nitroexpress

Anyone watching the Nitro Challenge on LiveRC? You can watch for free, but All Access Pass is the way to go for $24.95 Four days of Interviews, live commentary and more. Offically starts 2/21/13



"The Dirt" Nitro Challenge is an annual race thrown by Joey Christiensen and his "The Dirt" track building collective. The race has become most well-known for its track layouts, which often times border on looking more like they were built for dirt bikes than R/C cars. The race is held at the "Fear Farm R/C Raceway" just minutes outside of downtown Phoenix, AZ. The facility is built on the back end of a large portion of farm land. The front part of the land belongs to the actual Fear Farm - a haunted house. The Nitro Challenge has long been regarded as one of the most (if not the most) exciting nitro race in the world. The track is extremely unique, and the racers come from all over to compete. Nearly all of the world's best nitro racers are in attendance. The event is the highest standard for truggy racing there is, and second only to the worlds for buggy.

Sidenote: the XRay teamhasn't done particularly well in past years, but this year will be sendingmost if not all the factoryguys.

http://www.teamxray.com/teamxray/new...9dcbded586840f

JohnP2

I will be certainly watching this. I follow a lot of the pro drivers and the vast majority state this is their favorite event!

As for Team Xray - I guess it's because they are all hanging out at our track.
http://www.teamxray.com/teamxray/new...abdf2befe94af4

nitroexpress

Ty Tessman has just won the Pro Truggy class at DNC. Second year in a row for the D8T. He brought the Boom.

HerrSavage

Martin Bayer often races (or at least used to..) on local and regional tracks here.. Guess he's really big league now..

I guess it's true - new blood Tessmann has really taken over, and the Ryans for Team Associated have become yesterdays' news - in 1/8th anyway... Though the day before yesterday's news - Drake - seems to have done well...

It is kind of amusing to see Tessmann at the top of the list with the only Hot Bodies listed.. Not that the truck he's running has much in common with a stock D8T at all...

Lutz apparently broke early, but nevertheless, there it is again - Alpha in the engine column of the finals for a major race with all the big players...

nitroexpress

Actually, Ty's vehicle is not that far from stock. Details about his mods are easily found and duplicated. As usual, the AE's leaned on Kyosho for their mods and were generally the farthest from stock.

HerrSavage

That's news to me then.. After the last few races Ty won, there was lots of talk about all the off-brand and fabbed parts he was running, and other such stuff far removed from stock.. Doesn't his dad fabricate special parts for him or something? Ty's "Frankentruck" was what people were talking about.. Maybe that was more buggy though..(but I think it was truggy too...) But yes, AE has gone full-on Frankencar/Kyosheated etc.., which is lame..

nitroexpress

Testing geometry changes, it's always cheaper to use existing parts (even if they are from another brand).Then, when a design is finalized, production can start. No reason to expend resources to producea part in house when a given part is available other places.Not everyone has deep pockets like Kyosho. That's why people use BCE chassis, M2C hinge blocks, CPI shock pistons and etc.

Ty and Gord were the primary developers of the new parts. The HPI engineers put the finishing touches on the parts after testing showedthe direction to go. Development was focused on the D8 and changes to the D8T were minimal (rear shocks andtowers on the front, etc.). Thefruit of their efforts is now the D812.

HerrSavage

For a couple races while developing your own improvements, maybe. But AE seems to have the strategy of just running Kyosho shocks permanently, which is a disservice to AE owners afaic. AE is hardly some small-scale outsider company without the resources either.. And again, Mugen showed up at the Worlds with a brand-new buggy - sans Kyosho parts - and won the whole thing. Hot Bodies being a smaller company, I find it a bit more understandable that they run off-brand stuff. But still, Ty's D8T is far from stock...

nitroexpress

I would submit that factory drivers do not runstockvehicles with stock partsat major events (and manydon't run stock engines either). Franken vehicles are nothing new and will always be an option.

nitroexpress

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=Tcb3sAyO09w