All of that made this weekend’s two big international races super important as we pass that six-month mark. Most of Europe’s best gathered in England for Neoland 26, the reboot of the famed Neo Buggy race, once universally lauded as the unofficial indoor worlds.

Meanwhile over in the US, most elite US racers were at the Psycho Nitro Blast, the next major race after last month’s Dirt Nitro Challenge.

Both races took place indoor, both featured high quality fields. What, we wonder, can we learn from these two events as the countdown to the Worlds goes inside the six-month mark? Here’s a few things we’ve noticed.

THE BIG FIVE
It seems obvious to say, but there are “the big five” in play this year – the five drivers most likely to influence the ultimate outcome at Thornhill. Defending World Champ Davide Ongaro, 2016 WC David Ronnefalk, the man twice on the podium Juan Carlos Canas, and the two US giants of 1/8 offroad – double 1/10 World Champ Ryan Maifield, and perhaps the best driver of all time yet to win a Worlds, Dakotah Phend.

Between them, those five have dominated major 1/8 races for well over a decade, and anybody with designs on a win later this year will have to deal with those five.
Of those five, Phend and Canas came away with the nitro buggy wins this week, Canas overcoming a relatively anonymous run through qualifying, while Phend dealt with a strong-starting Brandon Rose via consistency, pure pace, and a better fuel strategy.

Ronnefalk was an unexpected arrival at Neoland, making the start after the ISTC Worlds postponement, but the result was perhaps his best 1/8th race in quite some time – winning eBuggy, top-qualifying Nitro, and well in the mix until mid-race when a wrong tyre choice left him struggling. On the flip-side, Ongaro had been thereabouts all week, but looked stronger and stronger as the 45-minute main ran down, fastest of all over the last few minutes.

Maifield was the one member of the big five who had something of an off week by his usual (phenomenal) standards.

THE INTERVIEWS
It’s always interesting to pay attention to what is said (and unsaid) in driver interviews at races like these. Two interviews caught my attention.

First, I heard Spencer Rivkin talk early on at PNB about “having a few new parts of the car”. He wasn’t specific, but went on to put together a pretty strong 1/8 weekend, winning eBuggy over team-mate Rose, and finishing top 5 in nitro. Put Rivkin’s comments and results together with Rose’s pair of second places, Ongaro and Kaerup’s speed, and persistent rumours about a big update from AE – and there’s something to be excited about for AE fans over the next six months.

The second interview I found particularly interesting was Davide Ongaro after finishing second in the Nitro Buggy final at Neoland. Asked about his late pace, Ongaro matter-of-factly commented that he was set up for a 60-minute final, and practicing for the World Championships (which of course has that hour-long main). Ongaro, perhaps more than any other driver, seems to build his whole racing calendar and schedule around the World Championship. It’s no accident that he’s won three in a row (and finishing 6th as a 14-year-old in 2016). That kind of mindset, using a major international race to “practice” for the Worlds format, shows a rare dedication and commitment.

THE NEW CROP IS COMING
While the big five might garner the headlines and attention, there’s been a lot to like about the next crop that’s coming this week, as well. Camden Lime (eBuggy) and Seth Vandalen (Nitro) had taken wins at DNC just a few weeks back and finished top five at PNB, for example. They, along with Brandon Rose, Mason Fuller, and the likes of Burak Kilic (absent from Neoland) and Marcus Kaerup will not be prepared to wait their turn behind the five we mentioned above.

SCHUMACHER TO 1/8?
The third interview that we listened to very closely this week came from Schumacher’s off-road engineer Tris Neale, during RC Racing TV's Neoland coverage. It’s well known that the British manufacturer has been dabbling in 1/8 over the past few years, but Tris’ interview outlined their plans quite clearly. They ran their own prototype platform at Neoland – one of the young engineers Daniel Robins behind the wheel – as a data gathering exercise.

The plan, outlined by Tris, is for an eBuggy version of the car to be available first. Neale named a 2026 release date as the plan, and a tilt at the EFRA eBuggy Euros as part of the schedule, with a Nitro platform to follow, potentially early in 2027. Is the Worlds on the schedule? Time will tell, with Tris suggesting they’d like to be at Thornhill (with drivers like Orlowski and Kobbevik keen), but it will be very much budget dependent after an expensive 2025 1/10th offroad season, and the cost of the now-postponed ISTC Worlds to be factored in.  Personally, I’ll be surprised if we don’t see at least a small presence at Thornhill.

WHAT ELSE?
There’s a bunch else we could talk about: which chassis manufacturers would be happiest (XRAY, SWorkz, AE?), the tyre game that continues to hot up in the only open-tyre category left in the mainstream RC classes, whether Neoland’s track layout and surface is more representative of Thornhill than PNB, about other upcoming races (attention turning to Asia over the next couple of weeks, for example) and more.

But 6 months is both a very short time, and a very long run-up to the Worlds, and we’ll save some of those topics for later. The 2026 IFMAR 1/8 Offroad Worlds definitely has our attention, so we’ll be watching every major 1/8 race through that lens, and will be back regularly with more reflections on the run-up to Thornhill.

📸Photo by JConcepts Inc