Saturday October 14, 2006 - The ES32 race at the 2006 ISRA World Championship has been won by Guido Santarelli. Only last year we found his name for the first time in the international IOC-table. As team mate of Piero Castricone he finished 6th at ISRA's 2005 Team Race. Although he finished the same year as 13th at ISRA's Scaleracing World Championship (ES24) he was only #725 on the IOC-list. This year he finished 8th at the Team Race, again with Castricone as team mate (good for 1 extra IOC point). At the 132F1 race he had back luck and had to withdraw as first after only 45 laps. By winning the ES32 event he caused not only the surprise of the year, he collected also 30 new IOC points and is now #207 on the updated IOC-list with 34 points. 
In the main final he let three former world champions in scale racing, having won in total no less than 8 ISRA World Championships ES32 behind: Michael Landrud the 2003 world champion, Vladimir Horky the 1994-1996-1998-2001-2004 world champion and Paul Gawronski the 1999-2006 world champion. For Santarelli - coached by Piero Castricone - just a dream. At the Consis, the Semis and the Main Santarelli was each times the fastest man on the track, so that one can hardly say that he was just lucky. No, he was simply the best man around.
There were 80 entrants, some 30 among them just field fillers, but among the 50 others several typical winners as Horky (already 18 times winner of an IOC top-event in scale racing), Gawronski and Saunders (with 14 IOC wins in scale racing), Trigilio (with 9 IOC wins in scale racing), Korec (with 7 IOC wins in scale racing), Gooding (with 5 IOC wins in scale racing), Janis Rage-Ragis (with 4 IOC wins in scale racing), etc. Let's hope that Santarelli will continue and that he'll leave next year Italy on his way to new victories.

Consis - On looking over the churchyard after the cruel Consis we find such victims as Brian Saunders (!!!)(GB), Piero Castricone (I), Charlie Gooding (GB) - the three first having missed the move to the Semis - Lars Noerkjaer (DK), the Americans Tracy Chin and Lee Gilbert; except for Nikolay Dolzhan-sky the complete Russian team; except for Trigilio, Santarelli and Bertocchi all the other Italians; except for Keith Gibson and Graham Woodward all Britons; last year's world champion Petr Krcil, also all Finns and all Estonians. Among the survivers we note:
Czechia (6): Korec, Horky, Karlik, Milos Hojer, Micek sr, Vadlejch;
Sweden (5): Gustafson, Landrud, Harrysson, Åberg, Hegeleson;
Italy (3): Trigilio, Santarelli, Bertocchio;
Latvia (3): Podosinoviks, Rage-Tagis, Spricis
USA (2): Gawronski, James
U.K. (2): Graham Woodward, Gibson
Slovakia (1): Okali (Szalai out on techs)
Brazil (1): "Gugu" Bernardino
Russia (1): Dolzhansky.
That means that already 6 of the 15 nations at the start have no more racers in competi-tion. For the Britons, the inventors of ES32, the situation seems dramatic.

Final - So we go to a final with only one Ita-lian survivor, Santarelli, with four Czechs, one American, one Swede and one Latvian. Here Guido Santarelli (I) and Michael Landrud (S) will fight until the real last lap for victory. Eventually the Swede will come half a lap short to win the 2006 ISRA ES32 Euro-Nats. Vladimir Horky (CZ), who initially could follow the two leaders will arrive isolated, 7 laps down to the winner, but nine laps ahead over Jiri Karlik (CZ), finishing fourth. Ten laps further we find America's Paul Gawronski as fifth with Milos Hojer (CZ) in the same lap. Andris Podosinoviks (LV) comes ten laps later as sevent, followed at 13 laps by Jiri Micek sr (CZ).

The ISRA Scaleracing Worlds are con-tested on one of the best tracks for scale cars and model cars, an MTT. Such tracks were launched in the mid-1980s by Michel Thoumieu from France. At IMCA's raceway in Toulouse (1987-1988) Thoumieu was responsible for the raceway. He developed his first MTT which was used for the 1987 IMCA Worlds.
In front we recognise Giovanni Montig-lio (with tie). Behind him Paolo Niccolai (not very long-haired) and Janis Rage-Ragis (seen at his back).
The races are organised in the big gym class from probably a school. This pic could be found at an Italian slot-racing forum, since the official web site seems to be dead.

We don't know from which race this is a picture. However it must be from a semi-final (probably in 132F1), since we see nothing that very talented racers at the controllers. We recognise from l.t.r. Paolo Niccolai (Italy, IOC #119), Janis-Rage-Ragis (Latvia, IOC #69), Piero Castricone (Italy, IOC #92), Lasse Åberg (Sweden, IOC #5), Petr Krcil (Czechia, IOC #35), Janne Ekman (Sweden, IOC #232) and Josef Korec (Czechia, IOC #1).
This year's ISRA Nats are the most representative since 1984. From the top 50 of the IOC-list (where only 36 racers are still active) no less than 14 are present at Soragna. If one realises that among the 36 IOC top racers being still active there are only 21 typical scale racers that represents a 70 per cent show of the best scale racers.

"Gugu" Bernardino (Brazil, IOC #9) didn't miss one wing car, one scale car and one model car world championship since 1988. His perhaps the most professional of all slot-racers. If you organise a race and you miss "Gugu" at the start, you must be a rather minor organiser.

Italian slot-racers and women has always be a good marriage, although not always of the highest fidelity. Since the average age of the scaleracers in-creases year after year (above 40 years already) the age of the invited misses decreases year after year.

Should the mariage between Italian slotracers and the internet be so strong as with women, then we should see a printout of the results even before the race had still to start.

There are still securities in Italian life, even in our fast developing postmodern society.

PAUL0 TRIGILIO RULES AS IN HIS BEST DAYS

October 12, 2006 - At the ISRA World Championships in Soragna (I), Paolo Trigilio won the 1/32 F1 ISRA World Cup, just as he did already last year. For Trigilio it is already his ninth victory at an IOC race. After this new victory he has in the IOC-list exactly the same number of points as Salvatore Noviello. The last named is only main sponsor of the event, but he is not racing this year. It will thus be enough that Trigilio reaches the main final in one of the two remaining races at the ISRA Worlds to be again best all-time Italian slot-racer. Since Noviello won 3 world championships in his career, against 1 for Trigilio, Noviello is still ranked one place higher, despite the tie in won IOC-points.
Contrarily to last year, when he had to fight for victory until the real last metres, Trigilio dominated fully the race this year. He was fastest qualifier in 6"155, was fastest at the semis, and won the main final with an advance of more than five laps.
There were 69 entrants (not the 88 as announced by the organisers)..
At the Consis we lost already several outsiders. Among them very surprisingly Brian Saunders, who last year finished still third behind Trigiolio and Horky. It's not the first time that Saunders suffers bad luck at the ISRA Worlds: for him they are mostly his most black races. Among the other racers having not survived the Consis we note the Americans Herman James, Lee Gilbert, and Jason Stone (Tracy Chin didn't start), the Swede Janne Ekman, Slovakia's Vlado Okali,  the Britons Steve Sergeant, Keith Gibson and the Woodwards, from Finland Justus Pohjasniemi, our country mate Lars Noerkjaer, etc.  
Among the 24 semi-finalists we note some surprises: Richard Mack, Ladislav Koterba jr, Harri Nykanen, Mikael Palmqvist, and even good old Giovanni Montiglio. 

Of the Main finalists of last year we have after the Consis still four in place: Trigilio, Horky, Landrud and Bernardino. Saunders and James missed the move. Rosenberg and Matti Fyhr are not here.

Used track is a Michel Thoumieu wooden 8-laner as already used in Toulouse in 1987 when IMCA organised still the 3 world championships.  It's a pleasure to see that several racers, now present at Soragna, raced 19 years ago already on the same type of track. That year there were 44 entrants at the 132 F1 race. The winner of this year, Paolo Trigilio, was then already third behind his country-mates Sergio Maresca and Bruno Nova-rese. It was the period of total domination by the Italian racers. The Italians took the five first places that year. Giovanni Montiglio was also one of the entrants just as Lasse Åberg, Anders Gustafson, Lee Gilbert, Jiri Micek and Vlado Okali. That we found on consulting the EuroSlot #9-#10 magazine in IMCA's library.
Struggle for the 8 places good for the move to the main is always very difficult in ISRA racing. Normally the four racers free from the Consis and the 4 fastest at the Consis, grouped in Semi A, have the best chances. This year it were Trigilio, Gawronski, Horky and Niccolai together with Castricone, Korec, Landrud and the surprising Vadlejch (earlier excellent at the 2004 and 2005 IMCA Words!). Of them only Paul Gawronski missed the move, for less than half a lap. The lonely lucky guy coming from Semi B to make the move was "Gugu" Bernardino. Initially it looked as if Giovanni Montiglio should be the lucky one. But after 166 laps he broke his car and the chance to do much better than at Toulouse 1987, where he finished after another troublesome race 25th, was gone. Now he was ...24th.
Eventually we had three Italians in the main (Trigilio, Castrico-ne and Niccolai), three Czechs (Horky, Korec, Vadlejch), one Swede (Landrud) and one Brazilian (Bernardino). Among the other eliminated than Gawronski and Montiglio we found three Czechs (Karlik, Krcil and Micek sr), good old Charlie Gooding, just as the Swedes Anders Gustafson and Lasse Åberg.
The main final was dominated from start to finish by the hyper motivated Paolo Trigilio (this year defeated twice by Jaroslav Recek at the Minden Masters). Horky tried to follow with Piero Castricone following very closely. At the finish both came five laps short to beat Trigilio. Michael Landrud finished fourth, just as last year. <