JQ Products have now released lightened outdrives for THE Car. There is a version for the centre diff and for the front/rear differentials and the full set saves 14 grams on the drivetrain which is a good amount of rotating mass. We are told that later on there will some pretty trick lightened centre dogbone outdrives released.
Source: JQ Products [jq-products.com]
In a surprise move, reigning 1/8th scale offroad World Champion Cody King is trying his hands at Electric 1/10th offroad as he travels to Vaasa Finland for the IFMAR World Championships which takes place next week. Focusing on 1/8th offroad for the past number of years he has been putting in some intensive testing recently and was feeling really comfortable with both his Kyosho cars. Cody has been running electric exclusively since last Thursday and was running through the weekend, and just yesterday shook down his Worlds cars prior to his flight to Finland, where he will also receive his race bodies. You can follow his progress along with that of all the competitors live on Red RC next week with our coverage beginning in full on Monday.
This past weekend was the Georgia Champion Series Race and TLR posted more excellent results with team drivers Ryan Lopez, Shane Ogden and Cole Ogden. Taking the overall series win in the 1/8th Buggy class with his TLR 8ight 2.0 was Ryan Lopez who chose Losi Red Ultra Digits to last the long one hour main event. Rounding out the podium was Shane Ogden in 2nd and Cole Ogden in 3rd.
Source: TLR [tlracing.com]
Serpent have released this V2 one-piece aluminium motor mount bracket set for their S411 chassis. Precision machined from 7075 T6, it combines the motor mount and middle bracket and compared to the standard two piece setup, this will reduce flex and offer a different feeling of grip.
Source: Serpent [serpent.com]
New from Matrix Racing tires, the Flex rim, has been developed with the help of some of the best drivers in the world. It allows a more event flexibility which greatly improves grip and traction. Tested at the Italian Nationals held last week in Bologna, the wheel proved successful with Lamberto Collari, Alberto Picco and Michele Romagnoli taking 1-2-3 using the new design.
Source: Matrix Tires [matrixtires.it]
The 3rd round of the Spanish 1/8 Onroad Nationals, took place in Vigo, Northwest Spain, last weekend. Drivers were not happy on Friday due to the rain and Saturday was also expected to be a rainy day, however before the afternoon the sun finally appeared to dry the track and let the race begin. Motonica/Merlin driver Oscar Cabezas TQ’d the race, making over 10 TQ’s in a row in the Spanish Championship. The final was hotly disputed. In the very first laps, Oscar realizaed that he didn’t have the proper engine tuning, his more running too rich and so he had to decide on a conservative fuel strategy, meaning he had to refuel twice more than his direct rivals. Despite this he was always in contention. The last lap he in 2nd position, and on this lap Nacho López, who was leading, felt a lack of fuel in his Serpent, and had to make a quick fuel stop to secure the second position and so Oscar could take the win with Nacho 2nd and Víctor González in 3rd.
Source: Merlin [merlinfuel.com]
The first round of the Hong Kong & Macau Selection Race for the 2012 KM World Cup took place last weekend at the ACO Racing track. Qualifying had to be halted after two rounds due to a heavy downpour but not before KM Group Development Dept. Manager & H-K1 designer Hung Cheung Hang was leading away and made the best lap of the qualify round with 23.133 sec and the only 26 lap run, where the second car was the Shepherd team driver Michael with 25 laps and 23.453 sec best time. Third position was the famous Hong Kong driver Samuel Chiu, who had enjoyed more than 30 years of RC racing and is still capable of competing with the yound guys, who running an Xray made 25 laps with 23.537 best time. The fourth place driver was track manager Leung Wing Wah, who was driving a H-K1 and managed to also make a very fast lap time of 23.259 sec but had a little crash in the second qualifier with Samuel which lost him the second place in qualifying. Since all KM Cup race is following the IFMAR race system then those four drivers were straight into the A-main and no need to race the semi-finals.
Continue reading the report here
The 4th annual International Race of Champions (IROC) was held by the MAC-Inzell and Hupo Hönigl put on a show as he carried away the top prize in every class with his DESC410R, DEX410 and DEX210 prototype. The 4WD Short Course class showed once again that the DESC410R is a force to be reckoned with as it dominated in the first 6 positions, and 7 cars in the final. Hupo Honigl had this report on the race:
