Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Field Testing the Comp Crawler

Hi everyone,
My name is Richard Trujillo and I’m a Product Manger for Losi. My latest project is the Team Losi Racing 1/10 Comp Crawler. I thought I would join the Losi Team blog and provide an update about the Comp Crawler.
This past weekend the Socal RC Rock Crawlers hosted Round 3 of the Socal Series at Horseman’s Park in Apple Valley, CA.
Very nice park with some grippy rocks to play on. We’ve been working very hard on the Crawler wanting to get it right. Prior to the comp, Losi driver Jake Wright and I got to do a little testing on the rocks and were feeling really good about competing.
Although I have been doing a bunch of testing in private, this would be the first time competing with it in public and to say the least I felt a little pressure.
The suspension setup I was running was the same that Austin Dunn used when he had it for a couple weeks. So rather than mess with the settings, I left it as is.
I used Losi Blue Rock Claws with 3oz of weight up front with Losi memory foam, and Blue Claws in the rear with stock gray foam and no weight.
The Socal club setup 3 courses, all of which were pretty challenging. I started on course 2, again I was feeling the pressure, but with a little spotting help from Losi driver Jake Wright, I managed to pull off a perfect score of -7!
The front and rear dig worked extremely smooth, it’s pretty crazy how easily you can go from front to rear dig back to all wheel drive at the flick of a switch. The turning radius was pretty impressive too. I noticed that on some sections I could turn in the same spot where it took others the need to dig. The other 2 courses didn’t go as well as I had hoped. I did not have any mechanical issues, but I did have an electrical bug hit and I couldn’t figure it out. It was a little frustrating as I knew the Comp Crawler was working awesome. After a couple years of bashing, my poor servo finally decided to let go. Unfortunately it was during my last 2 runs. It seemed to function ok, but there was a short or something that was just fouling up the radio system.
All in all, I was extremely happy with the debut in competition. We’re pushing hard to get the Comp Crawler out but at the same time we want to make sure everything is just right before they get in your hands.
Rich
Losi Drive Jake Wright testing the Comp Crawler

The glare off the rocks was brutal!