Speed World broken into again.

Bad news from our friends at Ferraro Speed World, in Hamilton Ontario. A couple of weeks back they were broken into. It looks like bad things came in two's, because they were hit again this morning. This was posted on the LondonRC forum by Maria Ferraro:

We don't have any good news to share with our loyal customers, family, and friends. We are limited how much information that we can disclosure. The police has given us authorization to release dates and times of the robberies and how they can be contacted if anyone has any information.

December8-2011 Speedworld was robbed at 11:17pm

December19-2011 Speedworld was robbed at 12:15am

There's a total of $10,000.00 in theft and damage.

If any one has information in regards to this please contact
CST. Raymond Wong at 905 546 4904 and the case # 11-789807....

Maria Ferraro

I sincerely hope they catch the bastards and make an example out of them.
If any one has any info, or is justifiably suspicious of anything they hear or see, PLEASE contact Speed World, or the police officer listed above.

[/Tim Sanderson]

Universal Raceway - by Tim Sanderson

This Saturday I went by the new indoor carpet-offroad track in Mississauga, called Universal Raceway. It is run by the folks at Big Boys with Cool Toys, and it is quite the facility! There are a few rooms for pitting in, and a store selling tires and parts. It's a very large track... my average lap time with my TLR 22 was 20.0 to 20.5 seconds. Here are a few photos, and a bunch of clips I put together. I'm looking forward to racing there in the future!

[/Tim Sanderson]

CC-01 Crawler - by Joe Bielski

My favourite form of RC racing is 1/10 scale onroad. I have been competing in the GT2 and CVTA classes every summer for the last couple years. This is a slower class that is great for beginners and seasoned racers alike. The only problem is that here in Canada, once October rolls around, the outdoor season is done for what seems like an eternity. Not having an actual 1:1 scale car, I have a hard time making it out to some of the great indoor tracks we have here in Ontario. This was the catalyst for my decision to build a 1.9 scaler truck. I wanted something that I could run in my apartment, outside over the snow banks and take with me on camping trips. I decided to start with an inexpensive chassis that had been around for a while and that there was a lot of information and hop-ups for. I purchased the Tamiya CC-01 FJ40 kit for under $100.00. This kit has an interesting setup as it used independent suspension in the front and a solid axle in the rear. The kit went together easily and looked great. The only thing I did differently from the instructions was to lock both gear diffs during the build. However, this kit did NOT handle very well. The tires were too hard, there was very little articulation in the suspension and the steering was beyond sloppy. It was time to do some serious modification!

I started out with what's called the "Pantablo" steering mod. There are various examples of this all over the internet. This mod moves the steering servo from way back in the tub chassis and places it over the front wheels like most of today's scale crawlers. This mod requires you to actually remove most of the front section of the chassis with a saw. I was very hesitant about taking a saw to a brand new chassis but I measured twice and cut once. It was actually quite easy. I attached an Axial AX10 battery plate over what was left of the front wheel wells and placed the servo underneath it. I then took the Steering Knuckles and turned them backwards. This lets you connect the two Steering Knuckles using a turnbuckle to each other and then to the servo horn. This took out ALL of the steering slop and made for very strong and precise steering.

The next step I took was to create a custom 4 link suspension setup in the rear. I chose to mount it in the stock locations and it worked out great. I measured the stock plastic links and cut 4/40 threaded rods to size. Then I took hallow aluminum tubing and cut that to cover the threaded rods. I finished the ends off with Traxxas Revo ball ends. These are the go to ball ends in any DIY suspension links. Now as a note I would have preferred to use metric sized rods and tubes on a Tamiya project but it is all I had available at my LHS. Even though I used the stock mounting locations, this gave me a bit more articulation in the rear.

Finally I finished by installing a 55T lathe motor, 90mm RC4WD shocks all around and Proline 1.9 Chisel tires on beadlock wheels. I was amazed at how well this truck crawled now. I took the truck with me to the Elora Gorge and I was able to get over some really rough terrain. The suspension just twisted beautifully over every rock and tree root it encountered. The tires just pulled themselves ever ledge I pointed the truck at. With some relatively simple mods, the truck was transformed from mild to extreme. I only hope that my next project based off of a Tamiya TLT truck will handle this well.

[/Joe Bielski]

Congratulations to Keven, Martin & Andrew!

Congratulations are in order for Keven Hébert, Martin Crisp and Andrew Hardman on their excellent results at the recent US Indoor Championships in Cleveland. Andrew and Martin are both regulars at the Fastcats Depot track every summer and it is always a blast losing to these guys.

TC Mod Results
Keven Hébert 1
Martin Crisp 2
Andrew Hardman 3

TC Superstock Results
Keven Hébert 1
Andrew Hardman 2
Brad Johnson 3

sources: redrc.net & rctech.net

[/Joe Bielski]