The Week That Was 03.16.08

Let’s dig right in.
Trinity announced a new engine line-up this week. Or should they have said “we will be importing a new engine line-up”? For years and years the Big T has done a great job of convincing the general public they actually make something. At least in their latest press release they state up front the engine is Sirio based and made in Italy. So why would anyone not just buy a Sirio and skip a middleman mark up?

Schumacher has made huge leaps and bounds since the hiring of p.r. and marketing man Shawn Palmer. Announced this week their latest CAT 4wd off-roader- the CAT SX. Back in the day, the Schumacher CAT was one of the most potent race weapons on the planet, and the new CAT SX looks to be of the same caliber. I say this because even from the early press photo’s, you can see it shares parts with their Mission 3 touring car, a very underrated racer. The Mission 3 is not only one of the elite touring cars on the market, but nearly a masterpiece of engineering. Having run a Mission 3, if left me in awe of just how refined even the smallest details were. Robin Schumacher really stepped up to the plate engineering wise with the Mission 3 If the CAT SX is of the same quality, it will be a large step above and beyond the Associated’s and Losi’s on the market right now.

FYI to everyone- the crawling world is really taking off! Get a crawler, be part of the “super dope” crowd! This week, Pro-Line showed it’s new Hammer and Badlands crawling tires, along with some uber-tech memory foam inserts. More choice is always a good thing when it comes to new treads, and Pro-Line once again is pro-active, not re-active to the latest trends. Huge props to Pro-Line for giving the public what it wants, when they want it.

It had been a few weeks since Losi rebadged one of their 18th scalers again, but this week they pulled through with yet another version- their 18th scale Mini Late Model. Now, in some parts of the country, Losi mini-t based oval cars are all the rage. Only time will tell if there is still room in the marketplace for yet another color of the same tasting gummy bear.

After flipping through one of the new rc rags, I happen to see several pages yet again wasted on a boat review. This has gone too far, as now nearly all the rags blow precious pages on utterly worthless boat or airplane info. Are they so in love with boats and airplanes they can’t help themselves? More likely, their advertisers give them the ultimatum, “Write up this POS boat in your car mag, or we are pulling advertising”. Does it really take that many balls for an editor to just say “Sorry,we cherish you as an advertiser, but we only review cars in our car mag”? Do you ever see a new fishing boat reviewed in the latest issue of Car and Driver?

That’s it for this week freaks. Support your local hobby shops and your local tracks!
Cubby