March 23, 2025

McBride wins eBuggy at Asian Buggy Champs

He may have got off to a slow start in eBuggy, but Kyle McBride came away with the win at the opening round of the Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships in Pukekohe, New Zealand.  After two exciting A-Main encounters on Saturday, it was a three way battle for the overall win going into A3 on Sunday – McBride having won A1, Top Qualifier Logan Toia winning A2, and a second place in A1 putting Caleb Noble in contention.  With Toia leading them away, he and McBride would tangle on the opening lap causing chaos in the chasing pack.  Starting from the 3rd spot, it was WIRC’s Kasey Dawson who came through that the best to lead at the end of the first lap.  From there the top seed & Q1 winner managed to see off the challenge of Mayako’s Jayden Edmunds to take the win with McBride crossing the line in third.  Overall with his A1 win and second in A2 it was McBride’s victory ahead of Toia, who pulled off in A3 in frustration of the driving standards, while an over the moon Dawson completed the podium at his home track.

Summing up A3, McBride described it as ‘extremely hectic’ adding, ‘it was a crazy start, everyone was going for it.  I think I got into the back of someone then had to wait and then I got cleaned out after that and then yeah, I don’t know what was happening, it was a crazy run.’  The Australian continued, ‘about half way through I got to settle down a little bit, everyone sort of got in their places, and I ran smooth race from there and I got a third place.’  Asked if he was aware of what was going on in the overall in terms of points he explained, ‘I knew as long as I beat Logan and Caleb I was sweet.  They were ahead after the start and all the carnage, then I think Logan crashed, same with Caleb, and yeah I just ran clean from there.  As soon as I got in front of them I was like alright just calm down and finish the race.’  On the overall result he said, ‘I’m pretty happy with the win.  I pretty much never run eBuggy only at big events so I haven’t run it in a long time.  It was a bit of a learning curve coming back into it.  Considering how my qualifying went, which was pretty average, it was a pretty good improvement and we got it figured out in the end.’

Asked about the hectic start to A3, Toia said, ‘I don’t really have much to say about it.  I’m quite angry about it so yeah, the car was good but I got driven over the top of’.  On his second place overall, the 17-year-old said, ‘I’m happy, I definitely wanted more but that’s the way racing goes.  I’ll go again in nitro.’

One of the happiest drivers of the weekend, asked about the deciding A-Main, Dawson said, ‘She was a hectic start with pile up in the top right hand corner that I did end up getting stuck into.  I tried to go round and got taken out as well, and then somehow we got to the apex and I’d muscled my way past and got to the lead.  We towed around for a couple of laps and I started to get a gap but everyone started crashing so I had a huge lead there at one point until Jayden (Edmunds) slowly reeled me in.  After that I just tried to keep my lines tidy and drive good and managed to do that.  Jayden caught right up to me right at the end and I tell you what I was rattled.’  He continued, ‘I knew before the race that if I won it would put me on the podium no matter what happened anyone else.  Top Seed, a TQ run and then a Main win wasn’t on my bingo card for this event.  I was hoping for Top 5 in both classes and a podium was a very far cry.  Dreams do come true’.  Admitting to tearing up on the drivers stand after winning A3, he said, ‘I put some much time, effort and money into this, for me but also the Rouge RC boys to give them something back is a great feeling.  All the time Ben Young puts in with me especially on practice days its great to thank them for that with this result.’

March 22, 2025

Win apiece for McBride & Toia as eBuggy goes to A3

eBuggy at the Asian Buggy Championships season opener produced two exciting A-Main encounters on Saturday that resulted in Kyle McBride and Logan Toia taking a win apiece to send the decider into Sunday’s A3 in New Zealand.  With HB Racing’s Toia securing the TQ, the Kiwi’s stint at the front was short lived in A1 as a first lap mistake dropped him right to the back of the field.  Up front it seemed for a time that no one wanted to lead the 10-minute encounter with Kasey Dawson, Jayden Edmunds, Caleb Noble and Kyle McBride all throwing away the lead when they got a chance at the front.  As the race reached half distance things settled down with McBride hitting the front again but this time the Aussie stayed there for the win ahead of Noble who saw off a number of challenges from Toia as he made an impressive recovery drive.  In A2, second place qualifier McBride got by Toia on lap 1 but quickly gave it back before Noble took a turn at the front for 4-laps.  Chased down by McBride, the Australians would come together resulting in both getting stuck in the piping.  As they got marshalled, Toia went back to the front and despite McBride’s best efforts stayed there for the win with Noble third – the Tekno driver clearly not impressed by McBride’s driving.  With his second in A1, Noble still however has a chance at the overall win in A3.

Summing up A1, Toia said, ‘I had mistake on lap 1 and then I got caught up with Kyle again in the whoops, that was just unlucky, wrong time, wrong place.  I was dead last on the second lap and clawed my way back to third, my last lap pass was awesome.  Clearly delighted and at the same relieved after his A2 win he described the race as ‘phenomenal’.  The 17-year-old continued, ‘racing with Kyle and Caleb and all those guys is awesome fun.  I was nervous which I don’t get that often and trying to keep it all together for 6-minutes felt very long.  It’s all to play for tomorrow.  I have a 1 and a 3, Kyle has a 1 and a 2 and then Caleb has a 2 and a 3.  On the amount of driver errors in particular in A1, Toia said, ‘you can just make small mistakes and it will push you all the way over to the pipe, there are so many off cambers you just slide if you are anyway off the apex.’

Summing up his A1 win McBride said, ‘I had a super clean run, I had one little mistake at the start but got back in the lead and it was pretty much like flawless from there, no mistakes.  The car felt amazing, I did my fastest lap I think probably of the weekend for myself in eBuggy.’  Having taken the final eBuggy qualifier in the morning, asked what the turn around in performance today was after a so so day in the category yesterday, he replied, ‘I changed a couple of settings in my ESC which made the car a little bit easier to drive and gave it that feel closer to my nitro buggy.  We were testing stuff in electric yesterday, so using that as a bit of a test class because nitro is my main focus, but I think today I am getting more confidence and for sure the with the rough conditions dialling back the ESC made a big different.  Some suspension stuff we found in Q3 with Nitro we just put the exact same on electric and that was it.’  On A2 he said, ‘that was a lot more complex, my car was good but I think the track was a lot dustier,  I would have to double check but my lap time was almost half a second slower so going probably have to look at that tomorrow because my car felt more skittish and skatey in the back.  I probably could have snatched the win but I crashed to much and yeah Logan ran a great race.’

March 22, 2025

Chassis Focus – Logan Toia (HB Racing)

Chassis – HB Racing E8RS
ESC – Hobbywing XR8 Pro G3
Motor – Hobbywing Xerun 4268 G3 2200KV
Battery – GensAce Redline 2.0 6300mAh
Tires – JConcepts Falcon
Radio/Servos – Sanwa M17S / Sanwa PGS-XB II
Body – JConcepts P2

Notes – Logan’s eBuggy is fitted with TRC Valve Pistons and Hyperspeed Lab carbon parts.

Image Gallery

March 20, 2025

Asian Buggy Championships underway in New Zealand, Noble & Dawson top seeding

With a new title sponsor in Cayote, the third season of the Asian Buggy Championships officially got underway today in New Zealand with Tekno’s Caleb Noble and WIRC’s Kasey Dawson topping seeding at the Counties RC Car Club track which once again plays host to the first stop on the championship’s 4 round calendar.  Winner of the third round of the ABC in Australian last year, Caleb would set the fastest 2-consecutive laps in Nitro Buggy ahead of Kyle McBride and the Sworkz of Jayden Jamieson while a strong end to the day netted Mayako Youth Mentoring Program driver Dylan Toia P4.  In eBuggy, local star Dawson had the advantage over Caleb thanks to his effort in the first of the two seeding rounds.  Noble topped the second encounter but that effort was 2/10th slower overall.  Behind them the older of the Toia brothers, Logan completed the eBuggy Top 3 as drivers now get ready for 3 rounds of qualifying in Pukekohe tomorrow.

Asked to sum up his seeding performance, on nitro buggy Noble said, ‘the car has been pretty good.  I had a bit of an average run in the second round but the first run was really good.  The car was still good for the second seeding, I just didn’t drive great.’  Explaining his SP2 effort he said, ‘I got pushed down the driver stand to the whole other end so it was a bit of a struggle as I was seeing things different but it’s alright.  The main thing is the car was good.’  Asked about this year’s track layout, the 18-year-old replied, ‘it’s very fun but it’s getting challenging with all the holes and bumps.  I’m enjoying it.’  On tyre choice, he has been on 3-different treads since getting here which he has since narrowed down to two opting to run TZO500 in soft compound during the day and supersofts in the morning.  Trying TZO’s 200 in final seeding he said while they were good, the 500 were a little easier to drive.’  Transferring set-up and tyre choice from his nitro to eBuggy, he said in electric his best run was in the second round when the track was slower so he’s confident he has two good cars for qualifying.

A podium finisher here last year, despite coming up short on one of his fuel stops, McBride said his biggest challenge today was a lack of sleep.  Only getting in at 2am this morning after his flight from Australia, the World Championship finalist said he doesn’t function great on 4-hours sleep.  Describing himself as ‘driving a bit crazy’ in the last run of the day due to the lack of sleep, they ‘changed a couple of things over the day and overall the cars feel pretty good and they are moving in the right direction.’  Asked his thoughts on the track layout, he replied, ‘It’s good.  At first glance I didn’t think it was going to be too technical but it’s super easy to overdrive and it’s starting to be more rough now so that’s going to factored in as well obviously.  When you get it right it extremely fun to drive.’  Running a pair of unsponsored Team Associated buggies, he said he has probably only run the nitro buggy twice before this weekend and today is his first outing with the eBuggy.  As a former factory AE driver he said while a lot has changed since then a lot of it is pretty similar to what he drove with just updated parts.  He added, ‘I felt pretty comfortable pretty quickly’.  On eBuggy he said, ‘this morning I had to get the feel for the electric again because I haven’t driven it for a while, I’m just getting in the groove.’

Completing the Nitro Top 3 in nitro seeding, Jamieson feels he is in the ball park going into Friday’s qualifying.  He said trying the TZO500 tyre for the first time in supersoft in the second round of seeding had made his Sworkz ‘very easy to drive’.  Running the tyre option first on his eBuggy together with a few set-up changes, the Kiwi said together with that set-up plus further small tweaks to mainly the rear end resulted in ‘a huge improvement’ in the nitro buggy’s performance.  On the track build, the 24-year-old said, ‘I’m enjoying it, it’s a pretty basic layout but I know it gets quite bumpy and rough.  It’s not bumpy obviously yet, it’s got a little bit of ruts here and there but nothing like I am used too here.  It will evolve.’  On his consistency for qualifying he said, ‘that last run I did a complete run and did 10-laps which is quite good around here.  It felt comfortable and easy to drive.’  Fourth in both classes at the Asian Buggy Championship last year, a fuel gun issue causing him to flameout a number of times in the nitro final costing him a podium finish, Jamieson said he is expecting more of himself this year.

Summing up his day, 11-year-old Dylan Toia said, ‘It was a bit of struggle at the start of the day but then towards the end we got it working.  That last seeding round I strung two laps together and that put me Top 4 going into qualifying.’  Asked what he had struggled with he explained, ‘the car just wasn’t locked in in the rear really so we text JQ for some advice and he said to put his DNC rear end on and we went to that and it was definitely way better, more locked in, overall way more grip.’  Looking forward to qualifying, 3 of the 4 rounds making up tomorrow’s schedule, he said, ‘I have high expectations of myself going into tomorrow but we’ll see what tomorrow brings us’.  On tyre choice he said, ‘it’s more compound than tyre choice, most tyres work here so it a matter of which compound to use.’

Another member of the Mayako Youth Mentoring Program, Jayden Edmunds would finish P5 in Nitro and Electric.  Asked how his day had went, he said, ‘The first round of nitro buggy was good and my 5-minute pace was consistent but I struggled a bit in the second one.  I tried a few things and I don’t think it worked so now we know what to do for tomorrow.’  On electric he said, ‘it’s been tough but we’ve been making improvements every run’. Asked what he struggling with the 19-year-old said, ‘just with finding pace and being comfortable with the car.  I focused more on getting my nitro right and now that that’s decent I am starting to switch the focus to getting the EP on pace as well.’  Enjoying working with JQ, Edmunds said the Finn has been busy on WhatsApp helping him with getting up to speed.  On the track the Aussie said, ‘it’s pretty fun, it’s not too technical a layout but with the bumps coming through that makes it technical.  It’s only going to get harder.’

Topping eBuggy seeding Dawson, 2025 his first full season with the WIRC Buggy thanks to support from Rouge RC and also his first year on JConcepts tyres, said, ‘The whole day with the eBuggy has been really good.  We were battling with compounds as we are still learning to understand the JConcepts.  I have been on greens which are supersofts and I have been going to blue which is soft.  I have been liking the greens more but I have been hesitant based on the temperature as to not nuke the supersofts but in the second seeding I ran blues and I sacrificed half second a lap but first seeding round was good enough.’  On nitro buggy, the 19-year-old said he didn’t have outright lap speed so he took out some rear toe which he said ‘overwhelmed it’.  For Q1 he will put the toe back and adjust the front instead to try to give it some more there instead of releasing the rear.  He added, ‘The cars are the same but I can’t set them up the same, the eBuggy set-up just doesn’t suit the nitro.  So there is still a little bit of work to be done.’

February 26, 2025

2025 TITC Chassis Focus Index

21 editions of the TITC have been completed and thanks to the support of Hobbywing, Red RC was once again able to make the annual trip to the Infinity RC Addict Circuit in Bangkok to cover this truly unique event.  By far the greatest one yet in terms of all the pre-race hype, 2025 was the year the race got to play out moments that will forever be engrained in the sport’s history.  Bruno Coelho’s first ever race with Infinity, Michal Orlowski’s first ever TITC.  As the saying goes, ‘you only get one chance to make a first impression’ and wow was an impression Orlowski made on the ‘world’s toughest race’ – complete domination.  We also have to mention A3 and the last lap between Marc Rheinard and Bruno Coelho, that pass was pure Rheinard gold and having been reporting on his racing at the top level for so many years it was brilliant to see he still has that magic.  It was interesting to chat with a number of drivers for whom this was their first time experiencing the TITC, they didn’t actually need to tell us they were loving it because it was already written all over their faces,  it was like they had rediscovered the joy of racing again.  We get to go to our fair share of races around the world and none come close in terms of everyone enjoying themselves.  The laughter in the pits and the enthusiasm of the crowd watching the racing is infectious, and we still get to see the best in the World race head to head for a title they all desire so much – it truly is the unofficial World Championships.

In terms of cars there was lots to see and not see.  Unfortunately Mugen Seiki is still not quite ready to show off its new MTC-3 just yet and Infinity understandably want to keep their brand new prototype under wraps for now.  Kyosho also had a new car but having given us access to a prototype last year it caused some issues and we had to remove it from the site.  For our chassis focus we did get access to the new Axon ‘Concept’ car, we like the choice of title, of Akio Sobue.  In total we managed to photograph 10 team cars from 7 different manufacturers for our Chassis Focus.  A little insight on our chassis focus that you might be interested to know, some drivers will only allow us access to the car on the final day of the event because in the past they discovered their rivals were analysing our photos and getting ideas for their own set-up!  Anyway it was great to see such variety of manufacturers in the A-Main with 7 different brands represented.  One very noticeable absence from the A-Main this year however was that of Xray but they did make up half of the Open Brushless A-Main grid.  It’s only over 3 days now but we are already looking to the 22nd edition of the TITC.  If you race Electric Touring Car put the TITC on your bucket list and that’s not just our advice its Michal Orlowski’s too.

Michal Orlowski (Top Qualifier/Champion) – Schumacher Mi9

Marc Rheinard (Q3/P3) – Awesomatix A800R

Akio Sobue (Q6/P4) – Axon TC10/4 Concept

Lucas Urbain (Q4/P5) – Awesomatix A800R

Goto Souta (Q8/P8) – Tamiya TRF 421

Yugo Nagashima (Q10/P10) – Xpress XQ 11R

Atsushi Hara – RC Maker SP1 ‘Hara Edition’

Antoine Brunet – RC Maker SP1

Alexander Hagberg – Xray X4’25

David Ronnefalk – Xray X4’25

February 24, 2025

JQ at the TITC – The Wrap Up

The 21st edition of the TITC is now done & dusted and having made his debut at the world’s greatest annual Electric Touring Car race, it was great to see Offroad racer Joseph Quagraine leaving the track on Sunday evening on high after the whole experience.  Maybe the high was not from his own racing exploits in Bangkok, but the process of car set-up and the fact he ended up helping out some pretty big names has the man behind Invisible Speed wanting to come back for more.  Having entertained us with his daily column from the race, here is his wrap up piece from the Infinity RC Addict Circuit.  Take it away JQ……..

The race is over, we got dominance by Michal Orlowski, another classic Marc Rheinard last lap pass, and Pekko won his C-final. I also had my second E-final where my hands were only shaking for 1 out of 5 minutes, and I finished 3rd. I managed to enjoy my final laps.

Let’s take a look at a few setup ideas that I found to be very good on this high grip, edgy feeling, and for Touring Cars bumpy track.

There is no one correct way to set a car up, but there are better and worse ways. I believe that for the best base, you need to adjust your roll centers by checking the geometry in some CAD software for example. To put it simply, I generally want the front RC to be slightly lower than the rear RC, and both to be below ground level. There are different ways of achieving this, with different levels of camber gain and geometric stiffness, and that’s where experience comes in. A setup like this results in a car that is stuck to the track, rotates naturally, and at the limit tends to push. Then you need to adjust everything to this base. Depending on the track there are a few decisions you need to make early on.

1. Long upper camber links/arms help to slow everything down, calm down response, give less initial grip, more overall grip. On a flowing layout, inconsistent grip, bumps and hot weather where conserving tyres is important, long upper links is a good option to decide on and stick to.

2. Hard rear diff: A thicker rear diff oil will help maintain rear grip off power, and through a corner, and give better acceleration out of corners. If the car pushes, or is loose out of corners, it is often better to solve those issues in other ways, and keep the thick rear diff oil.

3. A basic principle of car handling, is understanding how load transfer increases or decreases the grip of an end or a corner of a car. More load on a tyre = more grip up to a point, and faster load transfer = more initial grip. The grip changes occur faster, the car is more responsive, you have a higher peak of traction, but losing your car into a slide also happens faster without warning. The suspension of the car is what determines how quickly load transfers. The chassis moving and rolling in corners is delaying load transfer. No suspension would mean instant load transfer. The long links is one way to slow down load transfer, allowing the car to roll more. The most powerful way however, is the shocks. For a condition where we want to slow down load transfer, we want heavy damping, but still enough pack to have good response and control. A way to achieve this is to increase the amount of holes in the pistons of the same size you are running, and use a thicker oil. The heavier slower damping will give your car more consistent grip and easier more controllable handling in an edgy high grip surface.

There you have 3 key setup points that I feel are important to lock down early on, and then you start fine tuning your car with camber, toe, droop, bump steer etc. We can talk more about that later.

I just want to reiterate one point.  The difference between Q4 and A1 for Michal was a 0.5mm bump steer shim, making his outside tyre bump in under compression, increasing entry steering, allowing for less wheel input, resulting in more steering, corner speed, and a 3.3s win margin with a car that for him felt easier to drive.

The previous significant evolution in TC was when Oleg released his Awesomatix.  The next evolution will be a setup developed for a particular driver, giving him exactly what he needs to perform at his best, while maintaining….invisible speed.

View previous ‘JQ at the TITC’ columns here – Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3