Toy Fair 2011 – Short Course round-up
Having covered the toy fair in depth for Red RC we decided to bring together all the short course related releases for an easy overview, beginning with Durango. On display at their German distributors stand, the Durango DESC410R was making its public debut. Having written in depth about the car here, its basically a longer and wider version of the successful DEX410, with the chassis is made from a sandwich of materials that creates a strong and very stiff backbone for the car, something that could not have been achieved with the aluminium side skirts used on the 1/10th buggy.
Taking the spotlight on the Associated stand was the recently announced SC10 4×4 4-wheel drive truck. It features a composite modular chassis design with sealed receiver box and removable ESC tray, combined with 13mm big bore shocks, a decoupled slipper clutch and a hybrid belt/gear drive system. Apart from this completely new product the rest of the stand showed off their increasing range of SC trucks including the SC8e, SC10 2wd and the mini SC18, showing that this is an important market segment for AE.
Venom’s short course truck, the Gambler, is now also available as a Pro race roller version, while the car we saw on display was fitted with quite a number of new optional parts. On the bottom of the car there is a rear chassis brace that not only protects the rear underside of the chassis but also helps dissipate heat and give additional weight to the rear of the car which could be needed if the car is set in its mid motor configuration. Aluminium wishbones, front C-hub assembly and rear upright are also all available as is the new motor bracket and carbon fan mounting plate.
Losi also had their entire range of Short Course trucks on display at the Horizon Hobbies stand including the XXX-SCT, their range of Mini SCTs and the recently announced Ten SCTE 4wd short course truck. Based on their 810 buggy it shares a lot of the same parts but of course is adapted to the short course tire/wheel setup and scale body.
Other SC specific items included the new LRP X12L 550 type short course motor, Kyosho were displaying their latest Ultima SC-R race truck, while HPI Racing had their impressive looking Baja 5SC, an absolute monster of a car.
View the full coverage separated by manufacturer, along with lots of other photos, here.
