March 21, 2025

Jamieson from McBride in opening Asian Buggy C/ships qualifier

Sworkz’s Jayden Jamieson has taken the first qualifier at the season opener of the Asian Buggy Championships, a last lap bobble costing Kyle McBride a TQ run at the New Zealand event.  Opening the first of the four rounds of qualifying strong to set the early pace, a mistake on lap 3 cost around him 3-seconds and he dropped to 4th but laying down the fastest lap of the run he hauled himself back to the top of the timing screens to go back ahead of Jamieson.  As the only two drivers to go 10-laps, as McBride came around for his final run down the straight his Team Associated got crossed up, enough for the Aussie to eventually cross the loop 7/10ths of a second in deficit to his Kiwi rival.  Behind Top Seed Caleb Noble salvaged a Top 3, the Tekno driver’s set-up not ideal for today’s warmer midday conditions.  In eBuggy, Top Seed Kasey Dawson carried his pace through from yesterday with his WIRC registering the first TQ run ahead of brothers Logan and Dylan Toia.

‘We didn’t change a hell of a lot we just literally put a new set of tyres on and a lexan wing and gave it a go and it worked’, was Jamieson reaction to his Q1 win.  Switching to a harder compound of TZO tyre, he said he made that call after struggling in eBuggy with the supersoft tyre and that was in cooler conditions.  Asked about the wing change he said the switch was ‘just to try it’ but added he was looking for a little more corner speed and hoped this would help.  With the tyre change he said it was hard to tell if the lexan wing had improved things or if it was the tyre that hindered the corner speed a little bit.  He added, ‘the tyre was good at high speed but in the low speed stuff I was just lacking a little bit so if I can get a little more corner speed out of it in the low speed stuff we’re looking pretty good.’

Asked to sum up his Q1 performance McBride said, ‘My run was pretty good in nitro.  On the third lap I had a crash on the right side of the track which set me back a little bit at the start but the car was good and I was clicking off some fast laps, I just probably need to get a bit more comfortable with the suspension of the car so that its a little easier and consistent but the speed is there and my driving is starting to get better and better.’  Asked about changes to his nitro buggy for Q2 he said, ‘we are just mucking around with suspension and we are just going to stiffen it up a little bit cause it feels like my car is doing a bit too much moving on power, so just to get it nice and settled so I can really get in to the throttle.’  Only P6 in eBuggy, describing that as ‘just a bit of an average run’, he said, ‘I am a lot more comfortable with nitro in general than electric and as I don’t race a whole lot of EP it takes me a little more to into the swing of it but nitro is feeling good and we’ve just got to follow along with eBuggy.’

‘It was OK’ was Noble’s reaction to Q1 adding, ‘I kind of just drove the car I had.’  He continued, ‘the car was a little soft in the rear and didn’t have a lot of confidence in the bumps but I dragged a third and finally had a clean round.’  Asked about the change in how the car was working today, the Asian Buggy Championship race winner said, ‘I think it was just because the temperature has come up a little bit higher than yesterday, it is more or less the same car.  I am going to tweak some roll centres and springs and have another crack in Q2.’  On eBuggy he said, ‘it was a mess, the car was too stiff for the morning run so I struggled and had a really bad first lap and made two big mistakes which cost me about 10-seconds but drove back to 5th.  It’s only the first round so nothing to stress out about.’

Fourth fastest in Nitro Buggy HB Racing’s Logan Toia described his opening effort as ‘good’ until a late error on the last when he ‘endoed’ coming into the last lap which cost him a 10-lap run ‘which was a bit annoying as I really wanted a safe run.’  The 17-year-old championship regular explained, ‘So many times last year I didn’t have safe runs and was struggling from the getgo so Top 4 is a good start’.  Asked about changes for Q2 he said, ‘we’ll make a couple of changes to get more speed out of the car, we are missing just a little bit of track time in both buggies.  Kasey was real fast in that electric heat, 31.6 is fast when the track is like this.’  P2 in eBuggy he said, ‘I thought I wasn’t going to finish, it was loudest car out there by a mile, it was like a nitro buggy going around.  The ESC moved so it was rubbing against the centre driveshaft.  We’ve got that fixed now and will go out again.’

Dawson summed up his eBuggy TQ run with ‘the car was beautiful.’  Choosing JConcepts Falcon’s he explained, ‘we made the right choice with tyres and the car was already in really good place, we’ve made very little changes to the car so far this week and there probably wont be anymore made.  I just got to keep doing what I am doing in being consistent’    The 19-year-old continued, ‘I was a little worried if I had Caleb or somebody behind me that I just wont be able to keep my composure but I put myself in a good place on track and traffic was good so I could drive my own race.  I had a traction roll on the last lap but I had enough of a lead.  I am really pleased because I didn’t expect to be coming in with this competitive pace for the weekend.’  With Counties RC Car Club his home track, asked how the track was evolving he said, ‘its great, you just have to be careful, there are certain parts where is it starting to dig out a bit and if you hit it too quick or don’t catch the right angle it will either roll you or fire you offline, that’s what happened to me on the last lap.  I pushed a little too hard into the infield and I think the wheel dug in and I flipped over but it was a factory roll over and I marshalled myself and carried on.’

March 21, 2025

Chassis Focus – Caleb Noble (Tekno)

Chassis – Tekno NB48 2.2
Engine – Ielasi Tuned .21 Terra
Fuel – Sidewinder
Tires – TZO 500
Radio/Servos – FlySky Noble NB4+ / Power HD GTS-6
Body – Leadfinger Racing V2 Beretta

Notes – Caleb is is using Position Sensitive Damping system from Australian company SOTA RC and his buggy is also kitted out with TKO bearings.

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

February 23, 2025

The TITC inside line with Salton Dong – Day 4

The 21st edition of the TITC is in the books and once again it has been an epic event that is like nothing else in the world.  As the newly crowned Modified Champion, having just had his first TITC experience, Michal Orlowski put it perfectly with, ‘everyone needs to experience this at least once in their life.’  During this year’s event we have been having daily catch ups with Hobbywing’s technical support guy Salton Dong to get an insight into his work but today we are handing you over to the man himself to wrap up thing here at Infinity RC Addict.  A huge thank you to Hobbywing for making Red RC’s coverage of the 2025 TITC possible, this was a special one.  Now, over to you Salton…

Today, our team completed the statistics on the market share of power brands for three classes in the inspection area of the race.  This was a very time-consuming task, but we felt it was essential to understand the power choices of participants in major events like TITC.

In the hot environment of Bangkok, choosing a reliable power system is crucial. If you weren’t on-site, it might be hard to imagine the various electronic equipment failures that occurred on the RC Addict track during the race.  Some led to serious crashes, while others caused sudden loss of control.  Whenever these strange incidents happened, as a technical support representative, I always tried to understand the situation and speculate on possible causes as quickly as possible.  Regardless of whether the incident was caused by a specific brand or device, it served as a warning for us as well.

Fortunately Hobbywing has gained recognition from a significant portion of users and has demonstrated exceptionally high reliability.  The data we collected, as mentioned earlier, shows that in the OBL class, 75.6% of users chose our ESC and 65.5% opted for our motors.  In the Non-Boost class, these figures were 70.8% and 88.9%, respectively.  While we are pleased with these results, I would also like to express my gratitude. We look forward to seeing you again next year.