March 25, 2014

On the Grapevine – Trencin & Scottsdale

On the Grapevine – Trencin & Scottsdale

July of last year I opened my first report from the Euro Touring Series Finale with ‘The greatest R/C venue in the World’, that venue being the Hudy Arena. My first time to visit this track and the Xray factory, which are both part of the one facility, on returning to Slovakia 8-months later for the Euro Offroad Series’ first trip to the Hudy Arena I was still just as impressed by the place. This time round I would be working alongside my good Italian friend Ricky Acciari who would be looking after photography and on the 2 hour drive from Vienna to Trencin there was an air of excitement in the rental car. As it was Ricky’s first visit he was super excited about seeing the place in the flesh but I was even more excited about showing him around as if I actually had in someway had something to do with the creation of the place!! I didn’t but so impressive is the place I was proud our sport could boast such a facility. Asking EOS drivers their thoughts on the place all were nothing but impressed. Although I had taken the Xray factory tour on my previous visit Ricky was a damn good excuse for me to take it again and my appreciation for the work that goes into the production there grew even more as I picked up on things I missed the last time – like that each of the teeth on a XB8 diff crown gear are individually cut in a process that per unit takes 20-minutes!!!

ShredHaving been the subject of one of the early posts by the rather funny & creative mind of the person behind Shredrc, their Twitter/Facebook posts bringing a laugh to dinner time conversation at the end of each day’s racing, I thought being at the Hudy Arena it would be a good opportunity to do a follow up to the the post. The post in question was a photo of me, downloaded from an old Facebook profile picture, alongside a photo of Hudy’s new winter hat with the text ‘RedRC refuses to post news about Hudy’s new winter cap when editor realizes it won’t fit over his jewfro’. Asking Mario Hudy if I could acquire the aforementioned hat for a photo he was more than happy to oblige as was Juraj Hudy to be part of the photo which we tweeted back to Shredrc with the text ‘After calls by jewfro rights activists,@teamHUDY release optional winterhat collaboration with @RedRC editor’. To be honest once I tweeted the photo for a moment I thought shit this could back fire but i got an ‘awesome’ response and a retweet from the mystery man (or woman). At this stage I have lost count how many times I have been asked or had the discussion about ‘who is Shredrc’ and while everyone has their suspects, for most what makes it what it is is the whole mystery around the poster. One running joke is that unless you’ve been the subject of a Shredrc post you haven’t yet made it in the sport!!

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BatlleA driver I used to only meet pretty much once a year and twice in a World Championship year, recently I have been seeing a lot of 1:8 World Champion Robert Batlle. Covering my first ever 1:8 Offroad event in 2008, when I travelled to the Greek holiday island of Crete, I have always had a great level of respect for both Robert and his great rival Renaud Savoya for how they accepted an Offroad virgin and made me fell very welcome over the duration of that event happily answering any questions I had for my reports. I have written about Robert in one of my early columns when I was impressed by how aware he was that more needed to be done to promote the sport and chatting to him at the EOS at the Hudy Arena it turns out he was serious about the topic. With this being a World Championship year for 1:8 Offroad, the prospect of trying to defend your title would for most racers be a big enough task to deal with but Robert has just signed up for the biggest challenge not just of his racing career but his life. Already running his own shop, RBR36.com, he has just signed a lease on a 2100 square metre building in Barcelona city. While shop owned tracks are common place in the US in Europe most tracks are run by clubs and Robert’s ambitious plans are sure to put his degree in management to the test. Admitting himself its a ‘big risk’, he said he wants to try to bring the sport to the people and the location of the building opens up racing to a huge captive audience, Barcelona having a population of over 4-million. Plans for the indoor track, to where he will relocate his shop, include an indoor carpet onroad track, an Offroad track (AstroTurf being investigated as a more durable alternative to commonly used carpet), a drift track along with a cafe. While Barcelona doesn’t have a large racer community Robert’s target is not the existing racer but bringing new blood into the sport and he appears to have given quite some thought to ways he can introduce those who are unaware our sport even exists. Joking with Robert about how he was going to spend the millions he is going to make from running the track it was clear that this is far more about doing something for the sport rather than doing it for the money. In terms of getting up & running he hopes to open for business by July and is already in negations to secure the RBR36 Arena a date on next season Euro Offroad Series calendar.

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Following a quick stop home, from indoor offroad racing in Slovakia it was on to Scottsdale in Arizona for what on paper is to have been the last outdoor running of the Pro-Line Cactus Classic. Our third visit to America’s longest running international offroad event, I use the term ‘on paper’ because hopefully the race which just ran for the 28th time can be kept outdoors. With the current location earmarked for a block of Condos, race organisers HobbyTown SRS are relocating their hobby shop to a new facility in which they will house a new indoor track. Originally 2014 was to see the transition from outdoor to indoor but delays with the completion of the new building meant a last minute, and very popular, switch back to the old outdoor venue that has proved so popular with teams and drivers. While everyone appreciates what HobbyTown SRS are trying to do long term in securing a permanent facility for racers in Arizona, the big draw of the Cactus is that in March when most people have had their dose of indoor racing they can race outside in glorious sunshine without much concern about rain. Without trying to offend any organisers of indoor races, one indoor race is pretty much the same as any other, but a huge part of the Cactus is the special atmosphere created by the Arizona weather, many racers having battled through snowy condition back home to come to Scottsdale to be able to race in shorts & sunglasses so early in the year.

Scottdsale

Talking to a number of drivers after the event on Sunday evening including one of the events’ most successful Ryan Maifield who secured his fourth consecutive win in 4WD buggy, they all really want to keep this ‘classic’ outdoors. Knowing the area better than most because he lives in Arizona, Ryan said there were a number of locations in the area including a large Casino/hotel complex where a temporary track could be built to put on the race. As he highlighted the dirt at the current location is nothing special and through local racers organising to get dirt in for a week wouldn’t be a major problem. Talking to Joern Neumann, as together with Gerd Strenge we watched with some amazement one racer hook up his impressive 40ft camper trailer to the back of his pick-up truck, an indoor Cactus Classic would almost certainly rule him out of future events. We found the hooking up of the trailer interesting because in Europe and in particular Germany you would most likely require a special licence together with warning cars with flashing lights running both ahead of and behind to be allowed on the roads with such a huge rig. Also with the pick-up delivering a slightly thirsty 8 miles to gallon due to the 6-ton weight of the trailer with European fuel prices you would quickly run out of money to spend on your racing!! Anyway back to the race, while Joern was the only high profile international competitor in attendance this year, he said a move indoors would leave European’s at a disadvantage as tyre sauce would come into play and they don’t have enough knowledge to be competitive making the trip pointless. With the outdoor track he said its currently a case of fitting tyres straight out of the packet with his TQ in 4WD showing that current outdoor sugared track makes for a pretty level playing field. I really hope HobbyTown SRS and Pro-Line can combine resources to maintain the history of the Cactus Classic being one of the best 1:10 electric outdoor races in the World.

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Oisin YoyoRegular readers of this column may remember my discovery of the world of Yoyo during last year’s 1:10 Electric Offroad World Championship. On visiting the National Yoyo Museum in Chico I wrote about how the two sports had a lot in common. This interest in yoyo would rub off on my three year old daughter with a request made to Santa Claus for a pink yoyo. Well Santa did good and sourced a pink yoyo made by a company called Yoyo Factory and on Christmas morning I noticed on its packaging box that they where based in Scottsdale. So before I headed off to the Cactus Classic I e-mailed Yoyo Factory to see if I could drop by as a follow up to previous piece on the world of yoyo and straight away I got a reply from company founder Hans Van Dan Elzen not just welcoming me to come check out their HQ but also showing interest in wanting to see what our sport was all about. I suppose the best way to describe Yoyo Factory is that they are somewhat the Team Associated of Yoyo, they are one of the big players in the market with a very strong competition heritage. With Hans dropping over Thursday morning to check out the Cactus and I then followed on over to their place with the ensuing discussion together with multiple US National Yoyo Champion Patrick Mitchell proving really interesting.

As readers will know at this stage I am rather critical of how we present the bigger events within our sport in particular our World Championships and so Hans first impression of what he said really resonated with me. Impressed by all the colour and presence of the teams, he said the first thing to strike him was that the race was taking place at the back of a car park hidden around a corner rather than being somewhere passers by might actually see it and stop for a look. His second observation was the sport was totally dependant on its own support having noted all the banners around the track were those of r/c companies with no outside sponsorship. Comparing it to his own industry he said it was like yoyo competitions being held in hotel function rooms were no new audiences were reached while taking the events outdoor into busy areas like they do with the US National contest opens up the hobby to a whole new audience, them drawn in by the spectacle of the event that was placed before them. Sure we can’t bring every r/c event to the public but I just thought for someone who had never seen r/c racing before to make the observations he did was for me at least really interesting and proof we do need to rethink some of our big events. Getting a tour of their HQ, a very open look into the industry and an insight into the politics of yoyo competitions, thats another area the two sports share a lot in common!!, it was a most interesting visit that I wish more of our industry could have shared.

After a very busy start to the 2014 season, almost 80,000km clocked up sitting in airplanes travelling to cover 9 events, I have to say I looking forward to a two week break from the skies. With Hans hooking me up with some pretty cool yoyos, my throwing skills being of a similar low level to my rc driving skills, I’m off to see if an old dog can in fact learn new tricks!!

Have an opinion on the topics discussed? Leave them in the comments below.

Oisin O’Briain is Red RC’s Event Editor. Traveling the world reporting on some of the biggest races in the sport he regularly chats with top drivers and key industry figures and in his new column ‘On the Grapevine’ he will try to bring readers an insight into the latest talk that is doing the rounds in the paddock along with the odd bit of trivia information that comes to light.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author.



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