AOC: ROAR National Champs top seeding at record-breaking Chinese round

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By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com

This year’s season opener for the Asian On-Road Championship series set a new record turnout for the Chinese round, attracting 87 drivers for a total of 112 entries. The field ran a full day of practice on Thursday, the first time they were allowed to drive counter-clockwise on the layout as it will be used for this weekend’s racing. Before the first of three rounds of qualifying began on Friday, one final round of controlled seeding practice was run in order to sort the drivers into heat races.

Before timed competition could begin, of course, a drivers’ meeting was held on the outdoor off road track with RCI V2 owner Rick Wang translating Scotty Ernst’s message into Chinese.

The controlled practice round was the first time running organized heats, giving the drivers an opportunity to learn the process as it would be organized for the rest of the weekend.

13.5 Blinky Touring Car

EA Motorsports’ founder Eric Anderson absolutely blew away the field in practice, turning the only 31-second seeding time and clearing the next-fastest driver by over a second.

Top ten:

1. Eric Anderson - 31.616
2. Mihnea Lupu - 32.647
3. Yao Guang Tang - 33.262
4. Jae Ho Yu - 33.520
5. Hans Tang - 33.717
6. Nate Northrup - 33.890
7. Tiny Welch - 33.923
8. Kris Lo - 34.156
9. Patrick Perkins - 34.340
10. Zi Lie Huang - 34.396

13.5 Blinky 1/12th Scale

Anderson also topped the event’s largest class in seeding practice, again by over a full second over local favorite Ai Luo.

Top ten:

1. Eric Anderson - 29.153
2. Ai Luo - 30.365
3. Heng - 30.944
4. Hiro Nakatani - 31.140
5. Wen Bo Lu - 31.235
6. Hans Tang - 31.554
7. Fang Jie Ding - 32.194
8. Hiroyuki Okumura - 32.370
9. Yao Guang Tang - 32.704
10. Marcus Ng - 32.723

Modified 1/12th Scale

Newly-crowned ROAR National Champion Keven Hébert outpaced JJ Wang, the son of track owner Rick Wang, by nearly half a second in what turned out to be the weekend’s smallest, but fastest, class.

Top eight:

1. Keven Hébert - 26.738
2. JJ Wang - 27.221
3. Rick Hohwart - 28.051
4. Rocket Zhang - 28.989
5. Martin Skarin - 29.224
6. Fu Xiao - 29.300
7. Per-Ola Hard - 30.256
8. Masatoshi Shibata - DNS

Formula 1

With the F1 Grand Prix of Shanghai happening just miles away, Hiro Nakatani edged fellow Japanese countryman Tsutomu Arakawa by just 19-thousandths of a second.

Top eight:

1. Hiro Nakatani - 35.936
2. Tsutomo Arakawa - 35.955
3. Joe Lo - 36.142
4. Bob Peterson - 36.664
5. Nelson Zang - 36.986
6. Jimmy Qian - 37.562
7. Heng - 38.338
8. Billy Chan - 38.803
9. Per-Ola Hard - 39.439
10. Dicky Chu - 39.959

13.5 Boosted Touring Car

Running a 13.5-turn class with speed control boost may not be popular stateside, but it’s one of the most popular classes across Asia. Singapore’s Daryl Thong stopped Eric Anderson from sweeping seeding for all three 13.5 classes, setting the fastest time by just over four-tenths of a second.

Top ten:

1. Daryl Thong - 31.062
2. Eric Anderson - 31.497
3. Salton Dong - 31.628
4. Yaowei Guo - 31.687
5. Lo Lao - 32.180
6. Jimmy So - 32.861
7. Fu Xiao - 33.199
8. Jia Run Chen - 33.228
9. Jimmy Qian - 33.253
10. Tiny Welch - 34.289

Modified Touring Car

Like in Modified 1/12th Scale, the newly-crowned ROAR National Champion on carpet set the fastest time in the premier touring car division. Paul Lemieux set the fastest time by just 175-thousandths of a second over former IFMAR 2WD World Champion Hayato Matsuzaki.

Top ten:

1. Paul LeMieux - 29.590
2. Hayato Matsuzaki - 29.765
3. JJ Wang - 29.882
4. Keven Hébert - 30.061
5. Nicholas Lee - 30.193
6. Rocket Zhang - 30.685
7. Chau Man Chan - 30.838
8. Rick Hohwart - 30.938
9. Felix Law - 30.945
10. Ian Lee - 31.371

The heat races will be resorted after the second and third qualifying rounds today. To view the entire heat sheet after seeding practice, CLICK HERE.