Who's the innovator?
I agree with Jack Smash. It's not necessarily the inventor of a technology, but instead its the implementation of that technology that brings props to a company. Brushless motors have been around for a very long time. In fact, there is little chance that anybody in the RC industry had anything to do with the invention of it. But instead, it takes somebody to "take the bull by the horns" to change a standard or revolutionize something. If brushless motors become accepted for racing and they take over our current motors, and Novak is responsible for creating the shift, then they deserve the tag of being the innovators.
Novak has been working to make a speedo that standardizes and governs performance of brushless motors to make them apply better to RC racing. Their speedos have a switch on them. It toggles between STOCK and MODIFIED. So everybody would have the same type of motor/speedo combo and they would just have to choose which setting to run based on their class. What a great idea. I don't know if they invented it but again if they spearhead the project, then they deserve the credit. Also, wouldn't you like to run only one battery for a race night? Or have the option of running a 20 or 30 minute main? All possible with brushless motors.
Just like AE, they put alot of effort into maximizing shaft drives performance on a TC that handles well. They did wonders to eliminate most all of the ill effects that shaft driven cars have had up to that point. AE applied an existing technology but implemented it better than any other company had up to that point for racing purposes.
Just another way of looking at it