HPC 2007 International 1/8 Offroad Buggy and truggy!

Written on September 18, 2007 – 7:16 pm | by webmaster | 1,291 views

The 2007 HPC International 1/8 offroad buggy and truggy race was scheduled on 15th to 16th September on weekend. Sadly our team could not be there to cover the event so we relied heavily on other report. Thankfully, first notice the result and report from RCTech forum presented by X1CR(X1R2) driver, Arghhh the nickname. The report originally from Team Xray / RB from Singapore courtesy of Team Hobbylink via RB Product Website. To them we thank you for the report. Here in full.

HPC International 1/8 Offroad Buggy and truggy group picture

INTRO :
The annual buggy event attracted 60 drivers from all over the region, namely Singapore, Macau, Taiwan and the host country Malaysia. This included OCM and Nanda factory team.

Team Xray/ Hobbylink from Singapore led by Sam Cheng arrived at the beautiful Glenmarie facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Friday night leaving only time to check in to the hotel.

QUALIFYING :
Not having any practice time, qualifying began on Saturday morning. By late afternoon, 3 rounds of heats have been completed. At this time local Malaysian ace driver David Lim with his Werks powered Losi was already sitting on a comfortable pole position. The final round of qualification was to be held on the Sunday morning.

THE RACE :
Sunday morning started out with the truggy heats, Ah Leng from Singapore TQâ€™ed the truggy event and eventually came in to win the main event as well. It seemed that David Lim was destined to TQ the Buggy heats although Singaporean driver Glenn Phuah in an RB powered Xray came in a close 2nd after all the qualification rounds were completed. This meant that David and Glenn would sit 1st on the grid in their respective Â½ finals.

The Â½ finals began after a brief rain shower that groomed the track as well. As dark clouds were present, everyone was eager to get race underway. Team Xray Singapore put on a good show to put 4 cars in the main event. They are Glenn Phuah, Sam Cheng, Luigi Venturi and Chester Chua. Last yearsâ€™ Champion Ah M from Singapore displayed some excellent driving to put his X1CR into the top ten.

The main event began with Ah M pulling into the lead after managing to overtake Sam, Glenn and after the first few minutes into the 45 minute final. Luigi and Chester suffered flameouts, Luigi put on a good fight to reduce the gap with 3rd place finisher Danny Teh in his OS powered Kyosho only to finish a close 4th with just 7sec difference, however he managed to do the fastest single lap of 43+ seconds. It was a tough final and the lead exchanged several time times between Sam, Glenn and Ah M. Sam made a slight mistake that left Glenn an opportunity to overtake to lead the race. This seemed to be a crucial mistake that left Sam in 2nd close behind champion Glenn Phuah.

1:8 buggy final result

Place Name Country Car Engine
1. Glenn Phuah SIN XRAY XB8 RB
2. Sam Cheng SIN XRAY XB8 RB
3. Danny Teh MAL Kyosho MP777 OS
4. Luigi Venturi SIN XRAY XB8 RB
5. Owen CHN Nanda NRB3 Novarossi
6. Eric Lim MAL HoBao Hyper8
7. Lai Kok Heng MAL OCM Kaos RB
8. Chester Chua SIN XRAY XB8 RB
9. Ah M SIN – HongNor X1-CR / OS
10. Didian Ho TWN OCM Kaos Novarossi