Team Associated came out with two new slick looking models for their SC10. They will be available in June 2009. One is the Bully Dog and the other is Ready Lift.
Two new models available:
#7031 SC10 RTR Bully Dog/RC10.COM
#7032 SC10 RTR Ready Lift/RC10.COM
Just got word that Caster Racing USA is jumping into the 1/18th scale brushless market with two new vehicles. One buggy, and one truck. They are 4wd, brushless, and RTR!
We’ll post up any more details as they arrive.
Just a quick heads up to let people know that the Big Squid RC headquarters is moving! We are growing leaps and bounds, and really just ran out of space! The new location should allow for a lot more controlled testing with more space and workshop area. (Once we get the workshop built.. are you reading this Firesprink?)
RC Vehicles are packed, and we are getting ready to roll out! We’ll do our best to keep the news flowing during the transition, but if things seem suddenly quiet, you’ll know why. Our internet connection ’should’ be installed by the weekend.
Go outside and get some bashing time in, and get ready for the news to start flowing again after the weekend!
Brian
We recently mentioned Torco Racing Fuels was starting to sell their new fuel products, when we got the following press release: Caster Racing USA is proud to announce that they are the midwest distributor for Torco Fuels RC fuel. A history lesson for those not familiar with Torco. Torco started out as a lubricant company in the late 1940s. It was actively involved in research and development and became a leader in various forms of motorsports. Famous people who were involved with Torco fuels include Art Malone, Cory Cagle, and “Big Daddy” Don Garlitz from the drag racing world. In the 1970s, Torco helped companies like Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki, and even Harley Davidson in regards to making a better, more durable engine by using special additives for small motor applications. They later invented smokeless two-stroke oil for motocross applications.
The will be offering 20 and 30% mixtures for cars and 15, 20, 25, and 30% mixtures for helicopters and planes.
My name is Nick and I have been involved in R/C cars for 20 years now. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. I’m a die-hard electric off-road fan. From 1989-1999 I raced 1/10 electric off-road with the occasional nitro. From 1999-2003 I attended college and didn’t have time for r/c cars so I could concentrate on school. As soon as I graduated, I was back into racing. I’m not much of a basher. I am more of a racer. My background in engineering drives me to make unique and interesting designs. I designed my “X2” speed run car completely on CAD and then built it using an RC10L4 as the backbone. For the past 3 years have been working on speed run cars. I have 4 cars that I am currently working on to try and hit some insane speeds. The 1/8 brushless off-road class is also something I will be getting into. The brushless revolution has finally come to R/C cars and it’s a welcome change that our community needed. I’ll be posting here at Big Squid bringing you news on the latest r/c products and news from the world of rc speed run cars.
BigSquidRC Race Report- RC Pro Series, Great Lakes Division Round #1.
By Tim Mohr
Race Type- Nitro Off-Road
Venue- Hidden Springs Ranch, Springfield Ohio
Date Held- May 22nd-24th, 2009
The opening round of the RC Pro Series Great Lakes Division was held last weekend in Ohio. As I pulled up to the venue, I found out it was being held on a horse ranch, complete with lots of horses, cows, and working dogs. The Hidden Springs Ranch is just outside of Enon Ohio, near Springfield, and was a beautiful place to put an rc track. The track was nearly as beautiful as the surroundings. It was well designed with lots of jumps, bumps, and even a wagon wheel corner.
Friday was an all day practice session, then Saturday brought on 4 rounds of qualifiers. Carlton Eppes, owner of the RC Pro Series, flew in for the race, and along with the local track personnel, made sure everything ran smoothly for the roughly 100 racers.
Mains were on Sunday, and first up was the Pro Mod Truck (Monster Truck) class. Mike Hempy took the win, with Jake Baker and Rick Sayers rounding out the podium. Yours truly was racing the 8th Scale Electric Buggy class, but because I was the only entry, I also raced with the Pro Mod Truck guys. I was very dissappointed that no other 8th Scale electrics showed up, but I had a blast racing my Castle Creations/MaxAmps/BigSquidRC/Caster Racing Fusion EX-1R with the Pro Mod Truck guys.
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Wow, just wow! I can’t believe the Fan Pictures for the Big Squid RC Prize Contest that have been coming in lately! Not only is this year a record year for entries, but this is the first time we have ever had pictures from FIVE (5) different countries come in, in the SAME WEEK! Of note: Custom Slash from Austria (Europe), Custom Revo from Iraq, the Tamiya TRF801XT from Australia, the Raze from Canada, and the group of Vehicles from Washington, USA!
Seriously, I can’t thank you all enough for your world wide support! You guys ROCK!
Need a new body for yourHPI Racing Savage Flux? If you owned it for more then a few hours and have driven it on the pavement, trust me, you need a new body! The thing has sooo much power, I tore through the first body in a few hours. If you loved that original paint job, HPI has you covered. The Savage Flux HP GT-2 body comes pre-painted with decals applied so you can easily replace the stock body on the Savage Flux. It’s decked out in stealth black paint with red flames with dark grey accents. It’s pre-cut with body mounting holes pre-drilled, just bolt it on your Savage Flux truck and it will look as good as new!
Caster Racing USA is pleased to announce that once again at the farm, Caster Racing takes 1&2 in the A main. Dennis Allison, Team Caster Racing and Team Tekin driver won the A main and TQed for the day. Chris Figueroa, eastern regional manager of Caster Racing USA came in second. Both are running Caster Racing fusion electric buggies. Congratulations guys.
Wow, there hasn’t been crap going on in the industry lately. No big news coming out. No big products, just lots of boring. So how about some “in’s” and “out’s” for this weeks episode?
Anodized blue parts are “out”, and “gun metal” anodizing is “in”. I’m guessing a lot of car manufactures haven’t gotten the memo yet, so there it is, in black and white.
Body clips are also “out”. Look at the new Associated SC10, notice how they’ve eliminated the body clips on the battery strap? Well, body clips suck, they always get lost. They need to replaced by higher tech securing devices, yes, even to hold the bodies on. Remember those pain in the azz E-clips? Remember how many of those you’ve lost over the years as they were shot at near light speed across the room while you attempted to remove/replace them? Well, the industry has gotten smart and found other ways of securing hinge pins, the exact same thing needs to be done to rid the world of the ever disappearing body clip.
Horizon 2.0’s, both buggy and truggy are “in” right now (at least with the racing crowd). Personally, I think the truggy is one of the ugliest trucks to ever grace our industry, and probably makes Pops and Jr wince every time they see one. But as much as I hate to say anything nice about the newer Losi branded products, I’ve got to say they look high tech on track, and make all the rest of the field look like something designed in the late 80’s. They don’t seem to have a lap time advantage, nor reliability advantage, this is strictly a looks thing, but to the racing crowd, their ultra low look is a big turn on. Too bad their look is in the opposite direction of where our sport needs to go (towards realism).
AKA tires are “in”, and in a big way. Finally the dream team has something to show for all their work. They’ve actually put out a product that is a big leap in the right direction. If you’ve never bought a set of AKA tires, you need to do yourself a big favor and do so. They have two huge advantages over the other manufactures tire line-ups. First, the tires last a Long, Long, Long time, saving you a lot of money. Their other big advantage is their foam inserts. You can actually wash your tires, get water inside the tire, and not ruin the insert. Do you know just how many sets tires I have sitting around with decent tread but the foams have long since become dust because I got them wet? Hundreds of dollars worth. The AKA’s seem to have plenty of traction, but save you a lot of money in the long run.
Skins are “in”, in fact, too far “in”. Why is it that the slowest, biggest hacker on the track has a skin on his transmitter, charger, transmitter case, starter box, body, rims, pit light, wing, fuel bottle and laptop? Boy I hope this is a short lived fad, because when every dork/hacker in the pit has “custom” skins on everything that will hold still long enough to apply, it just can’t be cool anymore.
High priced entry fees are “in”, but need to be “out” ASAP. If your local track is charging more than $10 for a normal race, or $30 for a “trophy” race, you had better have the best run facility in the country.
RC magazines going all internet hip is “in” right now (but it’s not working). You can take your typical rc rag, put them on Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, do a “live” show ever 10 minutes, and have a private pay area (LOL), and they still won’t capture the internet market. Why? Because their hands are tied, they have to kiss manufactures a$$es, and internet readers just aren’t going to waste their clicks on boring a$$ chit like that. Give me some honest, no holds barred insider info/opinions from Masi, Skinny, or Bess, and I’d love to read it. Give me what they “have” to put out right now, and it’s just boring.
That’s it for this week. Read your BigSquid daily, support your local tracks, and be sure to support your local hobby shops.
Your Cub Reporter
The New DuraTrax DTX5000 NiMH Stick Packs mean longer run times than ever before! Ideal sport packs for cars, buggies, trucks and boats, the packs are available in 7.2V and 8.4V, flat, stick, and hump configurations. You can choose from Traxxas-compatible plugs, Deans, or other popular plug choices.
Just a little heads up, it looks like Acer Racing now has the Motonica P81 Ceramic ball bearing kit in stock and ready to ship! This is the same kit used by Team Motonica and European Champion Shasa Lackner. Head over to Acer Racing for more info and bearing kits.
Day one of the No Limit RC World Finals went off with a bang! Dennis Anderson gave the opening speech welcoming all the racers. The day started off with early qualifying for the Baja drivers who were also driving No Limit style racing. After the Baja guys were done the rest of the crowd ran their respective classes. The day wrapped up around 8PM. There are all the usual suspects here with one exception Losi. I was told they show up on the final day.
I met up with Dave From BuKu, hung out with Heather from Bluegroove Concepts, spoke with Rick from SPI Racing Wheels, was wowed by Dan and his Kershaw Designs creations, talked with the HPI Racing crew and met a ton of great people. The UK branch of No Limit RC was out here too! There are two more days of racing starting off this morning with the Show and Shine competition.
From the makers of the immensely popular AX10 Scorpion crawler comes a new breed or RTR…or Ready to Crawl. The Axial AX10 Scorpion RTC is slated to start shipping and hitting shelves sometime soon. Features include a high-torque 55t crawling motor, a slipper clutch like the one found in the SCX-10, the tried and true Axial transmission and Axles, full rubber shielded bearings, improved composite plastic links, Pro-Line Hammer tires with memory foams, and true beadlock wheels. The electronics include a high torque metal gear servo, and Axial’s ESC. Axial has also revised their shocks. The new shocks feature a threaded body, 3.5mm Ti-Ni shock shaft, a high clearance spring perch, and some other improvements to prevent leaking and improve the operation. This new rig may be the ticket for people who are looking to compete in rock crawling competitions without spending a ton of money.
A Big Squid RC exclusive! Dave over at Buku showed me the BuKu Big Block Revo pipe. This was just a prototype but Dave expects it to be released to the market soon. Dave is an all around good guy and BuKu pipes rock! Check out http://www.bukupower.com/ for more info!
HPI Blitz
Tactic 2.4Ghz Radio
HPI Savage Flux
Novak HP Pro Brushless Conversion
Tekin RS Pro Redline
Team Overdose Car Stand
RC Lights - LED Combo
Traxxas Slash 4x4
Team Associated - SC18
All Other Reviews HERE!
May 28-30th, 2010
NO LIMIT RC!
June 4-6, 2010
LargeScaleRC.com POWER JAM 2010
Your Event Here!
Midwest RC Drag Racing
