30.07.2012   22 comments

The 2012 IFMAR Worlds are over with Dutch Jilles Groskamp taking victory over Atsushi Hara with just a few tenths in the end, but the other star of the show was undoubtedly Race2theWorlds winner Kevin Pignotti from Italy. Arriving at the Worlds track with just 2 years of r/c racing experience, 2 years of VRC experience and zero 1:10 electric touring car experience the 16 year old Italian was placed for an almost impossible task to perform on the very highest level of r/c racing.

PRACTICE
IFMAR had denied our request to grant him some pre-race practice on the track, just using the left side of the track and in opposite direction, as they felt they could not make an exception to the strict rule that no WC participant may practice on the WC track within 2 weeks prior to the event itself. That being decided we knew Kevin would have just 4 5-minute practice rounds and 2 timed practice rounds to familiarize himself with this class. The first session was a shakedown of the Serpent S-411 chassis and LRP electron... read more

25.07.2012   18 comments

16 Year old Kevin Pignotti from Italy, the 2012 Race2theWorlds winner, has made his debut at the IFMAR Worlds for 1:10 ISTC in Heemstede. Kevin arrived at the track Wednesday morning finding a car ready built by Serpent S-411 ace racer Marc Fischer from Germany and equipped with plenty of power by Reto König from LRP. Kevin’s very first run with a 1:10 scale electric car went down the drain because the body was grabbing the asphalt especially in the fast left hand sweeper, causing massive understeer. This was fixed by Marc Fischer, and with some additional assistance of another VRC Pro ace Mustafa Alp from Turkey, Kevin was much better prepared for his second run. This run went surprisingly well for Kevin, steadily increasing the pace getting as many laps in as possible, doing a very decent 18.2 lap which was just a second off the very fastest laptimes. Only Ronald Völker managed to get a few sub-17 second laps in.

With a good 16 lapper Kevin finished in the top half of the 150 driver field with just 10... read more

17.07.2012   71 comments

The early July release has been postponed due to unexpected complications and intensified testing demands related to the co-release of several new features, including replay, ghost cars, controller mapping, achievement system, new camera zoom system and several other features.

Even though the short course truck is now practically ready for release, more work needs to be done to tackle the side effects of transmission changes prepared for the short course trucks (especially the differentials). These side effects affect the handling and performance of the on-road cars as they use the same physics engine. Good progress was already made and we hope to still release offroad this month.

The other reason for delay has to do with the development of new features. Many new features were developed since the last big game update and all need intensive testing before release. Some of you may say: why not leave those features out and release offroad now? It’s not that simple. Everything is programmed in the main pro... read more

10.07.2012   15 comments

Kevin Pignotti (16 years) from Italy has won the first Race2theWorlds contest. With over 1000 racers and gamers involved in this contest, the R2tW has become the single biggest R/C event ever! Kevin Pignotti is now preparing himself to collect his big prize, the ultimate once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to join the IFMAR 2012 World Championship Electrics 1:10 in the Netherlands on the 25th of July. Kevin says ‘it’s like a dream coming true’ and he hopes to do well at the 2012 IFMAR Worlds. For sure, it is going to be very interesting to see how well this young talent (without any prior experience in electric racing) is going to perform on World class level amidst the best of the best in R/C racing. It’s going to be tough, but if anyone from the VRC Pro sim community is ready for it then it sure is Kevin! What a fantastic performance he pulled off at the R2tW event. Right from the start and up till the very end Kevin proved unbeatable, claiming pole position exclusively for almost the entire 4 months of the eve... read more