Italian company Bittydesign have announced that top Thai drivers Meen Vejrak and Charlee P. have joined their official international Team. The two drivers will run the new cab forward Force body on their Mugen buggies, the same shell used by new European Champion Robert Batlle at last month’s Euros in Germany.
Source: Bittydesign [bittydesign.net]
Having previously released some teaser shots of their new Mini-Z Optima buggy last month, Kyosho have today released full information on these palm sized buggies as well as introduced a Lazer ZX-5 FS version. Both cars are shaft driven mid motored 4wds and sport independent double wishbone suspension, 4 oil filled shocks, 2 gear diffs and a slipper clutch with the chassis having a 10 degree kick up on the front. A standard Mini-Z motor powers the buggy and the ESC can be adjusted by connecting it to a PC. The car also sports a chassis mounted gyro to make the car easier to drive by helping to correct the steering and throttle. It also comes with the awesome Tiki Tiki mode that allows a preset amount of full power boosts for great battles with your friends. The new Mini-Z buggies will be released in November of this year with or without transmitter.
View more images of the buggies here
Ultimate Racing and ProCircuit have announced that talented Thai driver Charlee P. has joined their team through a deal with Team RC Pro Thailand, exclusive distributor for UR and PCT. Charlee has had a great season since joining the UR&PCT Team, having a good result at the 2011 FEMCA Championships in Malaysia and winning the 3rd round of the Thai nationals. Charlee has this to say:
I’m very glad to be running the high quality products UR & PCT. I’m sure this will help me make it to the next level. I would like to thank Team RC Pro / Ultimate Racing / ProCircuit for all their support and it will be a great year working together.
Source: Ultimate Racing [ultimateracing.es]
Last weekend Ty Tessmann attended the Surf City Classic race in southern California and was entered in invite 2wd, invite 4wd and invite 1/8 electric buggy. The Tessmann team sent us this report. Practice went very well for Ty, we established a good baseline setup for all three cars and felt confident going into qualifying on Saturday. Overnight the track dried out so by Saturday morning the locals determined that slicks would be the best tire to run, though traction came up very quickly throwing a bit of a twist into things. First up for Ty was the 2wd invite class, even though Ty’s car wasn’t quite perfect he qualified a respectable 3rd in the first round, he TQ’d the first round of invite 4wd and TQ’d the first round of invite 1/8 electric. It was obvious though that our setups needed to be changed, the traction was much higher than it had been the day before during practice. Every round we made setup changes to the car to keep him on pace. In 2wd we struggled with setup but Ty managed to qualify 5th overall, in 4wd Ty TQ’d every round putting him on the pole for the main Sunday, 1/8 electric went the same way with Ty tq’ing every round and starting on the pole.
Continue reading the report here
The 2012 Reedy International offroad Race of Champions will once again be held at West Coast R/C Raceway in La Mirada, California on January 26th – 29th. Entries open September 1st at Noon PST on www.RCSignup.com and with 200 spots for the open classes and 30 Invitational drivers, spaces are limited. The event continues its traditional 2wd Open and 4wd Open class along with the Invitational 2wd/4wd format. To allow everyone an opportunity to be a part of this historic event, a lottery drawing will be conducted on October 21st with the first 200 open class entries selected securing a place in the event. Entry fees are due for the selected entries and Invitational drivers by November 20th.
More information can be found here
Last weekend the last two races of the 4-race Finnish National Championship series were held in Vantaa. Ari Heinonen (JQ/JQ) was able to secure the Championship win ahead of Teemu Leino (Xray/LRP) and Jarno Siltanen (Mugen/Ninja), by finishing 2nd in the 3rd race, and winning the final race on Sunday ahead of Teemu Leino. This means that JQ Products have won the championship 2 years in a row now, with Joseph Quagraine winning the championship last year with the pre-production car. JQ couldn’t attend this year’s race due to being in hospital with appendicitis.
Source: JQ [jq-products.com]
JConcepts have announced some updates to their range of 1/10th scale Bar Codes. The Bar Codes V1 front and rear tires are now available in Super soft green compound, while the rear Bar Codes V2 are now also available in orange compound for outdoor groove.
Source: JConcepts [jconcepts.net]
The weekend of the 21st August saw the 2nd round of the Finnish Championships series being held at Kiiminki. Team Durango DEX410 buggies took the overall TQ spot with Janne Aspinen leading the charge closely followed by fellow Team Durango racer Harri Kervola in 2nd. The A-Main was taken by Harri Kervola as he took the opening and 3rd leg to claim the overall victory. Janne Aspinen took the 2nd spot on the podium for a Team Durango 1-2 finish with Henry Salmen in 3rd.
Source: Durango [team-durango.com]
