The folks over at Traxxas debuted the world's first fullsize radio-controlled PRO Light racing truck at the Labor Day Weekend TORC series race in Crandon, Wisconsin.
Yep, seriously. They took a long-travel, tube frame, 350hp truck previously campaigned by Casey Currie and outfitted it with everything needed to make it driveable by remote control. If anyone could do this, it would make sense that Traxxas could. After all they're on fire (figuratively speaking) making a steady stream of some of the most innovative, high-performance R/C cars and trucks. Example: the new Slash 4x4 and the rockin' locker-equipped Summit.
It took a lot of work in a short amount of time to make the R/C PRO Light project happen. It also took some on-the-fly ingenuity. For instance, industrial servos were used for the steering, but they were too slow and had to be cleverly modified to increase their speed. The steering proportion had to be adjusted as well to preserve the right "feel." A special braking actuator was developed that allowed brake pressure to be modulated. Of course, safety was a top priority, so redundant, independent fail-safe and disabling systems were a must.
The design team worked almost around-the-clock to make it all happen. Ultimately, they adapted a mix of hobby and industrial components to build the world's first R/C PRO Light truck.
After all of the modifications were made to the fullsize R/C race truck it was driven by remote control by PRO 4x4 points leader Rick Huseman on Friday night. First, he drove it from the driver seat using the remote so he could gain a feel for the truck's responsiveness. He then drove the truck from trackside using the R/C transmitter, doing donuts and ripping up and down the track. And if that wasn't enough, on Saturday he drove the truck in a solo demonstration that included "virtual driving." To do this, he commanded the R/C PRO Light truck from a darkened skybox suite as he watched a video image transmitted from the driver's seat of the truck. To make this happen the design team had to eliminate the delay inherent in digital video transmission, for obvious reasons. In addition to the audience at Crandon, millions at home saw the Traxxas breakthrough live on ABC television.