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Blog
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Written by HzR
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Friday, 15 August 2008 11:33 |
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This week the 2008 IFMAR 1:10 200mm on-road world championship is held in Lisbon, Portugal.
The cars raced are gas powered 10th scale 200mm touring cars. Practice and qualifying have finished, and the four drivers that have qualified for the A-main are: 1. Jilles Groskamp (NL) - 32 Laps in 10:11.241 [Kyosho/Sirio] 2. Chris Tosolini (USA) - 32 Laps in 10:11.250 [Kyosho/Sirio] 3. Daniele Ielasi (IT) - 32 Laps in 10:11.904 [Kyosho/IDM] 4. Tironi Francesco (IT) - 32 Laps in 10:12.414 [Kyosho/Sirio] A really impressive drive by Jilles Groskamp. Apparently it's his fist big gas race! The rest of the A-main will be determined by the bump-up system, so we'll only know after the other mains have finished who will be joining them. As you can tell, the Kyosho cars are very dominent at the moment, although some competitors have had bad luck, so we might see some surprises in the finals. The track is very demanding for the engines which causes high fuel consumption. This in turn makes it hard for drivers to complete their 10 minute heats. It's either make an extra pit stop, or be easier on the throttle finger to make it to the finish line. The drivers even got two more minutes of warm up time before the heats to be able to fine tune their engines for the changing weather conditions. So far I haven't seen any news of shockingly innovative products in the pits, but there are some interesting tweaks and updates to the cars and there is surely more news coming out of the pits in the coming days. If you want to keep track of the action in Lisbon over the weekend, check out the following links: The official worlds website: www.world-championship-2008.com As usual with these kinds of events; for a complete up to date report and lots of great pictures go over to RedRC |
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Blog
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Written by HzR
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Friday, 11 July 2008 18:42 |
With several companies like Corrally, Speedmerchant, BMI and CRC releasing narrowed 10th-scale or lengthened 12th-scale pan-car chassis, for now called the GT10 class, we see the resurrection of a racing class that once didn't manage to get out of the gates. CRC GenX10 A couple of years ago Corally, and shortly thereafter Associated released narrowed pan car chassis that would fit the 190mm touring car bodies. A similar realistic looking car that was faster and also cheaper should be a big hit with the racing crowd, right? The idea never took off. Apparently this type of car was ahead of it's time. Back then people preferred drifting their rubber tired 4WD touring cars on parking lot tracks, and if they wanted to race pan cars they would stick to 12th scale. Fast forward to today, almost all touring car racing in the US is on carpet tracks using foam tires. When running a car with that much grip, there is not much point in a 4WD system. It just puts extra weight on the chassis and combined with high grip foam tires, this puts a big strain on batteries and motors. The cost of racing in the touring car class has therefore risen significantly the last couple of years ago which makes people look for alternatives. The returning interest in 12th scale might also be an indication for this. Most touring car racers have the foam tire equipment. It makes perfect sense to switch to a car that looks the same but is cheaper, has higher performance and is less complicated. I think these cars have a good chance of making a big impact now. For an in depth discussion on the new class, check out the forums at R/C Tech.
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Blog
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Written by HzR
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Wednesday, 25 June 2008 18:13 |
A big announcement today: OpenSourceRC's community and commenting system is now live! One of the things that is a given of an open source project is that anybody can participate in the project. Up till now, this feature has been missing from this site, but now you can express yourself on the running projects and interact with others. The commenting system used is from Disqus. This system is aready implemented on thousands of websites who's users can then interact on the Disqus' website. You can read and/or write comments directly underneath articles on the OpenSourceRC website as is common on most blogs. Additionaly, these comments together with user added topics will also be available on the OpenSourcRC community page on Disqus.com. Here you can get an overview of all ongoing discussions and engage with other users. You can sort the threads by most popular, new etc. Also, if you are a registered Disqus user you can start a new thread on the community website like you would on a forum. This package allows for some great interactivity. Signing up to Disqus is free and only costs you a minute. Just enter a user name, email address and a password and you're signed up. You can use this login on all websites that use the Disqus commenting system which number is growing daily. The main benefits of signing up are that your comments will show up immediately, you can rate other people's comments and you can start new topics on the community page. It's also possible to follow other users on the Disqus website and see what they are commenting on and discover new sites this way. If you don't feel like signing up to Disqus, no problem. You can also comment without being a registered Disqus user, but your comments will have to be approved by a moderator before they're shown. You can find the OpenSourceRC community page over at opensourcerc.disqus.com or by clicking the community-button in the OSRC main menu on the home page. I looking forward to your comments, reactions, ideas, and (constructive) critisism! |
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Blog
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Written by HzR
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Monday, 07 April 2008 16:02 |
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Last weekend, the 2008 1/12th scale European championships were held in Manching, Germany. Since this is less then an hours drive from Munich, I just had to go and check out some of the action. The race was held on a temporary track in a gym on the outskirts of the small town just outside of Ingolstadt. The track was big and had quite a technical lay-out. A short straight and a very twisty infield.
There was some Hot Bodies ended up taking all podium positions. Marc Rheinhard being the quickest man. After taking the top qualifying spot, he took the win in the first two of three mains and thereby securing the championship. This meant he could sit out the last main and let the others battle for the win. Andy Moore managed to do just that with some great driving from fifth place on the grid. Combined with a second place finish in one of the other mains earned him second place overall. Germanies Ronald Völker finished third overall. Serpent had a small booth set up where they showed off their on-road cars, including the new 12th scale racer which looks like a very nice and well thought out car. I couldn't figure out if anybody was racing the car at the race, so it's hard to say anything about it's performance. Most cars used seemed to be from CRC and Associated. For all the results and lots of photo's, check out the euro's official web site. I posted some pictures in the OpenSourceRC Picasa feed and two short video's in the YouTube feed. The guys from RCRacing.tv were also on site so expect to see full race coverage in one of the upcoming episodes. |
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Blog
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Written by HzR
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Sunday, 17 February 2008 09:49 |
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Last week the Nurnberg Toy Fair was held in, you guessed it, in Nurnberg Germany. This is the biggest toy and hobby trade show of the year so normally they have some big announcements. This year didn't dissapoint!
The biggest rc car news came from traditional gas car company Serpent who showed three new electric cars. Besides their electric touring car, the S400, they will soon offer a 4WD off-road buggy, a 1:12th scale pan car and a 1:24th scale micro pan car. The 1:12th scale racer is called the S120 but was only shown to the public with a body on it. They want to keep the exact design secret for now, but according to people who've seen it it has some innovative features. The S240 1:24th scale racer has a classic pan car design with graphite chassis. The 4WD buggy is called the S500 looks a lot like the Durango buggies Gerd Strenge designed before. This car looks an further development of those cars and most parts of the car have been changed. The prototypes did very well at the off-road worlds last year so it is expected the production verion will be seen in amongst the front runners in many races. The main surprise to me was the milled aluminium tub chassis. It looks like this will be on the production car as well which keeps me wondering about the price of the kit because that looks like one really expensive part! Schumacher announced a new 4WD off-road buggy to be out soon called the Cat SX, but gave no further specific information. Hot Bodies showed of their new 2WD off-road contender the Cyclone D2. At first glance it looks like all the other 2WD buggies out there, it does have some interesting features though. The car has two piece shock towers and also has a machined aluminium chassis like the Serpent S500. This is a trend with the new car designs apparently, though I'm sceptical this will make it onto the production car as a molded chassis would make more sense as it is lighter and cheaper. We'll see what happens! Kyosho came up with a line of cars even smaller then the Mini-Z, called the Dnano. The cars are 1/43rd scale, so I guess really intended for desktop races. Team Associated RC12R5 After a couple of quiet years, the 1:12th scale class is really taking off again with lots of cars an accessories being released. The most successfull and most experienced company in this class is without a doubt Team Associated. They had their new 1:12th scale racer on display, the RC12R5. Since some pictures have already been online since the Cleveland indoor champs, most of this car was already known but now the Team announces all the details. It has a 4-cell graphite chassis with pivot ball and link rear suspension. A more traditional T-bar setup is available as an option. The motor pod is optimized for brushless motors. The front suspension is completely new and is now a lot more adjustable. One striking innovation is the main shock on which the shock shaft protrudes on both sides. It's said to make dampening more consistent. As usual, RedRC have great coverage and lots of pictures of all the news worthy items. |
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