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A J Lovering
ROSSA Chairman
UK RC Vehicle Speed Championships 2010
ROSSA UK RC Car and Bike Speed Championships 2009
Event Report
The ROSSA UK RC Car and Bike Speed Championships for 2009 was held at the Shakespeare County Raceway, Long Marston Airfield on the weekend of 12-13th September and thankfully the weather was dry and sunny.
The competitors were eager to get racing with guys tuning up on the Friday and camping over to get a decent start to the weekends speed racing.
Saturday morning started bright and early and we setup the timing gear and prepared the track for racing. We were using the standard setup with cars coming from just off the drag strip and along the slowdown area of the strip. Competitors were tuning up from their long trips to the track with Ken Azzopardi from Malta with his Turbine Powered funny car and Jony Bast from Sweden with his 1/10th F1 pan car. It was great to see such international support and hope to see more at future events.
Practice got under way with some decent runs by Jason Dracott with his 2 cell HPI Pro 4 entry called Citric Acid and Tom Pennington also with a 2 cell xray T-007. Kevin Sims was running his tried and trusted Lossi XXX’s in 4 cell mode and already had broken the UK record at the practice event. The car blasted through the speed trap with a record breaking 111mph and new UK speed record!
I then prepared the rocket powered car for a run. The rocket was loaded with ½ fuel to test the system and ensure good handling. The rocket was ignited and the car blasted down the runway for the 1st of its runs and was clocked at 58.58mph. Not bad and it ran straight.
Allan waterfall was running his .28 powered custom bike and manages a few passes of 75-80 mph before posting his fastest time of the weekend with 82.54mph. John Veal was also running a .28 powered custom bike and posted a decent speed of 75.42mph
The rocket car was then prepared for a 2nd run with full fuel and set off up the track. This time the rocket burnt all the way to the speed trap and recorded a speed of 117mph and a new UK record beating the 111mph set just an hr before!
The first day was a huge success with high speed and s the UK record being broken twice! And we were all looking forward to the Sunday.
Racing got underway with fast times being posted by all competitors. Jason Dracott posted a decent 77.48 before changing the gearing and registering the fastest 2 cell speed of 87.98 mph and a new UK 2 cell record. Jony Bast from Sweden ran his Corally F1 NGX and managed a decent 93.14mph. This car looked like it had much more in it but sadly electrical problems put paid to any more runs. Jony said he would be back next year for another try.
John Veal running his .28 custom bike blasted through the speed trap and pipped Allans speed to take the UK fastest bike title with 87.45mph. Allan still has the record of 91.52mph set at a previous event.
Kevin Simms also ran an open wheeled B4 buggy and set an amazing 100.12mph to set a new electric open wheel record and take the open wheel title. He was more than happy with 2 title wins for the weekend.
Ken fired up his turbine funny car and ran the trap and recorded a speed of 45mph. The turbine was acting up and only spinning up to 120,000 rpm instead of the 160,000 max so it was shut down. A long way for just a single run but he plans to be back next year with a faster car.
I had one more fuel grain left for the rocket so thought I would try one last run. I modified the rocket slightly so it would perform better and loaded more fuel than normal and set the car down about 100ft further back than the previous runs. All the spectators were moved into the safety area and the car was set off. After a wobbly start the gyro kicked in and the car started to track straight. I pulled the throttle and let her rip and rip it did! The car accelerated at lighting speed and started to veer off coarse just at the speed trap. I tried correcting the steering but the car flipped onto its roof just through the trap and I shut the car down. The speed was read out
… 163.51mph. A new worlds record!! The radar gun was read to confirm the speed and it showed 159mph. What a run.
The event continued until we all finally had enough, wrecked our cars or ran out of spares and agreed it was the best speed event so far with 5 runs over 100mph, more international guys coming into the event and fantastic weather all weekend. Class winners are as follows
Class
Vehicle
Name
Speed
IC Bike
Custom .28
John Veal
87.41
Open IC
Twin engine dragster
A J Lovering
76.35
Electric Modified (4 cell)
Losi XXXs
Kevin Sims
111.20
Electric Stock (2 cell)
HPI Pro 4 Citric Acid
Jason Draycott
87.98
Non Wheel Drive
Black Knight Hybrid Rocket Car
A J Lovering
163.51
Electric Open Wheel
Associated B4
Kevin Sims
100.12
IC Open Wheel
Losi Speed NT
Pete Gray
60.10
Thanks to everybody who turned up and also to all the support from Jeremy Cookson who runs the Shakespeare County Raceway. This year was a more relaxed event and we all had a great time. I will see you all again at the 1st practice in April 2010
A J Lovering
ROSSA Chairman
What is ROSSA?
Why?
For some time there have been groups of people and individuals that run RC cars and measure their speed to answer the old question"How fast does it go mister?" Some groups have managed to stage small speed events and the results of their speed runs were usually posted on the internet. In 2006 an event was organised by Radio Control Car Action magazine in the USA to gather these loosely connected people and allow them to run their cars in a more formal event. It was a success and it resulted in the Guinness Book Of Records to recognise Nic case as the Worlds Fastest RC Car at 134.4mph. This is the kick off the sport needed.
A further event was run at the California Speedway in Fontana USA and I was lucky to attend. I met Nic and we hit it off and we talked about how speed events could grow and we could have events in other countries. I then returned to the UK and organised a speed event in 2007. It was apparent that the events could be linked by a common set of rules. After discussions with Nic Case I formed the Radio Operated Scale Speed Association ROSSA.
Outline
The idea behind ROSSA is that a speed event, because of its format of running one single competitor one after the other, has limited capacity. For a single day event the maximum number of entrants is limited to 40. By having ROSSA define a single set of rules other events could be run under the same rules and competitors could now compete directly with other speed racers at different events. With the formation of ROSSA we can now organise a single world championships with individual events run in different countries running to the same rules with winners of classes coming from any of the events
What do we do?
The main aim of ROSSA is to define the classes and rules for the running of international RC car speed events. These classes and rules evolved from the input of speed racers and will continue to evolve as time passes as we get more events under out belts. The secondary aim of ROSSA is to ensure a common method of measuring the speed of competitions and to define a method of recording and updating speed records for the official classes. All official ROSSA records are published only on the ROSSA site. We also actively encourage the running of speed events to the ROSSA standards and help in any way possible to make your event a success.
What don't we do
ROSSA is not an organisation that organises events. Event organisation is carried out be a dedicated local team and it is the local teams responsibility for the safe running of the event and ensuring there is event insurance.
Membership
ROSSA is unlike other associations as there is no member ship fee. To become a member of ROSSA you must actively promote speed racing within your country to the ROSSA rules and format and to ensure your events are linked to the World RC Car Speed Championships. In doing so you become a part of ROSSA.
Thank you for your participation in making ROSSA a worldwide success
