Beta have announced that both Luis Rodrigo and Ignacio Candel will be joining their European Team for 2013. Both of these drivers have continually performed excellently, both in their home markets of Portugal and Spain, and at International races. After testing Beta tyres, they both were convinced that to push them to the next level they had to choose Beta for 2013.
View the Ignacio Candel image here
Cody King took the win at Revelation Raceway’s Winter Nationals held last Saturday. TLR’s Adam Drake TQ’ed both rounds of buggy qualifying running the new 8ight 3.0. Starting on P1 Adam Drake led the first lap but suffered a disastrous lap 2 & 3 as he dropped to 12th position, 13 seconds back from leader Cody King. Drake pushed hard and would climb back to 2nd but Cody ran clean laps and took the win by 8 seconds over Drake and Mike Truhe, who was running a new TOP / Novarossi engine package, finished third. Jeremy Kortz would end up retiring with six and half minutes left on the 30 min clock. Pro-Line locked down the podium with all three drivers running Holeshots. Adam Drake took the win in the truck class at the Winter Nationals. Drake TQ’ed both rounds of qualifying in the track class and lead the 20 minute final from start to finish. Tyler Brown finished third also running a TLR 8ight T 2.0. Adam used Pro-Line M4 Holeshots to take the victory.
Another re-signing from Xray who have announced that one of the world’s best on-road drivers and long time Xray team driver, multiple US champion in various classes, Paul Lemieux has re-signed to stay with the team for 2013. Paul will will also get into the off-road racing scene to race with the new XB4. In 2013 Paul race all regional, national and international races with Xray T4, NT1, X12, RX8 and XB4 and the busy calendar will include all US electric and nitro on-road nationals, Snowbirds and major off-road races. Paul had this to say:
I am excited about the continued partnership between myself and the Team Xray. I am especially excited to continue on with all of individuals that make up the Xray family as i know it. To me the “work hard but have fun” atmosphere which we have achieved at events around the globe has been the driving force in what keeps me racing. 2012 was possibly the best year of racing that I have had to date, the achievements of winning Snowbirds, 3 national titles in 3 classes and winning the Worlds warm-up definitely have given me confidence that all my sponsors commitment to racing and quality is second to none.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
Multiple European Champion Hupo Honigl has signed a multi year deal to run for Dualsky. The Austrian Durango driver will use the company’s range of speedos and motors to power his buggies and 1/12th scale vehicles. Expect to see Hupo running the new electronics at all major events this year including the Worlds, Euros, EOS and other selected events. He had this to say about the deal:
During the winter I did a lot of private tests with different electronics and very fast it became clear that Dualsky performed the best. The motor and speedo have amazing power but also amazingly smooth feel, while the brakes are just perfect. I would like to say thank you to Chasel from Dualsky for giving me the opportunity to run for this new company. Also I’m happy that Roega Technik will distribute their Track & Field products in Germany and Hoeco HandelsGesmbH in Austria.
Source: Dualsky [dualsky.com]
Yokomo have announced that they have inked a deal with current IFMAR 1/10th 200mm World Champion Meen Vejrak to race their onroad and offroad electric cars. The Thai driver, who also won last year’s TITC race, will join the current factory team of Ronald Volker, Yannic Prumper and Naoto Matsukura and will make his international onroad debut at the TITC in a few weeks. The 27 year old will also make his ETS debut the week after the TITC, traveling to Gran Canaria for the season’s 3rd stop at the beginning of March.
Click here to see what Meen had to say about the deal
Along with releasing their new Virtus Power .21 on road engine, Novarossi have also introduced two new offroad .21 engines, the Keep-Off .21-4 and the Keep-Off .21-7XL. Similar to the Keep-On engine released last year the Keep-Off motors sport the patented new main ball bearing which reduces rotating inertia and increases the engines scavenging. The new bearing features a narrower centre bearing ring than the outer ring, the result of which is increased throttle response and a higher top speed. Both motors, a 4-port and a 7-port comes with ceramic/steel ball bearings but are also available with all ceramic bearings.
Xray have announced that multiple-Czech champion and European championship finalist Martin Bayer will continue to race with Xray in 2013. Martin has been an important member of the R&D team participating in the development and testing of the XB9 & XB4. Martin had this to say:
2012 was my first year with Team Xray. I have expected that after changing a team it will be like to start from beginning and it will be difficult but at the end it was one of my most successful years. Juraj is extremely dedicated and passionate about his work and inspires everyone in the team to work hard and harder and to reach at least 120%. We have been as team working closely together which is very positive for me and we have made big improvements on the car and still many to come. Working with the Xray Factory team is a pleasure and I am happy to re-sign for 2013. I hope our result will be even better and I will do all for it.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
Specially designed for the DEX410 range of vehicles, the new Durango DJoint drive shaft system is a product with one valuable racing commodity in mind, efficiency. The DJoint drive shafts feature a double joint in the coupling of each shaft, meaning that each joint works at half the articulation of the conventional drive shaft, increasing the efficiency in which the drive shaft transmits the drive to the front and rear gearboxes. The resulting increase in drive shaft efficiency will in turn directly translate to more forward momentum down at the wheels. Precision machined from strong and durable material, the DJoint drive shaft system will perform under all racing conditions. The DJoint centre drive shaft set includes all the parts required to build a front and rear centre drive shaft for your DEX410 model.
Source: Durango [team-durango.com]
