Red RC

July 5, 2013

Sami Munck wins Finnish nitro touring nats Rd3

Sami Munck wins Finnish nitro touring nats Rd3 and Teemu Saarinen secures Nationals series win

The PKSRCA club hosted the third round of the Finnish nitro on-road champs in Helsinki. Drivers were greeted with overcast weather on Saturday morning and everybody was hoping for a dry day, but just a few minutes before the controlled practice skies opened and there was heavy rain for some hours. This meant no practice for the drivers and the first two rounds of qualifying were a waiting game to see if the weather would improve. Thanks to the organising club whose volunteers did an excellent job on drying the track before Q3 drivers started to get some results on the board on damp conditions. In Q4 on an almost dry track Teemu Saarinen was able to secure TQ in front of local driver Jari Valkola.

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July 5, 2013

Manuel Henriet wins at Belgian nationals Rd4

For the fourth race of the season the Belgian electric touring car racers travelled to the track of MRG next to the famous karting track of Genk. In the EFRA class it was Manuel Henriet (Awesomatix) who took the TQ honours. Olivier Bultynck was second and last year’s winner Nick Joosens took the third place on the grid. Come the first A final Manuel took the lead followed by Olivier and Nick. Manuel was driving on the edge and Olivier was trying hard to find a gap to overtake. Every spectator was enjoying this fair fight between the two drivers. It was a fight over the full five minutes and they never touched each other. At the end Manuel took the win just in front of Olivier and Nick.

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July 5, 2013

Kyosho Mini-Z, Scorpion XXL & RB6 option parts

Kyosho Mini-Z, Scorpion & RB6 option parts

Kyosho Germany announce the release of several new option parts for the Mini-Z line of cars and buggies, the Scorpion XXL and the RB6 buggy. Starting with the Mini-Z parts, new is the Audi R8 LMS body set for the AWD line of cars. The limited edition item comes chrome plated and is specially made to celebrate Kyosho’s 50th anniversary. It fits all Mini-Z AWD cars. Made for the Mini-Z MB-010 buggies is an anti-roll bar set. Designed for the use on the front and the rear of the vehicle the option part reduces the chassis roll on high grip surfaces in order to improve corner speed and handling. Included are three pairs of front and rear anti-roll bars and mounting hardware.

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July 5, 2013

Diggity Designs DC4 conversion kit

The Diggity Designs DC4 conversion kit for Team Associated’s ‘near vintage’ TC4 optimises the use of LiPo batteries and brushless motors by relocating and centralising the battery and electronics closely to the centreline. A new suspension geometry via redesigned shock towers and a lower centre of gravity helps to improve traction and handling as does the tweak free floating servo mount. Narrower and thinner chassis and top plate provides maximum traction on low traction conditions as well as maintaining stability under high traction conditions. The kit targets VTA and USGT racers with the car also being useable in today’s sedan mod and stock classes. Hard and soft chassis and top plates are available as tuning options. The kits is limited to 50 pieces with labelled chassis and kit boxes.

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July 4, 2013

Simon Balk wins Mid-German regionals Rd2

The second round of the Mid-German nitro on-road regionals took place in Ettlingen. The event was planned as a two day affair, but unfortunately there was heavy rain on Saturday and no driver had a chance to complete even one lap in dry conditions, but come Sunday the rain stopped and the sun came out. Qualifications started right after one round of practice and it was Simon Balk who took TQ followed by Hartmut Rose, Holger Kraft and Dennis Sting who rounded up the all-Xray top 4. The low traction made for high tyre wear and everyone in the main final was unsure about the right tyre strategy. Simon Balk opted for a change around the 15 minutes mark but the remainder of the field tried to bring home the cars on one set of tyres. After the start, Simon was able to pull away quickly and build a big gap on the rest of the field, which was necessary for his strategy. After a fast tyre change, Simon had a comfortable lead in front of Hartmut Rose and Dennis Sting, who was fighting with Michael Holla directly behind him. At the last corner of the race, a wheel nut came off and sadly Dennis lost his third position handing Michael Holla the remaining podium spot.

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July 4, 2013

SRC 1/8th on-road option parts

Sprint RC from Italy introduce new option parts for the Serpent S977 and several other nitro on-road cars. First up is the C08 gear box set for the S977 that allows the use of smaller 0.8 module gears from Serpent 1/10th kits. Included in the set, that also moves the engine 1.5mm further back, is a new middle layshaft, gear and one-way housings, a 3-bearing clutch housing, clutch shoes and 17/22T pinions. The set is rounded out by updated engines mounts and will make for better acceleration and bottom to mid-range response. Also new are carbon fibre quick change levers for the front and rear axles. They are made from 4mm carbon material and weight only 3g in total, minimising vibrations and improving tyre wear over conventional metal levers. Last but not least come 20 micron hard coated drive shafts. They offer a super low weight and best possible durability and are usable on virtually every 1/8th on-road car.

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July 4, 2013

SkyRC Cheetah 60A motor & ESC combo

SkyRC introduce the Cheetah 60A sensored brushless motor and speed controller combo set. Based around a 60A speedo the set targets cost oriented 1/10th and 1/12th scale stock racers. The controller is useable with 2S to 3S LiPo batter packs, offers a 6V/3A BEC system, optional fan unit, direct solder tabs, an integrated on/off switch and easy programming via the included programming card that allows the adjustment of parameters such as cut-off voltage, brake and punch settings. Part of the set is also a rebuildable sensored brushless motor with 12.5mm rotor, vented can design and pre-soldered connector tubes. The combo set is available with your choice of a 8.5T or 10.5T to 21.5T stock motor.

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July 4, 2013

On the Grapevine – Kirchberg

My latest travels took me back to Austria, this time for the concluding round of the two race Euro Nitro Series ‘Pilot Series’. I don’t make any apologies for the fact that onroad nitro racing is my favorite class as it was the accidental discovery of a small club of 1:8 Onroad club racing in a car park over 25-years ago that got me and my father, and then my brother, hooked on a sport that myself & my brother now have the pleasure of calling our occupation. It took a number of months of hard saving and ultimately a rather big contribution from my father to get started out with a second-hand Associated RC250 (younger readers may need to Google this high tech chassis!). Unfortunately after only a few races my Super Tigre engine, originally designed for use in an rc airplane, expired when the ends of the crank decided to have a falling out and split. With my short but very enjoyable r/c involvement now in serious jeopardy, the engine failure would actually prove to be a key moment in my professional life as with no money to buy a new one I turned to the idea of sponsorship. Picking up the Golden Pages (an Irish business directory), on my third call I struck gold with full size car battery company Exide agreeing to sponsor me a new engine and from this moment I took a keen interest in the area of sponsorship and public relations as I typed up a report, had photographs developed and posted them (no e-mail back then) to Exide and my growing list of sponsors. The experienced gained from doing this lead me to being asked to help a friend, who raced karts, to write a report for a local paper and from there I ended up working professionally in 1:1 motorsport for over 15-years before going full circle and returning to RC racing when I was asked to do some press work for VRC and Serpent in 2004. The 1:10 200mm European Championships in Madrid in 2007 would the be first event Red RC ever would attend and report on, so you can see why I will always have a close affection for onroad nitro.

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