The opening round of the Italian Nitro On-road National Championship was held at the Fiorano track over the weekend. In the 1/8th Expert class, 9-times World Champion, Infinity’s Lamberto Collari took the win in the highly contested main final with Shepherd’s Marco Vanni coming in 2nd and Infinity’s Dario Balesti rounding out the podium in 3rd.
Shepherd have introduced an updated aluminium middle bearing block for the Velox V8 WC and Simon Kurzbuch Edition kits. The updated bearing block sports an extension for the muffler spring mount, moving the respective mounting position away from the top deck, and by doing so, the part eliminates any unwanted influence on the flex characteristics of the radio plate. Made from high-quality 7075-T6 aluminium the middle bearing block is part of a running change for all new kits and also available separately as direct replacement.
Source: Shepherd [team-shepherd.com]
Coming for Atomic’s BZ 2017 micro-size 4WD touring car is a long shock absorber conversion kit. Containing redesigned front and rear carbon fibre shock towers, the set also utilises 1.2mm longer shock bodies and pistons that improve handling on bumpy tracks. Using the shocks furthermore increases overall grip at the expense of a bit of agility. The kit is rounded out by new aluminium spring pre-load nuts.
Source: Atomic [rcatomic.com]
Coming from Radtec are new screw-on touring car weights and 3x7mm damper spacers. Starting with the weights, the items are available as 15g, 10g and 5g variant all of which feature an M3 thread for easy installation on touring and pan car chassis as well as in off-road buggies. The 15g weight measures 28.5x16mm, the 10g weight measures 19.5x16mm and the 5g weight measures 10.3x16mm with the compact dimensions and low height allowing to use the brass pieces even in tight surroundings or stacked for an even greater weight gain. The weights are made from high-quality brass material, they come laser-etched for easy identification and in sets of two.
Race Opt have introduced their new body height adjusters for touring car kits. Making use of a common design, the adjusters allow to easily fine-tune the body height in a 3.5mm to 4mm range with the rear parts sporting a unique design that is meant to improve overall downforce and rear traction as the body rests on enlarged platforms which results in optimised body shell support. Each height adjuster weighs in at about a gram and it is understood that the sets are available separately for the front and the rear.
View the rear body height adjusters here
Ride have announced the signing of Xray’s Jan Ratheisky to their factory team. The German front runner and multi-class specialist has a long list of international race wins under his belt at events such as the ETS, TITC and many more. Jan will be using the full range of Ride products while also helping with Research and Development and he had the following to say:
I’m really happy to join team Ride and excited to be a part of the team to represent the brand and the products. Also, I will be involving product testing for their R&D and will start using all Ride products at the race events I will attend. Looking forward to see everyone at the tracks.
Source: Ride [rc-ride.co.jp]
Round one of this season’s BRCA Touring Car series saw a new revised format with the old 2-day event now condensed in to a 1-day meeting. The established Modified and 13.5 Boosted classes were also bolstered up by a 13.5 Blinky class and a full entry of 110 drivers made for a very competitive round one at the technical West London track. The new format meant less opportunity for mistakes and qualifying heats were very close, in Modified it was Xray’s Olly Jefferies that took three of the four rounds of qualifying to line up ahead of Schumacher’s Elliott Harper and defending champion, Team Associated’s Chris Grainger. In the 13.5 Boosted class Zak Finlay took TQ and looked to be on for another dominant win, Zak took the win in all four rounds of qualifying while in the new Blinky class Danny Booker took TQ.
Continue reading the report here
Tamiya recently released information on their forthcoming all-new M-07 Concept M-chassis kit and now a first rendering of the chassis became available. The car will adapt the chassis frame design introduced with the TA-07 Pro touring car for an easier to work on platform while long front and rear suspension arms improve overall performance. A gear differential in combination with universal driveshafts and ball bearings make for an efficient and durable drivetrain and the car usable with standard and shorty LiPo batteries without any modification. The kit is set for a release at the end of June.
Image: RC Monkey [rcmonkey.jp]
