By popular demand AKA have announced the release of our pre-mounted tires with yellow wheels in both Buggy and Truggy sizes. Yellow pre-mounts are assembled with the same attention to detail and quality that make current AKA pre-mounts some of the best in the industry.  All the company’s current tread patterns and compounds are now available on yellow wheels.

Source: AKA [raceaka.com]

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AKA Yellow Pre-Mount tires

The 3rd round of the R/C Pro West division was hosted by Hemet R/C Park last Saturday. It was Adam Drake who put his Novarossi powered Losi 8ight 2.0 on the pole in the Pro Buggy class followed by Losi / Orion’s Mike Truhe. Adam and Mike used Losi’s soon to be released Green compound Eclipse on the rear and XBT’s on the front. The final was a great battle between Drake and Truhe, with both drivers swapping the lead many times, but it was Drake who was able to come out on top. Team Associated’s Ryan Cavalieri took 3rd, two laps down on the winner.

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Drake wins Buggy class at R/C Pro West Rd3

The 6th and final round of the Dutch 1/10th scale Nationals took place at the weekend at the RACO track in Utrecht with early fog clearing to become a clear dry day. With the NK Championship still up for grabs it would a tough battle between front runners Pedro Rombouts and Maarten van Lierop with Maarten needing to win, while Pedro was in 3rd or lower, while Pedro just needed to finish close to Maarten. In qualifying it was another Xray driver Daan Jacobs that took the pole spot ahead of van Lierop, with Rombouts and Ricardo van Dam rounding out the top 4. Qualifying for the Nomac class went the way of Michael Behnert, while in the 1/8th Promo class it was Luigi Pili that took the top spot. The 30 minute NK final saw a race long battle between the championship contenders, as pole man Jacobs hit engine problems at the start and was swallowed by the pack. Following a rear tire stop from Maarten there was only a few seconds separating the top two with Rombouts coming home in first, with van Lierop 2nd and Bas Geurds 3rd. This result was enough for Rombouts to claim his first National title. The Nomac class was won by Davy Geraets with pole man Michael Behnert 2 laps back in 2nd, while Marc Meijer took 3rd. In the 1/8th Promo class Luigi Pili continued his domination of the class by winning ahead of Paul Conradi, with Alfred van Dijk taking 3rd.

Full results can be found here.

Thanks to Ruben D’arco for the report.

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Rombouts is Dutch Champion following Rd6 win

Now in its 3rd season the Xenon Racing backed Euro Touring Series is back in force, with a 6 race calendar that sees the championship run all across Europe. The brainchild of Scotty Ernst and Uwe Rheinard the ETS will retain its popular Modified and Pro Stock racing classes and will add a 3rd class for Hobby racers as a great way to participate at a large international event in a cost effective manner. The season will kick off next month (October 16th to 18th) in Kastellaun Germany, and will travel once more to Budapest, Hungary for round 2, before making its debut in the Czech Republic for round 3. The series has its final indoor race of the season in Warsaw, Poland for round 4, before going outdoor, returning the MACH track in the Netherlands for round 5 before having its traditional season finale in Andernach, Germany next summer. Scotty Ernst will be present at all rounds, bringing excitement and international flair while Red RC will be once again reporting live from each race. Entry for all rounds of the championship are now open and you can find all the links as well as further information on the official Euro Touring Series website here.

Entry for round 1 can be placed here.

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2009/10 Euro Touring Series Season

Team Durango’s DEX410 is possibly the most anticipated electric 4WD buggy of all times! We think this is not a exaggeration as the handmade prototypes (designed and build by German racer Gerd Strenge) are around for many years now but only made it into the hands of some selected team drivers like Jörn Neumann, Billy Easton, Atsushi Hara, Craig Drescher or Mark Pavidis to name just a few. Now ‘The Durango’ is available for everyone thanks to Gerd Strenge and his designer Michael Vollmer who made the impossible possible and took the challenge to create ‘a Durango’ for the mass market. We got our hands on one of the very first kits of this exciting new buggy.

Introduction
The reason why the Durango prototypes have been so legendary is the fact that they are so different from everything that has seen the light of the day before. The chassis was super slim, the body looked more of a fish than a buggy and last but not least the cars always proved to be super-fast! This was proven by Jörn Neumann (European Champion 2004 with the Durango) on more than one occasions. Being an ultra-rare buggy also added to the ‘must have’ factor. From the beginning Gerd was asked more than once to make cars for solvent buyers … Now, this is something that has changed as now you can have a Team Durango ride for only a couple of hundred (not thousand!) US Dollars, British Pounds or Euros.  Now you may wonder where that strange sounding name comes from. We did too so here’s the conclusion: Durango Electric Xross (like ‘off-road’) 4WD 1/10 scale.

Front
The front of the DEX410 sports a quite unique set-up for an 1/10 scale electric buggy. While most of the other belt and shaft driven 4WD buggies come with split two piece differential cases the Durango has two vertical bulkheads screwed down to the chassis plate. Now a smaller vertically split differential case is inserted from the front secured by only four screws. This system is seen on some 1/8 scale buggies and truggies and makes maintaining and tuning the gear differentials a breeze. The set-up may look more complicated compared to the ‘usual’ design but has loads of advantages – the quick access is only one of them.

Inside the differential case another renunciation from the average 1/10 electric competition buggy design can be seen: the geared differentials. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, geared differentials on a full breed racing buggy. Normally seen on entry level buggies the geared differentials not only withstand the rigours of LiPo batteries and high-reving brushless motors better than ball diffs but also offer maximum, non-slipping traction.

The suspension duties are taken car of a pair of very sturdy plastic composite wishbones. They are held in place by alloy suspension holders with pivot-balls in which the suspension pins are located. At the moment only one geometry is offered but given the design of the parts we reckon optional suspension brackets with different kick-up and/or toe rates will follow. The alloy caster blocks with laser-etched Team Durango logo are not only a piece of art but also offer a lot of set-up potential. The height of the steering spindles is changeable via 1 and 2 mm thick orange alloy shims. Also the length and height of the upper turnbuckle is adjustable via shims and two different locating holes.

Drive to the wheels is taken care of by a nicely made set of steel universals. On the differential side the drive pins are protected by rubber boots that sit on plastic rings that are pressed onto the differential outdrives. These plastic rings not only locate the rubber parts but also keep away smaller stones and most of the dirt from the diff bearings. The wheels axles sport the common ‘Losi’ hex which means you can use your familiar rims like Losi, JConcepts, Associated or the new and very stylish Team Durango rims that not only look good but also protect the wheel nut thanks to a raised cone around the nut. Part of the standard set-up is a set of 1.3 and 1.5 mm roll-bars. Although the manual stated to use the thicker 1.5 mm part we used the 1.3 mm wire as the initial test took place on a dusty low bite track.

One of the most important parts of the front end are definitely the simply stunning oil-filled shock absorbers. They sport a threaded alloy body and end cap, a thick shock shaft and, most importantly, rubber shock boots with bump stops. Alternatively, for low-dust conditions for example, you can build them without rubber boots and only add the supplied rubber shims as bumps stops. The kit also included alloy shims to further limit the up travel. The DEX410 comes without shock oil and therefore we pretty much copied Gerd Strenges German Nationals set-up (PDF) with 22.5wt oil front and rear. The shocks attach to a very thick 4mm carbon shock tower that offers three different mounting holes for the upper part of the shock and a total of six different holes to mount the upper links in.

The steering has always been an integral part of the former Durango prototypes. Very compact, very low in its appearance and, most importantly, actuated by Futaba’s low-profile S9550 servo. To overcome the problem of being bounded to only one specific servo Gerd and Michael of Team Durango developed a very compact steering that incorporates every standard sized servo and also consists of a minimum of parts. The main part is a machines alloy frame in which the servo is screwed in. Left and right of the servo sit the inner steering levers with an integrated adjustable servo saver. The steering link is a bow-type alloy plate that pivot on ball bearings and offers three different steering Ackermann positions to adjust the steering feeling. The whole steering set-up is screwed to the chassis plate with only four screws making it super fast to extract for cleaning or maintenance reasons.

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Vorsprung durch Technik – Durango DEX410

New for the Tamiya F104 Pro, Yeah Racing have released this 1.4mm FRP T Bar, produced from high quality fibre reinforced plastic. This T-bar is super strong and flexible and can cope with all the shocks and twisting that come from racing and is designed to improve the suspension system and obtain more grip. Also new is a single piece aluminum motor mount for the Tamiya F104 Pro as well as the F103RM & F103GT & F103 15th Anniversary. This is a great upgrade for the standard plastic parts and as it is made from high quality aluminium and offers less flexing than the standard parts.

Source: RC Mart [rcmart.com]

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Yeah Racing F104 Tuning options