February 29, 2024

Volker top seed at TITC

Ronald Volker is the top seed going into qualifying at the TITC, the Mugen Seiki driver fastest over 3-laps from defending Champion Bruno Coelho.  With just a single round of seeding practice determining the heats for the four rounds of qualifying, most drivers completed the minimum laps possible needed to secure a place in the top while also saving tyres.  Running in the second fastest practice heat due to his B-Final appearance at last year’s event, Volker took two goes at setting a time.  It was his second 3-consecutive laps that counted with him fastest by 16/100th of a second over Coelho, the Xray driver making just one attempt to post a time.  One of the few drivers to run the entire 5-minutes along with team-mate Akio Sobue, Axon’s Hayato Ishioka set the third fastest time with 2-time TITC winner Sobue ending up 7th.  Infinity’s Naoto Matsukura posted the fourth fastest time ahead of the Awesomatix pairing of Lucas Urbain and Marc Rheinard.

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February 29, 2024

Bruno Coelho – ‘Completely different race to any other. It’s one of the best in the World’

Red RC attended its first TITC in 2017.  It was always a bucket list event but it was the meaning of the win on the Sunday that really endorsed for us that this is one of the greatest touring car races. The emotion of the win was powerful and that winner was Bruno Coelho who gave us the headline for our final report that read, ‘Coelho takes TITC with ‘hardest win’ of career’.  Seven years on and catching up with Bruno before he took his flight to the Thai capital to defend his title, the World Champion still rates the race as ‘one of the best in the World’ adding it is ‘a completely different race to any other’.  Chasing a record equaling fourth win that would put him on par with TITC Master Atsushi Hara, a driver widely acknowledged for putting the race on the world stage, as we will find out Bruno isn’t driven by records but very much being the best on the day.  He knows this is one race where ever detail is critical be successful at ‘one of the most challenging races’ in the world while on the flip side offers ‘one of the best race atmosphere’ you can experience.

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February 29, 2024

Xray X4 UAM Anti-Roll Bars

New from Xray for its X4 Electric Touring Car is their UAM (Under arm mounting) front and rear anti-roll bars designed to work with the lower suspension arms.  Mounted under suspension arms for ultra-low CG, the anti-roll bar system is mounted to the bulkheads via bearings from outside for extra-smooth movement and for quick & easy changes and adjustment.  The roll bar turns in ball-bearings for maximum precision and free movement and the height is adjustable via a screw making adjustments quick & easy.  Each anti-roll bar has laser-engraved stripes (corresponding to bar thickness) for easy identification.

Source: Xray [teamxray.com]


February 28, 2024

MonTech SC-63 1:10 190mm body

Mon-Tech Racing has added another Hyper Car LMH series based body to its range with the release of the SC-63.  A 1:10 190mm body, the  SC-63 faithfully replicates in every detail the beautiful racing car of the well-known Bolognese brand.  In order to produce this model, rich in details and with a breathtaking front end, a highly mechanically processed mold was designed and created by the Italian body shell producer.  The kit includes all the stickers, the masking along with the fixing screws for the wing.

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February 27, 2024

Xray XB2 Alu Front Roll-Center Holder

Xray has released an Aluminium Front Roll-Center Holder for use with its Bridge Upper Deck  on its XB2 1:10 2WD Buggy.  Also fitting the XT2 Stadium Truck,  it increases strength, reliability and makes the handling more precise and more forgiving.  The super-strong aluminium holder features two-roll centre positions and is CNC-machined from high-quality Swiss 7075 T6 aluminium.  For this part, M3x16 screws must be used instead of the kit’s M3x14 screws.

Source: Xray [teamxray.com]


February 27, 2024

Lucas Urbain – ‘Hiring Marc pi$$€d me off’

While racers are not known for always agreeing, one thing all the professional team drivers do agree on is that the TITC is the most difficult race in the world!  After the World Championships, this annual Bangkok based race has become the most significant electric touring car title drivers can secure.  Racing at the TITC you are putting yourself on a World class stage with the best in the business with the additional unique element of every driver having had the opportunity to complete days of pre race practice, something that eats into your excuses when the race doesn’t go your way.  So for these reasons it might not be the first race of choice at which to make your international race debut as the newest member of the full time professional driver ranks but that is exactly what Lucas Urbain will do later this week.  At the age of 34, Urbain will tell you himself that the opportunity to become a full time professional racer ‘came out of the blue’ adding ‘the idea was never a topic we talked about’.  An announcement on February 2nd however from Awesomatix changed all that and now this popular French racer switches from a decade of working in signalling with the French railway network to living every young RC racers dream of travelling the world racing and getting paid for the privilege.  Lucas’ journey to becoming a ‘Pro’ is an interesting one that started in 2000 when a certain Adrien Bertin came to his home town of Longwy and gave a demo with a 1:8 Nitro Onroad car.  That was the moment Lucas was ‘blown away’ by radio controlled cars and with his parents getting him his first RC car from a local hobby shop for Christmas that year, the seed was sown for his 24-year long road to obtaining the job description of Pro RC Racer.

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February 26, 2024

Mikimodel BD Body Stopper V2

Mikimodel, the Yokomo distributor for Italy, has announced a second version of its Body Stopper for all Yokomo Touring Car models.  In the world of increasingly extreme and increasingly difficult competition, aerodynamics plays an ever more important role. This is why the original Body Stopper was created to give the maximum possible stability to the bodywork, to prevent them from deforming in the front area which is the most subject to deformations at both high and low speeds.  Now the Body Stopper V2 not only has the classic upper screw (M3x6 or M3x8 recommended) which is used to come into perfect contact with the bodywork, but also adjustable anchoring holes to best adapt to all models on the market.

Source: Mikimodel [mikimodel.net]


February 26, 2024

MXLR A12 Fan Holder & Damper Check Adapter

MXLR has released a new Fan Holder and a Damper Check Adapter for the Awesomatix A12 1:12 platform.  The fan holder is the final version of the prototype which Max Mächler used to win the 2023 1:12 SPEC World Champion Title.  It is not easy to fit such a big and strong fan into the A12 but using smaller than 30mm wasn’t an option because of the sacrifice in performance.  At the Worlds Mächler used a heavily modified Fan to clear with the body shell.  After several more tests and versions MXLR finally found a suitable way which doesn’t require as much modification, if any at all.  They moved the Fan more forward and mounted it way steeper on the holder.  The key to still get a great air flow were the small side dams.  The results of using the Fan Holder with a strong 30mm Fan at 6,0V is a much lower motor temperature.  Depending on the track layout and grip conditions, it reduces the temperature by 12-18 degree Celsius.  This leads to the option of using more timing at the motor and/or longer rollout, which means more speed.  Weighing only 2,6g (without screws) the Fan Holder is 3D printed with relatively durable material which is able to absorb impacts to a certain degree.

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