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It’s always cool to see big name athletes or celebrities getting involved in RC. This time veteran NBA big man Brad Miller has formed BMiller Racing. Brad Miller is a two-time NBA All-Star and currently plays for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Brad played at East Noble High School (just a short drive from my hometown in Indiana) [...]
The economy may be hurting a lot of people out there right now, but not Traxxas. They’re still raking in the dough. So much so, that they’ll soon be packing their bags and moving into a brand new facility in McKinney, TX. The huge new campus will cover 16 acres (which is about 700,000 square ft, or slightly larger than [...]
We here at Big Squid were saddened to hear about Mr. Reedy’s passing and had a hard time coming up with the right words to memorialize such a huge icon in the industry. But the Reedy family sent out this letter and it’s better than anything we could do here, so we are reproducing it in full for those who [...]
Model Retailer Magazine has an article about the general feelings of retailers and manufacturers from the recent NRHSA Table Top Expo in Las Vegas. They lead with the headline “Cautious optimism” and go on to talk about the state of the industry with many retailers saying that sales are up so far this year. This news aligns nicely with the [...]
The Hobby Manufacturers Association has announced the impending release of their second report on the size of the U.S. hobby industry. And the numbers look to be decent and growing despite a weak economy. The report was assembled from survey responses taken during the Fall of 2009 and tracks actual sales for that year and estimated sales for 2010. The [...]
Great Planes is bringing back their America’s Best R/C Sale for 2011. Last year’s sale saw a ton of great deals on products all across the R/C spectrum, and this year is sure to be no different. Great Planes is promising savings of up to $50 on more than 100 products from their various brands, which includes DuraTrax, Tactic, Futaba, [...]
A reader tipped us off about this RC car running off of soda can rings or aluminum waste products! There’s even a video!The car is called the dAlH2Orean, and is part of the ‘Aluminum’ project manufacturing rc cars using recycled aluminum as the main fuel. Aleix Llovet and Xavier Salueña, respectively student and professor at ETSEIAT, have patented the dAlH2Orean, [...]
Word on the street is that the new rc company Firelands Group is about to start getting things into action. We have heard that their new 1/18th scale 4×4 Animus truck should start to hit shelves in mid May, and we should also start to see some hop-up parts from their Anza side company start to show up probably [...]
Kershaw Designs has collected too much stuff over the last couple years and they’re tired of tripping over it every time they walk in the door. Well their frustration is your gain, they’ve taken a ton of that stuff and started putting it up on eBay to get rid of it as quickly as possible. Right now, at this very [...]
Ok, put this in the ‘we didn’t see that coming’ category. But it looks like mega online retailer HobbyKing.com is going to be opening up stores! Here’s a quote from their head guy Anthony Hand: “In an ever increasing effort to drive more value into the R/C market HobbyKing has begun piloting retail store franchises in select regions around [...]
Model Retailer magazine has just published a report stating that former Horizon Hobby president and CEO, Mike Gillette, has teamed up with industry legend Gil Losi Jr., and former Team Associated engineer Jason Corl to launch a new company called Firelands Group. They intend to enter the market with cars and trucks of their own under the Helion brand [...]
Those cool cats at Traxxas and TORC are preparing to step off on a new mission. They’re packing up a bunch of Slash 4x4s and the well traveled Traxxas Try-Me track and heading off to the desert. Together they will be bringing some hot R/C action to the men and women of our armed forces. The Traxxas TROOP vs [...]
Since Cubby mentioned this, I figured you might as well hear about the follow-up. The Burger King is apparently racing for Team Associated now… wait… no… BK means Brian Kinwald, as in multi world champion, highly influential racer and designer Brian Kinwald. That makes more sense. As Cubby noted, he was “released” from X-Factory last week. But now he’s signed [...]
Tech website Ars Technica has a great article about the offshoring of manufacturing. The article, titled Made in America: small businesses buck the offshoring trend, is specifically about tech companies, but can certainly apply to any company (e.g. pretty much every R/C company on the planet) that has sent their manufacturing to China and other nations over the last couple [...]
🙁 Despair, Inc. While the following news is more pertinent to flyboys rather than us drivers, it’s important to pay attention to government regulations being imposed on any part of the hobby. The FAA, over the past few years, has been coming up with rules and regulations related to small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (abbreviated sUAS). Those sUAS’ also happen to include [...]
