It was a hectic weekend of racing at the newly-designed Circulo Verde Racetrack in Metro Manila Philippines as the 2014 edition of the Philippine Masters got under way, with 2WD Electric Buggy, 2WD and 4WD Short Course, as well as 1/8 Electric Buggy added to the traditional Masters classes of Nitro Buggy and Truggy. Track held up throughout the day with a perfect weather conditions.
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T.O.P. Racing have developed new high precision 5.3mm 7075-T6 aluminium ball studs for the company’s on-road line of vehicles such as the Photon, Sabre and the mini touring car series. The red anodised alloy ball studs are light yet strong and come as 5mm and 8mm long variant to replace the original steel ball studs while the inner hex allows for swift and easy wrenching.
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Last weekend (OK, week!), the warm up race for the ISTC World Championships took place in Florida. A chance for some of the drivers who will be attending the main event later this year to visit the venue and begin their testing programme. Warm up events are always a controversial topic, so it only seems right for me to throw my thoughts into the mix. Typically, these events attract minimal coverage during the event because, let’s face it, it’s really just a glorified open practice day. Yet there still seemed to be plenty of ‘hype’ and interest about it – I was at another race in the UK that weekend, and lost count of how many times people asked me what news I’d heard from Florida!
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The last race, round number 8, of the Florida Nitro Championship – FORGASS – was held in Arcadia, Florida at the Nuggets Raceway track. The racers had great weather all weekend with lots of sun. All the champions had been determined in Race 7 so this race gave everyone a chance to test, try to go fast and enjoy RC racing at it’s best. Greg Esser, owner of Nuggets, hosted a get together Saturday night at his house that featured Jim Rice’s famous BBQ ribs and a roaring bonfire.
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The 1972 Chevy C10 truck body by JConcepts is a perfect complement to the Scalpel Speed-Run conversion kit for the Slash 4×4. Officially licensed, the C10 boasts a wide-body stance which allows it to tame high-speeds while showing off that all important retro look from the 1970’s. Large fenders allow plenty of clearance for the 2.8″ G-Locs tyres and a shallow bed area gives the truck-like appearance while maintaining that all inclusive speed-line structure. Included with the body, that requires JConcept’s bumper conversion kit, are grill, headlight, taillight and miscellaneous logo decals.
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Following the 747-e conversion kit Serpent now introduce a full kit allowing to build an electric-powered 747 car from scratch. The idea behind the conversion of a nitro-powered sedan into a whisper-silent electric racer is to offer a more solid platform to race on nitro outdoor track where noise emission can be a problem. The kit is based around a carbon fibre chassis with tough front and rear aluminium bulkheads, a specially designed aluminium motor mount and wide track suspension components taken over from the 747. The kit features a laydown servo mount, ball-raced anti-roll bars, carbon fibre battery holders, aluminium shock absorbers, as well as front CVD and rear dogbone driveshafts and it is usable with 200mm touring car bodyshells. In terms of the power unit the car is best powered by a 3S LiPo battery pack in combination with a 540-size 4-pole motor and an 1/8th scale speed controller. The 747-e kit will become available by end of April.
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First round of this year’s Belgian SCT Cup was held at the new urban UndeRing track in Brussels. The track is nicely located under the highway bridge within a public park with an interesting layout slippery surface. This race marked the first ever meeting organised by the club and after all it went pretty smooth and without problems. In the 2WD Pro2 class Philippe Hautecoeur (Associated SC10) ran a pretty weird but effective tyre setup, with astroturf tyres allowing him to run fast and consistent laps in order to take the TQ in front of Julian André (Associated SC10) and Martin Viérin (Associated SC10). In Pro4 Thierry Matthieu (Tekno SCT410) showed a great pace and took TQ in front on Nicolas Evens (TLR Ten-SCTE).
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Tamiyablog have first images of two new Tamiya kits available in the form of the TRF201XMW and the Rock Socker. Starting with the TRF201XMW, the 2WD buggy was introduced last year as a conversion kit for the TRF201 rear motor buggy and it is understood that the XMW will be a full kit rather than just a chassis and gearbox conversion. The XMW will feature a new long wheelbase 3mm aluminium chassis extending the wheelbase to 284mm, the gearbox will still be an all-aluminium affair that allows to use a ball or gear differential and the shock absorber upper caps incorporate a bleeding screw. The kit is set for a late May release.
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