Originally Posted by mdowney

I spent the day hanging out with the Kyosho guys at the HRH Shootout before they announced the car and got to see it up close. He had the Orion R10 behind the battery and was running the new Orion adjustable weight battery with the empty part of the compartment cut off, effectively making it a shorty pack. He's only doing this because Orion hasn't shipped their shorty packs yet. I'm guessing they'll have them by Nats though, because the cut pack isn't ROAR legal.

He ran his KO Propo receiver on the right-rear side of the battery tray, on the plastic part, in the traditional position, and the R10 capacitor on the opposite side in the same position. The plastic sides on the chassis actually have a channel that you can run the wires through, allowing you to conceal them. Tebo's wiring was very clean.

He also ran the transponder on top of the servo, as usual.

And those of you saying that nobody's seen this thing up close and in person, nor on the track, you're wrong. I've had a very good look at it in the pits and watched it up close in three mains. It looks beautiful and is planted around the track.

Jared told me he probably would have finished better (he qual'd 3rd and finished 4th) if he had stuck with his original setup, which he TQ'd with in the first two rounds. He just felt like he needed to keep tweaking the car because it's so new and he wanted to know how far he could push it. In his last two mains he said the setup he was running was pushing too much, but his initial setup was perfect.

The most encouraging thing I heard him say was that he loves the car and wouldn't change anything on it. Of course, that may change after he's run it for a while, but his initial impression was extremely positive. And I have to assume that guys who drive at that level have pretty good instincts about the cars they're driving.

So we'll see how he does at the Nats. I'm also looking forward to seeing Cody Turner wheel one, after he beat Dustin Evans and red-hot Steven Hartson at the JBRL last week. We may have another top K driver in the making. Great acquisition for Kyosho!