Continuing on with our slow news day we have some more not very exciting but still rather essential accessories that, in this case, are great for electric racers. From Much More come these clear holders, which are sold in a pack of 5, and do exactly what they are meant to do, hold your armatures safe and secure so you can put them away in your tool box.
Source: Much More [muchmore.co.kr]
Its a slow news day when we start writing about foam bumpers but unfortnately that day has come so here it is. Japanese company Velocity Racing have released these high density foam bumpers for the Hot Bodies Cyclone and excitingly enough they come in 2 different colours, are super lightweight, and sport such nifty features as removable foam cutouts to allow you to customise how the bumper should compress under impact.
Source: Extreme [upp.so-net.ne.jp/EXTREME]
The RC Pro Series is going global, following their first move to the Caribbean, the top racing series in the US is now expanding to South Africa with the announcement that RC Pro South Africa will be running their own National Series for Nitro Offroad, similar to the series in the US. Members of RC Pro SA will be full RC Pro members and be eligible to compete in any RC Pro event and together the Series organisers are working on plans for a World Finals in the future.
The first RC Pro South Africa event is this coming weekend hosted by Avion RCX in Kempton Park. The board of directors for RC Pro South Africa are working feverishly to put everything together for a live broadcast of this event. We will keep everyone informed of start times etc as soon as they have everything setup.
You can view the series flyer here and read more about it here.
JP Racing, the French engine tuning specialists, have released their new .21 circuit engine, the FX21 R9.S. Based on the current series of 9 port Novarossi engines this motor sports ceramic bearings, a 14.5mm crankshaft and a 8.5mm venturi plus a number of JP touches such as some hand tuning and a dark coated crankcase. JP have also released a slightly less high-end engine called the FX21 R7.S which has a 7 + 2 liner configuration and apart from the fact that it doesnt have ceramic bearings it the same as the R9.S.
Source: JP Racing [jpracing.com]
Former Snowbirds winner and top US electric racer Jeff Cuffs has signed to Serpent Motorsport to race their new electric touring car. According to the mention on RC Tech, Jeff has already had his first race with the as yet unreleased, and unnamed, Serpent electric touring car at last weekends Carpet Wars in the US and apart from that, little else is known about the deal pending an official release from the Dutch manufacturer. The Trinity backed driver has previously raced for Corally and Xray, before hooking up with Serpent.
Image: Trinity [teamtrinity.com]
Juho Levanen has continued on from where he left off by winning the 3rd round of the Fintrack series held last weekend in Mäntsälä, a small town close to Helsinki in the southern part of Finland. With Teemu Leino away at the Silver State NC, Levanen was left to take an easy TQ and win in Touring Mod for Team Associated ahead of Xray racer Pekka Koivula who finished 2nd, with another Associated racer Christer Andersson in 3rd. The event also hosted 1/12th, Touring Stock and Prostock that were won by Vesa Yli, Otto Laurila and Janne Valtanen respectively.
You can read a full report on the event here and here.
Source: RC Zone [rczone.net] Image: Xray [teamxray.com]
To continue our long running look into the partnership breakdown between Kyosho and Sirio, we today heard a rumour, that backed up something we heard a while back, that multiple Belgian Champion and Euros podium finisher Ilia van Gastel has not re-signed to use Sirio engines. Van Gastel is of course a factory sponsored Kyosho racer and his abandoning Sirio as an engine partner is in keeping with the other Kyosho factory racers Collari, Bertin, Cyrul and Shimo who have all abandoned Sirio as their engine supplier in recent months.
So where does Van Gastel go from here? Should he choose Novarossi like 7 time World Champion Collari or choose the Team Orion CRF like Cyrul and Bertin or perhaps go for some other manufacturer? Who knows, but we’re sure to find out soon, as the new outdoor season is about to start up.
UPDATE: According to a number of e-mails from other top European racers that i have received and also the current entry list (PDF) from the 1/8th scale EFRA GP that will be held at the end of April, Ilia will race Team Orion CRF engines.
Image: JE Racing [jeracing.eu]
Xray have a report on their site from the 3rd Annual March Meltdown that took place recently at Action Hobbies Kingsville, outside Windsor, Ontario in Canada. Attracting racers from Ontario and Michigan, the high speed and flowing turns of the track showed that a premium would be placed on precision and consistency and to that extent the Xray touring car won all classes at the event with Andy Vetor taking the wins in both Stock and 19T while in Modified Aaron Straus took the win.
Read the full report with results here.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
