FLASHBACK FRIDAY: XRAY's first IFMAR World Championship

0 Nov. 21, 2014, 11:12 a.m.

11/21/2014
By Aaron Waldron

LiveRC.com

Everybody knows that Friday is meant for reminiscing old times. Each week we take you back in time as we flashback to some of R/C racing's greatest moments, products, drivers, and more!

Flashback: 2010

Ralph Burch Jr. wins first World Championship for XRAY

Last weekend at Huge RC Project in Bangkok, Thailand, Alexander Hagberg achieved the goal he set long ago - to win on the biggest stage in RC racing. His first IFMAR World Championship was also the first for a driver from Sweden, in any racing division, but perhaps the most surprising statistic was that the title was just the second for iconic brand XRAY.

XRAY was founded in 2000, but founder Juraj Hudy’s background in hobby competition goes all the way back to 1972 - when he was a multi-time slot car racing champion in Europe racing his own designs. He began building hand-made RC cars in a small workshop around 1975, and first experimented with an off-road car in 1988, but it wasn’t until the Berlin wall fell a year later that Hudy established the brand SPECIAL - which later became simply known as HUDY. The manufacturing processes were moved from his personal workshop to a separate building, the company quickly grew to 60 employees, and HUDY began supplying their special spring steel transmission components to Serpent.

XRAY’s T1 signaled the brand’s at the turn of the millennium, and the Slovakian marquee has churned out some of the most spectacular race cars ever since. Since beginning with electric touring cars, XRAY has branched out to cover nitro 1/10 and 1/8-scale on-road racing, 1/10 and 1/12-scale pan cars, 1/8-scale nitro and electric off-road, 2WD and 4WD 1/10-scale electric buggies, and an array of 1/18-scale mini vehicles. XRAY has won numerous European championships and national titles around the world, but their first IFMAR win came just four years ago - ironically, also in 200mm IC touring car.

In 2007, XRAY entered the nitro touring car field with the original NT1, and quickly found success - earning TQ honors and a podium finish at the European Championship, as well as national titles in Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Ireland, Austria, Finland, Norway, and the Czech Republic. In fact, the car was so good that year that XRAY didn’t change much for 2008 - simply adding CV-style front driveshafts (made of spring steel, of course) to replace the standard dogbone-type units.

After starting as a provisional championship in Ohio in 2002 (where Mark Pavidis won with a Team Associated NTC3 - and a broken steering wheel spring in his transmitter), the 200mm IC World Championship was dominated by Kyosho and Mugen from 2004-2008.

In 2010, the race returned to the U.S. and visited the truly incredible Gulf Coast Raceway in Porter, TX.

The large and impeccably prepared asphalt course at Gulf Coast Raceway provided a terrific blend of high-speed sections, technical corners, and two chicanes that put an emphasis on driving precision. The corners were fitted with “flappers” - looped strips of plastic - that prevented damage to cars that came too close and made contact.

The race was the second IFMAR championship broadcasted by LiveRC.

Ironically, it was also the last race I covered for R/C Car Magazine before the title folded its final pages just three months later. We had made a habit of not taking press pass photos very seriously.

Long-time racing veteran Ralph Burch Jr. was a driving force behind the creation of RCAmerica in 2009, created as the exclusive North American distributor of XRAY headquartered in Irving, TX - about 230 miles north of Porter.

The format of the IFMAR Worlds in 2010 secured the top four qualifiers into the final, rather than just the TQ like this year, and rather than use qualifying points the starting order was determined by single fastest time. A rainstorm was at the root of controversy as it not only brought the first day of racing to a halt, but forced an early end to Day Two as well. In an effort to complete as many of the six originally scheduled rounds as possible, IFMAR officials decided to add an additional round to the third day of qualifying, held in the dark of night under artificial lighting - a decision that upset many racers, as the cooler temperatures provided what were easily the best conditions of the week albeit with the poorest visibility.

Robert Pietsch’s quick time from earlier in the week only barely held up through the final round, with then-Kyosho factory driver Takaaki Shimo coming within one second to secure a direct transfer position. Shinnosuke Yokoyama also hung on to secure the third direct transfer position thanks to a fast run earlier in the week.

The fourth, and final, direct qualifier into the main event provided even more drama than the nighttime qualifying round. Jerome Renoux of France was round to be 10g underweight in post-race inspection, so his final round time was thrown out. The DQ promoted Burch - one of the most vocal opponents to the additional nighttime qualifying round - to fourth on the grid.

Ralph fell victim to a first-corner collision that collected nearly the rest of the field behind him, and he exited the first lap in tenth position. The Texan raced his way to the lead by the ten-minute mark, however, dispatching early leader Marc Rheinard. Pitting every 4:45, after watching fuel mileage issues wreak havoc in lower finals and declaring to his pit crew (including Drew Ellis!) that an empty tank wouldn’t be what kept him from winning the title, Burch simply pulled away from the field and put everyone a lap down, eventually allowing runner-up Takehiro Terauchi back onto the lead lap.

The win was special not just for Burch, claiming his first Worlds after decades of competing at the international level, but for U.S. drivers and XRAY - as Paul Lemieux had come oh-so-close to winning the 200mm IC championship in Portugal two years prior. Burch’s win was the first for an American on-road racer since Pavidis in 2002, and none have won since.