The 10th Annual Southwest Indoor Gran Prix was hosted by Competition Hobbies in Tucson, Arizona with this years layout was designed and built by The Dirt Racing’s Joey Christensen. TLR/Novak/Pro-Line Racing driver Trevor Clement TQ’d all 4 rounds of qualifying in Pro4 and took the A-Main win leading from wire to wire.
Source: Pro-Line [prolineracing.com]
After the 10-hour plus flights involved in my previous two trips to the 1:10 Offroad and 1:8 Onroad World Championships, getting to the destination of my fifth consecutive weekend on the road was a far less bum numbing experience. Taking a short flight from Dublin to Berlin, where I hooked up with my partner in crime for the weekend Ricky Acciari, a three hour drive had us at our destination. Hard to believe a full 12-months had passed, I was back in Poznan, Poland, for the opening round of the third season of the Euro Offroad Series. While the majority of my working weekend’s are spent at venues where racers easily out number spectators, thanks to a small in size but big in his vision Polish man, that is not the case when Niko Triandafilidis puts on a race.
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The Axial AX10 Deadbolt 1/10 Electric 4WD RTR packs all of the speed and versatile crawling capabilities as its original AX10 counterpart and adds a custom body with a moulded driver figure, three interchangeable heads and officially licensed Maxxis 2.2 Trepador tyres giving the vehicle a more aggressive and scale look. Power is provided by a 20T brushed motor and AE-2 ESC that is mounted vertically to help shield it from dust and debris. The AX-3 2.4GHz radio system and AS-3 metal gear servo gives you secure and precise control.
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JConcepts introduce an additional compound to their line of successful 1/10th off-road racing tyres. Black compound, produced for the softest feel yet in the JConcepts line of compounds, the Mega Soft is especially useful in cold conditions or when grip is hard to come by on slick or dusty track conditions. The first tyres to receive the black compound treatment are the Bar Codes, Double Dees, Pressure Points and 3Ds.
Source: JConcepts [jconcepts.net]
Team Durango introduce the new DEX408v2 1/8th electric buggy kit. Building on the winning heritage of the DEX408 the v2 version incorporates some subtle refinements in order to take 1/8th buggy racing to the next level. The kit is based on a new hard-anodised 3mm aluminium chassis with composite side pods and it features a redesigned rear end that is based around a new bulkhead assembly and a new geometry shock tower. The rear shock absorbers are now located behind the shock stay for an improved weight distribution and smoother and more efficient shock action. Part of the updated package are also new rear suspension arms for improved bump handling and also new ultra low rear roll-centre setting to complement the redesigned geometry. The new arms allow for two outer hinge pin positions helping to adjust rear traction characteristics to a variety of surfaces.
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The final round of the Czech nitro on-road championships took place 60km away from Brno. The race saw a huge attendance of driver as everyone was keen to score the final championship points. 1/10th qualifying saw Jirka Vyšín taking the TQ honours followed by Michal Abrahamek who later won the final after some great battles with Jirka Vyšín and Michal Jansa. The win handed Michal the overall championship title in front of his Xray team mates Jirka Vyšín and Ondřej Kulhánek. Beside the 200mm title also the 1/8th championship went to Michal making it a perfect double.
Source: Xray [teamxray.com]
Awesomatix will soon release a new version of the A700 4WD touring car called the A700L Evo. The updated kit will make use of the new Floating Front Gearbox design that lets the front gearbox float inside the outer frame during acceleration or deceleration. The gearbox can move left and right and rotate on some angle with the main goal of this setups is to prevent the chassis flex from affecting the shaft transmission as it can happen with conventional layouts. The new design eliminates this problem by using a lightweight carbon tube bar that withstands the transmission’s torque keeping the main chassis free from drivetrain influences. With the new design drivers are also able to run the car without any top deck by simply using the carbon rod. Freddy Südhoff and Viljami Kutvonen already used this setup at the recent Touring Car Euros in Portugal with good results by placing the cars in the A-main. Other benefits of the new configuration is a higher corner speed and less tyre wear especially on asphalt tracks. The new kit will be released at the end of 2013 or beginning of 2014.
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Josh Pain (Yokomo) has taken out the 2WD and 4WD Open buggy classes at the Brikmakers Western Australian State Championships in Perth after a challenging weekend of racing with wildly variable weather. Ray Munday (Associated) flew over from Melbourne for the weekend and finished a close 2nd in 2WD and 4WD as well as taking TQ and 1st in 2WD Short Course. Jarrod Smith took a promising double win in 2WD and 4WD stock. The West Coast club had prepared a very fast, flowing and challenging track for all competitors and the sugared surface had high traction throughout practice. Unseasonal rain on Saturday (2WD day) completely washed away the groove and the surface became very low traction and then very muddy. The 2WD portion had to be deferred until after 4WD on the Sunday, making for a very long day finishing under lights after 8pm. The sun came out again and 4WD qualifying started out very loose but by the finals a groove was forming and provided great racing. AKA Re-Bars were used as the control tyre in buggy and Pro-Line Suburbs in SCT.
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