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Several RC magazines around the world have asked us to write a monthly column. With the kind permission we will re-publish the column at our web site too so all of the XRAY fans can read the latest news and behind the scenes information. Enjoy.



I am very happy to be given the opportunity to write a monthly XRAY column. I will try to bring you some ‶back stage※ information, my point of view on different events, and will even disclose some future developments.

The 2006 summer was definitely the busiest ever for XRAY. We had challenges in three different areas – finishing the new facility, installing completely new technologies, and participating at the European and World Championship races in both touring and off-road categories. Needless to say, I had to very carefully manage my time to able to do them all!

XRAY Millennium Factory:
After a few years of building we have finally finished the new factory! This has been the most exhausting and most demanding project I have ever had to face. With a factory and facility the size of a soccer stadium — featuring two outdoor and the world’s largest indoor track — you can imagine the amount of different tasks and daily issues and problems to solve; I figure that more than 50% of my daily time, energy and efforts were eaten up by this project, which were unfortunately taken away from other core activities — developing and designing new products. I am VERY happy that this very difficult period is over for us and I have been looking very much forward to the future as this new facility will move our capacity and potential to a completely new dimension. We will be moving all the equipment to the new factory this autumn, so I expect after a few months of shake-down we will be able to run operations at 100% and start to realize the potentials. I am very proud that all of our staff have successfully faced all the challenges and worked so hard over the past years to make this dream happen — to build the most professional and fully modern, high-tech equipped, largest RC manufacturing factory. When the new operations will be completely set up, you can expect a virtual tour through this sophisticated RC facility, so watch out!

New Technologies Project:
With a very clear and long-term vision and product development plan of growth, it was obvious that we would need to completely renew the manufacturing equipment and machines and install some completely new technologies to be able to fulfill our vision and plan. With the rewards and awards from previous projects and with the reputation and the achievements on our account we have successfully received support from European Union to purchase the new technologies; this is extremely encouraging since it is a huge amount of trust being put in our long term plans. Over the few last months we have successfully installed in the new factory all brand new, most sophisticated, high-tech German and Italian CNC machines and several brand new technologies that will help us to become completely independent from any suppliers or co-operations. The new technologies will have much higher initial investment costs and will definitely increase the operational costs of the factory but to be able to guarantee our customers 100% quality and highest flexibility we had to move forward with this strategy — to have all manufacturing processes in-house. Of course to install these completely new technologies, to hire and train staff, and to re-arrange production processes to fully utilize the potential of new technologies will be a demanding and expensive long-term process but will bring huge benefits in the near future. Part of the new technologies is the most modern color-coating and hard-coating fully-automatic robotic line which has been exclusively designed and custom-made for us — this new coating line is the most modern and advanced in Middle and Eastern Europe. There were several other brand new technologies recently installed and I will disclose some in-sights later on.

Racing Events:
The 2006 summer had the Worlds and Euros in both Touring and Off-road categories on schedule and of course we prepared well in advance for all of these events. XRAY has been the principal sponsor of Touring car Worlds and Euros for the last six years and this year we have continued in the support of this hobby and the tracks. XRAY’s support was additionally focused not only on team driver care but also on providing the best service and support to all private racers and to showcase all the products to the public. For this purpose XRAY had at the track the XRAY service van fully loaded with all spare parts, options, and all other equipment that any driver would need to guarantee that no single item would be missing. To showcase the hobby to public we had brand new XRAY display tents with a complete product range on display. With the special customer support and service we have been continuously building and improving over the last years, and with the highest performance of the current T2 it was very welcome and pleasing that XRAY has been the favourite choice of the racers and the T2 was the most frequent chassis used. Within the very demanding racing where plenty of factors play a significant role, we have achieved very good results in the touring car racing. At both the Euros and Worlds we had two cars in the A main and Alex Hagberg won the Junior European Championship 2006 for XRAY. I was especially very happy about the podium finish by Paul LeMieux at the World Championship, while even winning the second final run. Despite being very close to the win in the Touring car racing but not claiming the winner’s trophy, we still had a lot of courage and motivation for the off-road Euros where this time the hard work in preparation and development has paid off. In a very equal and exciting racing during the whole week, it was our XB8 that achieved the TQ and WON in style in the main final too, making XRAY the 2006 European Champion. Detailed race reports, huge photo galleries and set-up sheets you can accessed at XRAY’s Web site www.teamxray.com.

With the plenty of excellent results and wins at the national and international levels, this has been truly the first European Champion title for XRAY and I have been even more happy and proud for this achievement as our company and team is the youngest in the RC industry proving not only to me but to all of you, that if you have a vision, courageous goal, and long term strategy which you keep following and working hard, you will be able to achieve and fulfill your dreams, like I have fulfilled mine.

Now we have been fully concentrating on the Off-road World Championship and afterwards the indoor touring car season will start again soon, so the schedule will get tight again. I will bring you some in-sights next time again, so goodbye until next time and enjoy the XRAY ride!

Dipl. Eng. Juraj Hudy