the mix as well as Rheinard’s team-mate Christopher Krapp, both drivers among the ETS’ exclusive list of race winners. Multiple race winner Yannic Prumper begins his second season with VBC Racing and will be looking to put what was learnt last season to good use. Team-mate Lucas Urbain showed strong promise with the car in Japan last weekend so both drivers together with new signing Marc Fisher will be aiming a strong showing. The first ETS encounter since the World Championships in China in August, Serpent’s Viktor Wilck will try to continue on from his impressive podium finish and try for a similar result, something that eluded the 2 time winner & 4 time Top Qualifier last season. On the back of his best ETS campaign, finishing 5th in the standings, Awesomatix’ Viljami Kutvonen wants more podium finishes having done so twice last season.

In Pro Stock and Formula, Jan Ratheisky is the man to beat as champion of both classes. Wrapping up a 4th consecutive Formula title early last year having won the season opener, he would also become the first driver to do the double when he claimed the Pro Stock title as well making it a clean sweep of the ETS for Xray. A big change for Formula this season is the switch to new handout electrics from Scorpion Power who have created a high quality motor featuring a rev limiter. Ratheisky won both A-Mains in Hrotovice last season but his rivals will be trying even harder to topple his reign in particular of Formula.

July 24, 2016

ETS Season#9 Championship Winning Cars

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Bruno Coelho (Volante Modified)

Xray T4 ’16 – Hobbywing – EZ Power – Montech – Sanwa

Jan Ratheisky (Xray Pro Stock)

Xray T4 ’16 – Muchmore (handout) – LRP – Montech – Sanwa/Savox

Jan Ratheisky (Serpent Formula)

Xray X1 ’16 – Hobbywing (handout) – LRP – Xray – Sanwa/Savox

July 24, 2016

Video – Modified A-main Leg 3

July 24, 2016

Video – Pro Stock A-main Leg 3

July 24, 2016

Video – Formula A-main Leg 3

July 24, 2016

Hagberg & Viljami end season with 2nd podium

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With new champion Bruno Coelho already wrapping up the win in A2, the final A-Main encounter of the 2015/16 Yokomo Euro Touring Series Season at the Hudy Arena would see Alexander Hagberg and Viljami Kutvonen cap of their seasons with a second podium finish. Leading away the field in A3, former race winner Hagberg would take a straight forward win to secure his first asphalt podium finish having last finished on the podium indoors at Round 2 in Germany. Having only secured his first ETS podium finish at Round 4 in Italy, Viljami was made to work a little harder for 3rd overall in Slovakia with Ronald Volker shadowing his every move before an attempted pass by Luxembourg race winner Jilles Groskamp tapped both drivers into a spin. This left Viljami to take an easy second with Yannic Prümper completing the Top 3 – a position that was to secure the VBC Racing driver 4th overall, his best result of the season. An intense battle for 4th in the leg would see Marc Rheinard punt Volker into the grass coming out of the second last corner. Crossing the line-up fourth as Volker’s Yokomo sat on the grass, the Taimya driver was later given a time penalty to put him behind Volker who was classified 8th.

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‘It’s good to end the season with a podium finish’, was Hagberg’s reaction after the race. The Swede added, ‘doing well this weekend is a good feeling going into the Worlds’. On his A3 win which made it a 1-2 for race hosts Xray, he said, ‘It was alright, car was more stable that time. I was able to control (the) race just like I planned’.

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A driver who made a noticeable improvement this season as he stepped up to the role of lead driver at Awesomatix, establishing himself as a consistent front runner, Viljami was ‘super happy to end championship with a podium’. The Finn continued, ‘overall it’s been a super season as I made the A-Main 5-times and had 2 podium finishes on asphalt. I’m super happy’. Struggling in A2, for A3 he said his LRP powered A800 ‘was good again’ adding his previous issues were as he suspected due to a bad set of tyres. After he ‘almost spun coming on the straight’, he said this allowed Volker and Jilles Groskamp to get close but once Volker tried a pass and failed it was ‘then easy’ to finish second.

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With the Pro Stock and Formula Round 6 winners being decided in A3, it would be Tom Krägefski who would claim his first ETS win ahead of Xray team-mate and new champion Jan Ratheisky. Starting from the TQ, Krägefski would get passed for the A3 win by P2 qualifier Noah Asendorf who would win the leg to complete an all Xray podium line-up at their home track.

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In the Serpent Formula class, Roche driver & A2 winner Olivier Bultynck put in a sterling effort to be the first driver to beat back to back champion Ratheisky this year but it wasn’t to be as having looked to have got to the front himself and Ratheisky touched allowing David Ehrbar to go to front with 2-laps to go. With second in A3 enough for Ratheisky to claim his 5th win of the season in as many race, Bultynck would get second overall while Ehrbar completed the podium.

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View the complete event results here.

View the event image gallery here.

July 24, 2016

Chassis Focus – Patrick Gassauer

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Chassis – Team Magic E4 RS III +
Motor – Muchmore (handout)
ESC –Muchmore (handout)
Batteries – EZ Power 7200mAh
Tires – Volante (handout)
Radio/Servo – Sanwa
Bodyshell – Blitz LSF
Remarks – German driver Patrick Gassauer is running strong in the ProStock division driving an updated version of the E4 RS III + from Team Magic. His car is equipped with prototype bulkheads that are 1mm lower than standard and pre-production springs with an hardness between the previously available ones. He is also using aluminium screws on the top of the car.

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