Forza Motorsport 4 is about to be released and one of the vehicles you’ll be able to drive is Halo’s M12 FAV Warthog. The short review is by Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson who puts his typical British spin on this cool offroader. Now, I’m not sure at what capacity you’re going to be able to drive this thing, or even if the guns will work, but it’s an awesome addition to the game. I just hope Turn 10 gives us a good reason to WANT to drive it.

VRC Pro RC Video Game

I enjoy the competitive part of racing, whether it be RC, full scale or of the video game type. Most of the games I play are on my XBox 360. Forza Motorsport, for instance, is a fabulous game that has you driving real cars (production and race) around 40+ tracks from around the globe. It’s fun, but it’s certainly a game since I know I’ll never have the opportunity to drive 500+ HP Nissan GT-R around the Nurburgring (oh, how I want to though!).

A couple years ago I found an online RC game called VRC, or Virtual RC. It was pretty cool…had quite a few manufacturers cars with some basic setup stuff. There were quite a few tracks too, but at that time I just couldn’t get into it. VRC has just announced their newest version, the VRC Pro. This version has an amazing amount of 3D detail with a ton of current manufacturers cars! It even has 40+ tracks that will be available to race on! You can customize the look of your car and pit table, and there is a multiplayer mode so you can race with your friends. Can’t wait to check it out.

Here’s the link for those of you that are interested: http://www.virtualrc.com/vrc-pro/start.aspx.

XBox 360 Red Ring O' Death

Well, it finally happened…again. About a year ago my XBox sported the nasty Red Ring on a cold, wintery night. I was able to take it apart and perform the ‘washer’ fix and it’s been a gem ever since. Well, ever since last night. In the middle of a good ol’ game of Call of Duty: Black Ops, I was chasing down a bad guy to get another backstabber kill when…brrrrrrrrrrrrr, the system froze. At first I thought it was the game (or the horrible Treyarch servers), but after sitting there for about 5 minutes I figured it might be the system. I rebooted, got back in the game and finished off the night…no worries.

I decided to take a little mid-day siesta and do a little Forza Motorsport 3. Loaded up the game, started my race and, after the first lap, the system froze again. This time, however, when I rebooted I was greeted with the flashing Red Ring…oh the horror. Another reboot and, well, same thing.

About 20 minutes ago I pulled the ‘Box apart again to give it a looksie. Everything looked good…I even put the ‘Box partially back together to and booted it up but, same thing…Red Ring. So, I’m pretty sure she’s a goner this time. Sucky part is we just purchased a Kinect to get our groove on with some of the new motion games. Guess that’s not going to happen any time soon.

Axial XR10 Rock Crawler

During the week of June 22-27, I took a short trip up to Cisco Grove California for the 2011 AWCC event (AWCC is the Axial West Coast Championships). This is the premier event for RC Rock Crawling and, well, this not only would be my first rock crawling event, it would ALSO be my first time actually DRIVING an RC Rock Crawler. So, ya, this ought to be interesting.

After a short 7 hour drive, I found myself at Reno Airport picking up my boss Greg; he would be attending this event with me (we were covering it for RC Driver Magazine). We arrived at the campground in the early afternoon and after about a 5 minute unpacking session, we were already crawling the rocks with our scalers. Since this was a pretty major competition we figured we’d better get some stick time in! We spent about 2 hours getting the feel for our rigs…how they felt, getting use to very little throttle (we’re racers…it’s all or nothing!) and finding the best angles for climbing. I must say it was an absolute blast…so much so that, after dinner, we were out and at it again!

Thursday came and, once again, we were out on the rocks with the scalers. We were both quite amazed at how well they worked and what they could climb. The suspension on our SCX10′s was great, and the tires would pull our trucks up some pretty steep inclines. About mid-day we were wrangled in by the Axial guys and told that we should probably get our XR10′s (the actual competition crawlers) up and running since Friday was the first day of the actual event. Bender, one of the Axial crawling gurus, set up a mock course for us to practice on. He drove his truck through the course first to give us an idea of how it was going to be. First off, Greg and I were amazed at how these things stuck to the side of the rocks! Bender’s truck was like a little lizard…it was great. Then we took our turn at it. Uh, ya. A LOT harder than it looks. Most forms of RC require you to drive your car around a course and, even if your car is just ok, you can still just drive it around the course. Crawling requires you to KNOW your car intimately (not that way), and to be one with it. The XR10 will climb and stick to some amazing surfaces! Pretty unreal. It took Greg and I the rest of the afternoon to really feel comfortable with what we were doing. It just seemed un-natural.

Friday was the LCQ, or Last Chance Qualifier, for the weekends Championship. You don’t just show up and drive, you have to qualify for the event. They had a few different courses at this event; a standard 10-gates-in-6-minutes course, a 2 lap ‘speed’ course, a Bonus course (10 gates, then another 10 gates with a 3 minute bonus time) and a combo course that had 10 gates with bonus gates in-between. This was a new format for most of the competitors, so no one really had an advantage (other than experience driving on the rocks).

Greg and I started off on the 2 lap course. Bascially, it was a rock crawling course with some open areas that you could run your truck full throttle for a short time. Well, of course, we liked this one since we are open-course racers! A few mistakes by both of us netted us an average time, but really opened our eyes to the fact that, since you only have a limited time to get through the course, car control and speed were extremely important. On our Thursday-practice day, we really didn’t time ourselves so there was no sense of urgency to get through the course. Things are now VERY different…

We moved to the next course, the Bonus course. This course gave you 10 gates to get through in 6 minutes. If you were successful in doing so, you could continue on to the 2nd set of 10 gates, but with only a 3 minute window. I made it through the first 10 (surprisingly…and to the surprise of those around me!), but the 2nd set was a bit more difficult and I was only able to make it to gate 5. Still good and I received a good score. Greg got a little caught up on one gate and failed to finish the first 10.

On to course 3, the standard+bonus stage. Basically, you have 10 gates in 6 minutes, but there were some bonus gates positioned in-between each gate. If you CHOSE to try to get a bonus gate, good luck…it wasn’t mandatory. Making a bonus gate did net you a better score so some of them might be worth it. Well, I spent a little too much time trying to get through one and failed to finish the course. Bummed me out a bit as I saw myself getting greedy since I was doing well on the first 2 courses. Greg, however, completed the 10 gates with a couple bonus ones!

And finally, course 4. I like to refer to this as the ‘Way To Much Skill Involved To Complete’ course. Greg and I sucked hard on this one…it was way outside of our skill level. We might have been able to do it if we had 20 minutes, or maybe 15, but 6…no way. It required some incredible skill and precise driving to complete…both things Greg and I hadn’t achieved…yet. In fact, I ended up breaking my XR10 because I fell off a rock and down this slope. Poor thing…fresh, new and now broken! Simple repair but enough to end my weekend. So, we blew out on course 4 and, unfortunately, that boosted our scores high enough that we did not qualify for the weekends Championship. I’m alright with that. It was definitely hard and has made me want to get my truck back together and back on the rock.

We did, however, get to compete in the G6 class; basically the Scaler class. What we didn’t know is that 1) it was going to be at night and, 2) we’d be running through the forest. Gates were set up throughout the campground numbering 1 to 150. The goal was to get from gate 1 to gate 150 in the least amount of time with the least amount of marks against you. You would get a mark against you if you hit a gate, missed a gate, touched your truck (you could only do so to repair it) or used the ‘Judges Winch’. You and a buddy were a team…one driver and one judge. When you run through the course, the driver drives and the judge keeps track of any mistakes. If you roll your truck, get it stuck or whatever and you need some help getting free, you could either use your onboard winch (if you had one) or the Judges Winch (a line attached to the judges clipboard that has a hook on it). The goal was to NOT have to use the Judges Winch…for Greg and I, anyway. And, I might mention, all of this was on the honor system. Yah, you can see where this is going…

I was up first as the driver. We failed to do a walkthrough of the course (like apparently others did) and took a bit more time to get through. If we got stuck, we winched ourselves out. If we couldn’t get up or over an obstacle, we winched ourselves (correctly) up and over. We did it right, and scored ZERO penalty points with a 42 minute run. Sounds good, right? Well, there were some people that made it through in 22 minutes, but had a TON of penalty points. So, I thought we were doing ok. Greg had a killer van project there, but we came to find that, because it was TOO scale, it got hung up on alot of obstacles that the other competitors just flew over. His time was a bit longer than mine…somewhere in the hour and 25 minute range. Ya, we weren’t doing so well so far.

Saturday started with an early morning Comp Crawl Competition. We took some time to do a little sightseeing (since we didn’t make the show), but got back in the early afternoon to get our G6 trucks ready for the night run. This was going to be the night run…night as in it started at 10pm. We prepped our trucks and, right about 8pm, did a preliminary walkthrough of the course. Only gates 1-60 had been put up so far, and there were going to be 100 gates. Tonite, Greg got to go first. We changed our strategy a bit and figured we’d push ourselves a bit more on tonite’s drive. Greg made it through pretty fast with only a few errors. On my run, we hoofed it pretty fast and made it through with only a few mistakes. It was kind of fun running through the pitch-black forest with only the vehicle lights and whatever lights you could strap to your transmitter. Very Blair Witch.

Sunday came and, according to the schedule, they would be starting the final G6 stage around 10:30. That was no good as Greg and I had to leave for the airport around 11am. We decided to skip the day’s events, pack our stuff and just take some pictures. Come to find out, they had swapped the schedule and were running the G6 at 8am. No batteries charged and our cars packed away, we kept to our plan and just watched. It was pretty cool, seeing all these people running around frantically chasing little toy cars. After the main G6 event, they also ran a mud bog section, chassis-twister section and pulling event, all adding points to your G6 final score. We got some great pictures (which you can find on my racing site, CompetitionX.

It was killer event. I have a whole new respect for crawling and will definitely do it again. It’s challenging yet incredibly fun all at the same time. I can honestly say it was one of the best RC events I’ve ever been to…and I’ve been to alot.

Project RC Car: Axial SCX10 Scaler

A few of my fellow racers have shifted their RC focus towards an ever-growing segment of our industry…rock crawling. While I’ve never tried my hand at competitive crawling, I have bashed around the local riverbeds with a few ‘rental’ rides and did have a good time. What we have here, however, is my first attempt at building a scale rock crawler. It’s based off of an Axial SCX10 but has been completely reworked from head to toe for the ultimate in scale goodness. Since this is going to be a project for the pages of RC Driver Magazine, I had a chance to really do it up with the best equipment out there. Here is a quick list of the manufacturers that were used in the build:

AJS Machine – ajsmachine.com
Axial – axialracing.com
MaxAmps – maxamps.com
Proline – prolineracing.com
RC4WD – rc4wd.com
Scale Doctor sdi4x4.com
Spektrum – spektrumrc.com
Tamiya – tamiyausa.com
Tekin – teamtekin.com
TGN – tgndistributing.com
Vanquish Products – vanquishproducts.com

I also made a few custom parts for the project (you can find the ‘How To’ for these on my CompetitionX site):
• Bungee cords
• Toe straps
• License Plates

It was a pretty fun project but even more fun to drive. There is just something about crawling through the sand, rocks and river bed with a custom project you built. I actually had a fantastic time and have commissioned a few buds to go scalin’ with me.

Tamiya TA05 VDF Gold Edition Drift Car

Living in Southern California, you get exposed to quite an array of motorsporting events. Road-cars, short course, motorcross and, of course, drifting. While I’m sure I have the skill to do all of those (uh, ya), money is a bit tight and requires me to find a different outlet to cure my need for speed.

I received Tamiya’s TA05 VDF Gold Edition Drifter in the mail the other day to do a review for RC Driver magazine. I’ll driven drifters before…heck, I even built one for a project…but nothing prepared me for the uber-coolness that the Gold Edition VDF has. Carbon fiber and gold-anodized aluminum are everywhere in this kit, and it’s front-ish motor and twin belt design provide the optimum balance for drifting.

The VDF is built, electronics installed (a combo of LRP, Futaba and MaxAmps) and I did up a sick Nissan Nismo Silvia S-15 body in Super Coppermix trim. I even did up the whole thing in groovy drift-style flashy lights. Pretty cooll. I’m kinda scared to drive it…

Kyosho Birel Nitro Go Kart

Got this cool new Kyosho Birel Nitro Go Kart to review for RC Driver Magazine. Even though it’s powered by a teeny .15-size nitro engine, it should scoot since it weighs nothing! Tires, thankfully, seem nice and soft since there isn’t any suspension, just like the real thing. Can’t wait to drive it! Going to try to get to it this week.

OC Circuits 2011 Surf City 700 Endurance Race

This past weekend, a couple buddies recruited me to run a 3-hour onroad endurance race at OC Circuits 2011 Surf City 700 Endurance Race. Typically I don’t like running those because it ends up in disaster depending on the other members of the team. This time, however, I knew both drivers were smooth, consistent types and would fit in well with my driving style; ie, they could keep the car on the track for all 3 hours.

Mike Rywell, of Exotek Racing, provided the HPI Pro 4 chassis with his Exotek Racing narrow-chassis conversion kit. Once at the track, Orlando got to work setting up the car while I had the fun task of gluing tires. We made 5 or 6 test runs, tweaking the car each time to get it dialed in to the fast, sweeping track. Minutes before the race started we made a HUGE rear-toe adjustment that gave the Pro 4 a comfortable amount of steering…something we had been struggling for the whole day.

Basic rules were as follows: There would be a mandatory drivers change every 20 minutes, but you didn’t necessarily have to swap out the battieres, tires, etc. Our plan we to do a quick battery change every 20 minutes (even though, during testing, we went almost 30 without a problem). That way each driver had a chance to get up on the stand, take a moment breather and have a fresh pack to drive on. And, with only 3 team members, there was plenty of stick time (other teams had 4 or more, cutting down on their track time).

I got to drive the first stint of the 3-hour race. We took a quick lead and were being following REALLY close by the Team Associated. I finally let them go by since it was such a long race…no need in accidentally breaking the car trying to stay out front. This strategy worked as they ended up breaking the car early and were in the pits for repairs. The other team that had a chance to dominate had a couple big hitters: Gil Losi Jr. and Joel Johnson. They appeared to be the team to beat but, in the early stages, also suffered some car troubles. This allowed us to C-R-U-I-S-E around the track, picking off traffic and putting some valuable laps between us and the competition.

Thankfully, we had zero issues all day. Battery changes went smooth as did the driver changes. We did make a tire change but it was during a re-start/computer reboot half-way through the race. I think we could have lasted on the current set of kicks but it ended up working out well anyway.

After 3 hours, we crossed the line in first over some pretty fast teams. I think we won by 15 laps or so, which isn’t much. We did pull a team strategy and decided to just keep the car in the center of the track, on all fours and let anyone slowly catching us to go by. As long as the car stayed together we’d win the event.

I had a great time. It was really fun (when isn’t winning fun) and would definitely do it again. Thanks Mike and O for a great team.

A little extra thanks and a list of parts we used:
HPI Racing for the Pro 4
Exotek Racing for the killer chassis conversion
Team Orion for the Advantage chargers
Reedy for some of the LiPos used during the race
PTI Racing for the Nissan R390 Body
RC Driver, the best RC mag in the industry
CompetitionX, because I can promote my web site!

My SC8e at the Short Course Nationals

While doing my normal, daily uber-Google usage (there is never a lack of fun, witty or downright stupid stuff to learn on the internet), I came across an article about the 2009 Short Course Nationals held at RC Madness in Connecticut. Ok, so? Well, cool thing was the site in which I found it…Off-Road.com. This site is the online version of VerticalScopes publication, Off-Road Magazine.

It talks a bit about the race, some laptimes, a few pictures and even mentions me! I know the guy who wrote that and judging by the way it sounds, he makes it out the my truck was slower than his. To set the story straight, I took a big lead in the first couple laps of the race and never pushed the limits of the truck. There was really no need to as all I was interested in was the win and not the fastest lap.

Fun times. If you are interested in checking out the article, you can find it here: http://www.off-road.com/competition/race/shortcourse-rc-nationals-28647.html.

A quick shout-out to the following for supporting me at that race:
• Team Associated
• Tekin
• Airtronics
• Team Scream Batteries
• RC Driver Magazine

TLR L8ight Model / GT8 Conversion

I get excited when it comes to doing new projects. It’s not just the run-of-the-mill build-it-out-of-the-box routine, but demands a little thought and some creativity. It does require, however, some patience as not all projects go together as smoothly as a kit build. This, thankfully, was not the case with the Team Losi Racing L8ight Model – to – GT8 electric conversion.

This project was sparked by a large number of these appearing at the local parking lot races. They’re fun, F-A-S-T and require some skill to get them around the track in one piece. For a full rundown on this beast, head over to my RC web site at www.CompetitionX.com and visit Phalen’s Garage. If will be located under the Project RC Cars Category on the right. And don’t forget to let me know what ya think about my new 2011 paint scheme!