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Welcome to the October 2015 edition of The List. Last month we saw a few cars, a few electronics and a few accessories roll past the screen, but here is what we thought was the best releases. Congrats to those that made The List.
While yes, the SCORE Trophy Truck is just a Yeti with a different body, but it’s actually much deeper than that. It does retain the awesome suspension and powerful electronics, but what it gains with the Trophy Truck body is shear attitude. This is the proper vehicle for desert racing; wide, independent front suspension and a long, solid-axle trailing arm rear suspension. Axial has even given the STT a caged rear bed, driver figures and a functional spare tire – items not seen on RC Short Course trucks. It’s absolutely at home on rough, rocky terrain and loves to be driven hard – I know – I took mine to the local mountains and beat it up on the harshest terrain I could find. This truck is for a different breed of offroaders, and it’s refreshing design makes it a shoe-in for The List!
Link: www.axialracing.com
Scale trailing is definitely on the rise, and with my fleet of 4 or 5 crawlers, I’m always looking for something new and cool to outfit them with. One item that is always at the top of my list is a winch, and RC4WD has come out with a licensed winch modeled after the world famous Warn. This little powerhouse is machined from billet aluminum for strength, uses a strong synthetic winch rope and can work with voltages up to 3S LiPo. It’s also incredibly strong, being able to lift/drag up to 9lbs! It comes fully detailed right down to the Warn sticker. The look great and have helped me out of a few sticky situations – this winch is approved for scale modelers by The List!
Link: www.rc4wd.com
Traxxas definitely has the major share of our industry and could just keep designing fun cars that everyone likes. But that’s not Traxxas. Instead of another 1:10 scale buggy or 1:8 scale truggy, they decided to go big – and I mean BIG! The X-Maxx is a total behemoth! It has a 1600kV sensorless motor that is over 4″ long. It has an ESC that can handle 6S of LiPo power and uses massive 10G wire. The tires are 8″ tall, the truck sits 4″ off the ground and it’s stand a full 13.8″ tall. It’s big, it’s fast and it’s bad ass! Like I said, they could design cars that everyone likes – but instead designed one that everyone LOVES. I do. Another shoe-in for The List.
Link: www.traxxas.com
The Team Associated B5M is a fantastic car, working well in both the stock and modified classes. Serious racers, though, like to eek every ounce of performance out of their buggy and that sometimes means some serious weight reduction. JConcepts took that idea and created this lightweight chassis by CNC-machining roughly 23g of weight out, using a honeycomb design to keep the chassis structurally sound. This is a major deal as the aluminum chassis on the B5M is one of the heaviest pieces. It is made from 7075 aluminum, anodized black and uses chamfered edges to reduce hard edges. Those of you that race stock, this is a must have item and one that certainly deserves a spot on The List.
Link: www.jconcepts.net
RC4WD picks up another slot in this months The List with the release of these awesome LED lights. Modeled after the KC HiLiTES, these units are designed for larger vehicles like HPI’s Bajas or Losi’s 5T. The come in a beautiful billet aluminum housing and are loaded with 34 individual bulbs capable of running on 11.1V. They have reversible L-brackets for a multitude of mounting options and have vents in the side of the housing to dissapate heat. They are extremely bright and will certainly light the way on any night-driving excursions. I have a HPI project 5B desert buggy I’m building and think these will add that extra bit of awesome to the final project!
Link: www.rc4wd.com
