SPIED: Team Associated's prototype truck

0 Oct. 26, 2015, 3:08 p.m.

By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com

Last weekend at Pro-Line's test track, Team Associated driver Ryan Cavalieri drove an all-white truck to the Pro class victory over HB's Ty Tessmann and Ryan Lutz from Tekno RC - arguably two of the fastest truck racers in North America. Steve Burgess of www.rugspingraphix.com snapped a few photos of the truck that show details of what was going on under the body, and it looks like Ryan was driving a new RC8B3-based prototype.

Team Associated jumped into the 1/8-scale truck class in 2008 with the RC8T, a longer and wider version of the original RC8 buggy - and Cavalieri drove the new kit to its first big win at the Reedy Truck Race of Champions that fall. An RTR "Race Spec" version was released later that year, followed by a brushless-powered RC8Te in 2009. Cavalieri and the RC8T won again at the 2009 The Dirt Nitro Challenge, and reigning national champion Ryan Maifield (who drove a Kyosho ST-RR to the 2008 title) repeated with his new RC8T to give the truck its first ROAR win in its first try. By the end of 2009, Associated had released limited quantities of a Factory Team RC8T and then the RC8T Championship Edition full-option kit.

Cavalieri and Maifield finished second and third at the 2010 The Dirt Nitro Challenge (after Cavalieri TQ'd), and then Maifield won the Silver State. Maifield won the ROAR Nationals again in 2011, his third title in four tries.

After that, the RC8T Championship Edition hit a dry spell - and was eventually discontinued.

Like other manufacturers, Team Associated hasn't done much to update its 1/8-scale truck platform - the team drivers have tried running longer chassis plates from M2C Racing, and Cavalieri and former teammate Carson Wernimont finished fourth and fifth at this year's Silver State with some new parts aboard their trucks, and then finished fourth and seventh, respectively, at the ROAR Nationals.

While it was once the dominant support class at nitro races, 1/8-scale electric buggy has dampened many racers' enthusiasm for the class at races of all levels, combined with the higher costs of tires and maintenance. Still, Team Associated doesn't like to participate in any class where they aren't frontrunners to win, so it seems they're working on updating the now-seven-year-old RC8T platform.

The first thing I noticed when looking at the pictures (aside from the raw aluminum chassis - a dead giveaway of a prototype) was the pillow ball front suspension. The RC8B3 uses pillow balls, which the A-Team engineers and designers felt made the car more predictable and forgiving on difficult tracks without sacrficing corner speed.

Like other modern trucks, the bulk of the components bolted to the chassis on Cavalieri's prototruck are mounted forward - way forward. The front and rear shock towers of this truck are significantly wider than the RC8T CE, indicating a total revamp of suspension geometry. It also looks like this test mule is fitted with the fuel tank from the RC8B3, which apparently didn't provide too much of a disadvantage despite being 25cc smaller than the typical 1/8-scale truck tank.

Of course, any prototype vehicle will look good with multi-time national and world champion Ryan Cavalieri behind the wheel, but a win over the stacked field at the SikCross is a pretty good indication that this truck (the RC8T3, perhaps?) is further along the development path than we might expect.