Red RC » Industry

July 16, 2013

In Control?

Whichever class you focus on, it seems that one of the key talking points throughout the past two years has been tires. In the on-road nitro classes, that discussion has largely been focused on tire additive. For many years, the cars ran without additive being used on the foam rubber the 1/8th and 1/10th cars run on – but in recent years people began to realise the advantage the correct additive and application could provide. This dark art began to put people off racing in these classes, and races tried to find ways to prevent additive being used. But with additive difficult to detect and police, many realised the only way to police its use effectively was to allow it to be used.

Continue reading Oli’s column here

July 4, 2013

On the Grapevine – Kirchberg

My latest travels took me back to Austria, this time for the concluding round of the two race Euro Nitro Series ‘Pilot Series’. I don’t make any apologies for the fact that onroad nitro racing is my favorite class as it was the accidental discovery of a small club of 1:8 Onroad club racing in a car park over 25-years ago that got me and my father, and then my brother, hooked on a sport that myself & my brother now have the pleasure of calling our occupation. It took a number of months of hard saving and ultimately a rather big contribution from my father to get started out with a second-hand Associated RC250 (younger readers may need to Google this high tech chassis!). Unfortunately after only a few races my Super Tigre engine, originally designed for use in an rc airplane, expired when the ends of the crank decided to have a falling out and split. With my short but very enjoyable r/c involvement now in serious jeopardy, the engine failure would actually prove to be a key moment in my professional life as with no money to buy a new one I turned to the idea of sponsorship. Picking up the Golden Pages (an Irish business directory), on my third call I struck gold with full size car battery company Exide agreeing to sponsor me a new engine and from this moment I took a keen interest in the area of sponsorship and public relations as I typed up a report, had photographs developed and posted them (no e-mail back then) to Exide and my growing list of sponsors. The experienced gained from doing this lead me to being asked to help a friend, who raced karts, to write a report for a local paper and from there I ended up working professionally in 1:1 motorsport for over 15-years before going full circle and returning to RC racing when I was asked to do some press work for VRC and Serpent in 2004. The 1:10 200mm European Championships in Madrid in 2007 would the be first event Red RC ever would attend and report on, so you can see why I will always have a close affection for onroad nitro.

Continue reading On the Grapevine here

July 2, 2013

Real World Relevance?

My column this time around was going to be about tires. But, following the events of this weekend’s British Formula 1 Grand Prix, it appears all the best headlines have been snatched up by the newspapers across the world. In thinking about why manufacturers are involved in full size motorsport, I am reminded of a conversation I had last week with one of my racing friends. We were discussing the results of one of the recent RC World Championships and thus who the current World Champion driver and manufacturers were. He then replied “well, it doesn’t really matter to me, because I’m never going to race on that track or with those tires”. That got me thinking – one of the big movements in full size motorsport at present is to enhance the “real world relevance” of the various categories and formulas. Essentially, what is learnt from building faster, more efficient or more aerodynamic race cars filters through into the road cars you and I can buy. Does that also apply to the RC world?

Continue reading Oli’s column here

June 28, 2013

Xray Column – Making the XB4 Part 2

Xray Column - Making the XB4 Part 2

The 67th installment in the Xray column from Xray owner and chief designer Juraj Hudy is now online. In this months column, Juraj gives a further insight into the development of Xray’s first 1/10th electric off-road buggy, the XB4.

As soon as the design was finished we started to machine and mill all aluminum and steel parts. Meanwhile, the 3D files for all plastic parts were sent to an external company that “prints” for us the plastic parts from special polyamide which is not suitable for racing but gives us a perfect understanding of the shapes and fit of all composite parts before they are produced. As soon as all the first XB4 prototypes were produced, I personally assembled all the parts to get a feel for every single detail and also because this is one of my favorite phases of the project where we still get to play.

Read the full column here.

Source: Xray [teamxray.com]

June 26, 2013

Serpent expanding development team

The Serpent development team is expanding with the arrival of Nacho Lopez from Spain. Nacho is an industrial engineer and has done freelance work for Serpent in the past years already. He is involved in design, modeling, engineering, testing and racing, as well as working on manuals, video and other promotional affairs. He will attend many national and international races and remains based in Valencia, Spain where his local onroad rack is Almussafes, just 15 minutes away. Nacho is a top level racer in the 1/8 onroad class in Spain and is 2013 EC-B 1/8 Vice-champion. He was already involved in the testing of the Viper 977 in December last year and is now working now on the F110 Formula one Serpent car, as well as on the 747-e, 977-e and F180-e, which we will see more off in the months to come. As the Serpent offroad line is expanding fast, they are also looking for additional development staff specialized in the offroad market. An engineering education and/or background as well as vast RC racing experience is needed with some preference for being USA based and willing to move the Florida, to coop with Billy Easton, head of offroad design. If you are interested write to info@serpent.com

June 19, 2013

On the Grapevine – Traiskirchen

On the Grapevine - Traiskirchen

Last weekend I traveled to Austria where the Yokomo Euro Touring Series set down at the unique Traiskirchen track for the penultimate round of the world famous championship with a great air of anticipation & excitement as four of the best drivers in the business came to town with a chance of making the title fight go to next month’s season finale at the Hudy Arena in Slovakia. While the series has established itself as a must do event for the world’s best drivers and manufacturers, an incident packed Leg 2 of the A-Main highlighted just how important an ETS win has become to the drivers. The most fraught 5-minutes of racing in the series’ six seasons of existence, the outbreak of raw emotions that ensued following four key incidents, while not a great advert for our sport, showed the intensity at which these guys perform. While the faces of the involved drivers after Leg 2 sent out a clear message that myself & my white notebook would be best off leaving them alone, I think the tension clearly showed these are not just guys ‘playing with toy cars’ but competitive sportsmen who have a passion for what they are doing. Don’t get me wrong I would not like this to become a regular occurrence but like any sport when there is a bit of drama it does create some extra buzz. I am glad to report that come the prize giving the drivers were exchanging hand shakes and admitting that things said in the heat of the moment where just that. Ultimately Marc Rheinard took the win in Austria from Ronald Volker to set the stage for a thrilling show down to the 2012/13 ETS between the two great German rivals.

Continue reading On the Grapevine here

May 9, 2013

Bill Jeric announces departure from Horizon Hobby

Bill Jeric, a director in Horizon Hobby’s surface product development department and former President of the Losi brand, has announced that today will be his last day working at Horizon Hobby. Informing us a few days ago and making a statement on his Facebook page today, the decision to leave was not his choice and seems to be part of a shake up at the large US company following the departure a few months ago of another high profile colleague Shawn Ireland who was Vice President of Surface Marketing at Horizon after less than a year in the position. Bill posted the following statement on his FB page.

As of today I am no longer an employee of Horizon Hobby. Although not my choice to leave, I have nothing but gratitude and appreciation for the 12+ years I spent there. I have confidence in what the future holds for me and look forward to the next career steps in an industry that I truly love. Stay tuned!!

May 2, 2013

Video – Tales of the Dirt

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CypSm9QbJ8c[/youtube]

Shot during this year’s Dirt Nitro Challenge, Tales of the Dirt is a look into the life of Joey Christensen brought to you by Pro-Line Racing. Produced by Marcus Gelhard of Zebraworkz the short film is an interesting insight into the RC industry’s foremost track builder and his signature event.