The rear chassis brace is another big item, like the front it is incorporated into the bulkhead, but it’s made of plastic and is 2mm thick… or thin. Luckily the press moulded chassis is as solid as a rock and doesn’t tolerate any flex at all.
The radio box next to it is enormous; the TRU-03 receiver with fail safe included can really stretch its legs in comfort even with the four cell battery pack in place, or the 6V hump pack I installed in its place. The ADSPEC GP-2 transmitter supplied isn’t such a good looking bit of equipment sadly, it’s all in a stealthy black plastic and that’s about as nice as I can be, it isn’t comfortable to hold and it looks unmistakably cheap, which when you think the Nitrage has an RRP of £445 it’s one word I shouldn’t be using. Apart from all that it’s really nice!
discovery time
First things first and the engine needs breaking in, consulting the manual here it says to fill it up with fuel and drive from the off. So in went some O’Donnell’s 25% racing juice as we slowly and steadily worked our way through three tanks of rich settings. On the fourth tank I took it for a gentle spin around the MaxBashing race track, no honestly I was gentle. Mainly because it didn’t much like going around corners due to having the turning circle of an aircraft carrier, it’s easier to smack the brakes on to lock up the rear end so it swings outwards forcing the truck to change direction rather than actually turn. It’s not so bad if you constantly do all your braking whilst in a straight line, because you can never guarantee just how far the back will kick out so it’s all to easy to spin out on a corner. Its best performance was in a straight line and it could do this with a smile on its face, the engine was bedding in nicely now and the power it was making was almost decent, surely it was time to attempt a jump.
An easy double jump was the order of the day and it was also the nearest one to me, so I lined the Nitrage up preparing its first test of strength in the chassis and design on a real beginner’s level. It launched beautifully and floated over touching down perfectly on the down ramp without allowing me the chance to see its corrective talents with just a rear brake, so back over the other way and the front was diving down as the rear got kicked up, I throttled it and rescued it from a taste of mud in the face, landing with a slump on all four wheels again. A third jump and over it went again with perfection, damn I’m just too good sometimes, so I got it back and prepared to attack it with some venom, forcing at least some kind of correction. The Nitrage sensed this coming and promptly refused, driving up to the jump and then nothing, all the revs and no go, something was wrong! It transpires that the spur gear has stripped inside the gearbox, not the teeth on it but the centre section where the drive pin goes through, now if it didn’t have a gearbox that wouldn’t have happened (although it also has to be said if Dan hadn’t stripped if down for the photos it probably wouldn’t have happened either but I’m not pointing the finger of accusation at the boss!).