XRAY: The art of performance

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Making T2 - Exclusive Story

May 24, 2006

Linked to: XRAY T2


The popular US RC Car Action made an interview with XRAY chief engineer, Dipl. Eng. Juraj Hudy about making the XRAY T2. With the kind permission of RC Car Action we publish the interview online.


RCCA: Founded in 2000, XRAY is still a relatively young company, but you actually have many years experience in RC design. When did you first get started?

Juraj Hudy has a long-term experience with RC cars

JH: My love for this hobby is the passion that drives my involvement and my business. We could write a small book on how I got involved with RC and later started my own company (HUDY). On our website www.teamxray.com we have a section that outlines the history of the company. It also showcases a few of my early designs.

In brief, I started with model cars in my teenage years, designing and creating my own slot cars. I continued on and started to design and manufacture nitro 1/8 RC cars. During communism in our country we were not allowed to have our own business, so I could make cars for my friends and myself only, all hand made since I had no money and no opportunity to buy any machines. Each year I had developed a completely new car featuring new ideas and innovations. Just after the fall of communism in the late 80â™s, I got a chance to see what other real RC car manufacturers were doing and it was a great sensation to find out that my cars featured new innovations such as 4WD, automatic 2-speed transmission, and others concepts at the same time, or even some time before those huge corporations did.

This gave me a lot of confidence that even a small private person can compete against large corporations when you have the ambitions, dreams, and vision to show of your skills and work. I took my cars and all the money I had and traveled to Serpent in Holland. This was to be my true start as I left Holland with a contract to manufacture tuning parts for their Serpent cars. After that the story continued very quickly, I bought my first machines which I installed in my garage, I established the HUDY company which manufactures HUDY tools and accessories and had grown steadily until 2000, when I established a new company and new brand name â“ XRAY. Now we are growing again with the final stage of our brand new factory, the worldâ™s largest manufacturing facility dedicated solely to RC cars â“ the XRAY Millennium Factory â“ which will be of size of soccer stadium and feature three testing tracks. This will bring us to a completely new dimension, one I have been dreaming about since my teens.


RCCA: How you feel the hobby and racing have changed over the years?

Juraj Hudy at World Cup 2005
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JH: The RC model hobby has changed a lot in the last years. I am an âśold schoolâť modeller and I enjoy building and assembling the RC cars. I still believe you need to build the car to understand it and only then you can enjoy it. RTR cars have brought this hobby to a completely new level, it has brought a huge amount of new people inside which is of course great, but at the same time it changed the perception of what a model car is, or should be.

People now expect to get everything done for them, hands-off, and when something goes wrong they are lost and frustrated. Then either they will find a hobby shop to fix the problem or they forget about the hobby quickly. I remember times when you bought a kit and instead of perfectly CNC-machined top deck with countersunk holes and chamfered edges you received in the kit a piece of material and a drawing how to hand cut the top deck yourself. Things have changed but it is a great to see that this hobby is growing and only companies with new and fresh ideas can meet the new demands of customers.


RCCA: How does touring car racing in Europe compare to here in the U.S.?

Victor Wilck XRAY T2 - 3rd at DHI Cup 2006
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JH: The electric touring car racing has been very different between Europe and U.S. We have no foam tire racing. We race the whole year on rubber tires only, both indoor and outdoor season. To perfectly understand and learn the car and set-up on rubber tires is very tricky and demanding. From a design point of view I have to say that to design a touring car to work perfectly on rubber tires is much more difficult than to design car for foam tires.

	XRAY T2 TQ at World Cup 2005


RCCA: Many people believe that a stiffer chassis is always best; how did the new Multi-Flex Technologyâ„˘ chassis design come to be? What are the benefits?

Jilles Groskamp 2nd at DHI Cup 2006
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JH: The idea that a stiffer chassis is always best is a very wrong prejudice. There are many different factors that influence the carâ™s performance, besides the standard well-known setup features; there are factors such as suspension flex and overall chassis flex that have a significant impact on performance. Each track has different grip levels and the grip even changes during a race. When the grip is low you need a soft car and as the grip increases you need to stiffen the car.

XRAY was one of the first companies to offer different chassis thickness, to let the customer adapt their car to different grip conditions. Based on this idea I developed the revolutionary Multi-Flex Technologyâ„˘ that allows you to easily adjust the stiffness of the car from soft â“ to medium â“ to stiff, all of this instantly on the car without need to exchange or replace any part, which means no need to buy a different chassis.


RCCA: What are you most proud of, design-wise, on the new T2?

Mike Dumas 1st at 2006 US Touring Nationals - 19T category
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JH: I am very proud of the entire concept. If you want to have a great handling car in all conditions you need to consider the car as a complete concept, where all the parts and details are directly related and one will not work without the other. The tiniest details are most important and crucial; they differentiate whether the driver will hate or love the car. After 5 years of a very successful T1 platform I felt there was no more room for improvement with the old platform. This is why we designed the new T2 platform completely from scratch. Of course, I am especially proud on my new innovation and XRAY patent â“ the XRAY Multi-Flex Technologyâ„˘ that will change the touring car world.


RCCA: Do you believe there is more room for design refinement or innovation left in touring cars?

Mike Blackstock 2nd at 2006 US Touring Nationals - 19T category
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JH: Of course! Development is ongoing and unstoppable, since every human naturally pushes the limits further. We wonâ™t see any new radical touring car designs as we could see in the last years with one-belt or shaft drive hype. It seems that most of the companies have understood what I was convinced from the first day that the dual belt system is simply the best performing for electric touring cars, for many reasons and facts. Now most of the touring cars look similar which is a sign that the touring car evolution has reached maturity and the cars differentiate in the details and of course in the quality and performance of their parts. However, we have new revolutions in batteries and motors and those new technologies will push the limits further.

	XRAY dominates & wins '06 US TC Nats.


RCCA: Do you plan to offer different chassis plates and top decks?

Victor Wilck 3rd at DHI Cup 2006
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JH: I am convinced (and also the results have proven) that the Multi-Flex Technologyâ„˘ would allow you to adjust the car to all standard racing conditions, no matter if you run indoors/outdoors, with foam or rubbers tires, or if the grip is low or high. There may be of course some non-standard extreme conditions and maybe in the future some further tests will show that in some other very specific and extreme conditions something different may work better. Therefore I am not able to answer this question with a simple âśYesâť or âśNo.âť XRAY will continue to develop and test new ideas and only time will bring an answer to this question. But I am convinced that for all standard racing conditions at the current competition level, the T2 with Multi-Flex Technologyâ„˘ will work perfectly.


RCCA: What tuning adjustments should the average club racer running the T2 focus most on?

Joel Myrberg 5th at 2006 US Snowbird Nationals - 19T category
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JH: Unfortunately, the touring cars have reached a very high competition level where the smallest details will affect whether you win or lose a race. There are a few of the worldâ™s best drivers who can be place in the top 10 at all races all the time, because they are skilled at fine tuning the smallest details that will win the race for them. For the club racer I would say that to start with basic set-up is the way to go. Our basic set-up for rubber and foam tires will work in most conditions. Every serious racer, even at club level, should be motivated and interested to learn and understand what each setting will do to alter the carâ™s performance and handling on track. Unless you understand what you need to change to the car, to make the car adapt to the different conditions, you may find it difficult to enjoy an easy-to-drive car and/or win. We include a huge 40+ pages detailed Set-up Book which covers all settings; reading and understanding the basics will make a big difference in understanding the car you drive.


RCCA: Do you have any building and setup tips for new T2 owners?

	Paul Lemieux winning XRAY T2 at 2006 US Snowbird Nationals - Modified category (click to enlarge)
JH: The T2 is super easy to build and with basic set-up will provide good handling. From that point it is up to the driver to change the set-up to his likeness. We regularly publish new set-up sheets, new tips ân tricks on our Web site, so I suggest that every T2 owner sign up at our forum at www.teamxray.com.

	Double podium finish at DHI-Cup 2006


RCCA: XRAY has assembled what is probably the most talented team in on-road racing. What role does racing play for XRAY?

Martin Hudy & Jilles Groskamp at World Cup 2005
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JH: A good team and good car goes hand-in-hand and the outcome is a long-term good result. You can have the best team and win all races, but if the car is not easy to handle and drive well for a regular driver, you cannot be successful. If the regular driver will not be able to build the car easily and be happy with the performance and handling, you cannot be successful. To have all world champions in your team will not convince the driver to use a car he does not like, and therefore will look for some other alternative. Therefore I have been always building car for myself in the first place, if I will be able to drive the car easily then anybody in the world will be able to drive the car easily, too.


RCCA: If the XRAY on-road team could have only one pro racer, who would it be?

Team XRAY at 2006 US Snowbird Nationals
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JH: A team is team because of the teamwork of all the members. There cannot be a team with one driver only. Therefore, all of the drivers are very important for the whole teamwork. Some drivers are great with their racing skills, some drivers are great with their technical skills, some are great because of setup skills, and some of the drivers are great support persons who help the regular drivers around. A successful team needs to have all of these different personalities and I am happy to say with the great support of our US distributor RCAmerica. We have built a very professional team that pushes each other further.


RCCA: How important is the upcoming On-road World Championship in Italy to XRAY?

Jilles & Viktor at World Warm-up 2006
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JH: Of course it is the most important race just after the European Championship and US Championship. However as with any other races, only one driver can win and the world will not end if we were not to succeed. We certainly have a very good team and a very good car, but there are so many different factors which influence the outcome. At the end of the day, the race may not be a race of cars, but the competition between different motors and batteries, and of course competition of knowledge with additives and other tricks.

	XRAY Dominates 3rd Consecutive US Snowbird Nationals


RCCA: At the last On-road Worlds, you seemed to be using it as more of a test session; do you expect different results this time around?

Jilles Groskamp winnig XRAY T2
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JH: We had tested and found a great setup at the Worldâ™s warm-up where we scored a podium finish. However, the track layout, weather, and grip conditions have changed significantly for the actual Worldâ™s event, so we had to start from square one. We tested all possible combinations but unfortunately found the best setup just after the qualifications and in the finals the lap times were at the pace. At the end we had still 6 cars in top 20. Of course I hope this time we will do much better.


RCCA: What is next for XRAY?

Juraj Hudy testing new prototypes
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JH: The NT18 and NT18T have been extremely successful so we are working on some great ideas with these micro nitro cars. The development of the XB8 continues with the new TQ kit for the Euros and Worlds this year and of course we work on some new secret projects. Some of them will hit the market this year and plenty of new ones during next year, so watch out for great and exciting new XRAY products.