Talk-It-Up Tuesday with XRAY's Martin Hudy

 

  

Without a doubt one of the most dominant forces in onroad racing, and quickly becoming one in offroad racing as well, is none other than XRAY. XRAY builds some of the most "luxurious" cars on the market, and hold an ongoing list of national and world championship wins and successes to their name. XRAY was founded by the Hudy family, and today they continue working together on a daily basis to innovate the latest and greatest new cars. 

 

This week we have sat down with our good friend Martin Hudy, son of Juraj Hudy, for an inside look into XRAY's past, present, and future!
 

 
 

LiveRC: Welcome Martin to "Talk-It-Up Tuesday!" Let's start off by talking about how XRAY got started. When and how did your family get into R/C car racing?

Martin: The story would last for a few books, so I will try to make it short. Everything started back in 70’s when my father Juraj started to design and manufacture his own slot cars and racing his own cars. He became a multiple national champion and was dominating racing in Middle & Eastern Europe. In late 70’s Juraj started to race RC cars but at that time the communist regime did not allow to import or buy any products from western countries, so the only chance was to produce your own RC car. Juraj started to design his first RC cars which he manually produced at home. His cars were immediately the best performing and most reliable and all his friends wanted him to make a car for them as well. As such, Juraj started to produce first cars for his friends but since all parts were handmade he could make only 10 pieces a year. During that time of communism it was forbidden to make any private business, and you could even go to jail for selling anything! Juraj improved his car every year and despite not having any information from foreign markets he was the first one who developed and produced the first 4WD car in the world. Since it was impossible to buy any tools or equipment Juraj made his own tools, tire truer and all the accessories he needed and he had to hand-make his own bodies or parts for the engine because no spares could be purchased. After the fall of communism in ’89, Juraj travelled to Holland to Serpent with his car and a German dictionary, since he could not learn any foreign language due the regime… he had to translate every word he wanted to say. At reception they were looking at him very strangely but he did not want to leave and was somehow able to get in contact with the owners. After showing them his car, they gave him drawings of some parts they wanted him to produce samples. As Juraj returned from his first foreign “business trip” he did not have the resources to produce the samples and as such flew to see a friend who was living as an immigrant in the USA; he worked there several months as a service man at a slot car track. Returning home he used all the money he earned and borrowed money from the entire family and bought the first manual cutting machine. He rented a small garage where he started to produce the parts for Serpent. For more than decade, Juraj was the main supplier of all the steel and aluminum parts for Serpent. As production increased, Juraj had to move from the garage into a rented hall where the amount of workers increased to 25 and new technologies were purchased. From the early ‘90s Juraj was already mass producing the tools, equipment, and accessories under the HUDY brand name. However, at the beginning nobody wanted to buy them as the brand name and company were unknown and as such he attended toy exhibitions and was handing out free products to everyone just to present the products. There was no Internet at that time and as such Juraj collected RC magazines at the exhibitions, and coming home we searched the magazines for distributor & dealer contacts and sent everyone free samples. Slowly he built the distribution network and started to sell HUDY products around the world. Since the cooperation with Serpent started, Juraj did not produce and sell any of his own cars due to a mutual agreement but then in’99 when Serpent moved their production to Asia, we had plenty of machines and workers without work and as such started immediately to design and produce the first cars. From that time, our portfolio has dramatically increased to the product line you see today.
 

LiveRC: When the very first XRAY car was released, did anyone think the company would grow to be an industry leader like it is today?

Martin: To be honest we did not expect this at all. We established the XRAY brand name and company in ’99 and the first car was the T1. We never dreamed that we would ever be able to compete against such well-known and respected companies like Kyosho, Tamiya, Associated, Losi and others who were in this business for decades and were huge corporations. We felt like a small nobody going to fight and compete to the big strong guys. But we focused on what we knew best and focused only and primarily on first-class quality and with our own advanced materials that Juraj has developed during the previous years we knew we would have a good product. But we did not expect the success would be so huge! From the very first T1 until today there is huge demand for our products we keep increasing the production capacity all the time. As spaces were limited, we decided to build our own facility which is the world’s largest and most modern RC car manufacturing factory in the world; it even has its own indoor and outdoor on-road and off-road testing tracks. The entire facility is the size of a soccer stadium and it is equipped with the most modern high-tech German, Swiss and Italian technologies, all the finest and best in the industry.
 
LiveRC: Tell us a little about your daily job working with your father. What does a typical day consist of?
 
Martin: My typical work day starts at 6AM when I come to the office and open the mailbox. While I am drinking my morning coffee, I answer to all important emails and I add “to do” e-mails into my task list. After that, I can start to work on the current project. I have two computers, one for designing and one for administration, and I work on both all day. We use sophisticated SQL database software for the CAD management as well as an ERP system for managing the products and production. Every day I get a few hundreds e-mails for workflow, notifications, approval requirements, etc. With all the team, work on the projects needs to be fully automated and the data stored in databases. Besides my regular R&D work I am in constant contact with our team drivers collecting the feedback, discussing new prototypes and projects, etc. Since I don’t have the time to leave the office for lunch, I usually take a small snack while working with the other free hand. Several times a day I have to go downstairs into production to check on the current status of production and check how the new prototypes are being produced, solve any issues instantly and manage and plan all the further steps in the prototype life cycle. My favorite activity is of course getting out of the office to the factory tracks to build the prototypes and have a bit of relaxed racing. The day finishes for me usually at 7PM. During weekends I am usually at plenty of races, usually during the year I have no more than 2-3 weeks free, so the remaining 50 weekends during the year I am out at some of the races or private testing. So as you can see, I have no personal life at all! (laughs)
 
LiveRC: You are an accomplished racer yourself, what are some of your proudest moments in R/C racing?

Martin: I would definitely say it would be the podium finish at the 1/10 Nitro Touring World Championship in 2008. For the 1-hour long final, I started from 10th place and worked my way up to 1st place when the race was only ¼ of the way through! I was in the lead for another 30 minutes and it was really very exciting but stressful as well. I realized during the race that we had a less-than-ideal pit strategy which would require me to make one extra pit stop (which happened at the end) and unfortunately during that last pit stop in the few final minutes of the race I dropped to 3rd place. Of course I was upset that our strategy was not the best, but at the end I was happy for a podium finish at the Worlds. 
 
LiveRC: You primarily race on-road, but with the release of the new XB4 you have been doing a lot more off-road racing, correct?

Martin: Well, not really. Some time ago I was fully involved in the development of all cars, but a few years ago when the product portfolio was increasing and we already had so many classes to handle, we set with Juraj and developed a new strategy. Juraj has taken all the off-road cars for further development, and I took all the on-road classes for development. This strategy has been working very well in the last years, and although we have added more classes we have still designed and made new products much more quickly and efficiently than before. Of course we keep updating each other and both of us know about every single detail of every car, and for any new developments we discuss everything together first. The factory racing team has also been settled in the last few years and is now very stable and very effective. In the on-road classes, I have been working on a daily basis with Alexander Hagberg, Francesco Martini, Marek Cerny, Paul Lemieux, Alessio Menicucci, Rick Vrieljnick, John Ermen and many others. In the off-road class, Juraj has been very closely working with Reno Savoya, Martin Bayer, and Josh Wheeler.

LiveRC: What is your personal favorite car in the entire XRAY family?

Martin: That’s easy… it’s the one that I have been spending the most time designing and testing – our electric on-road touring car platform!
 
 
LiveRC: The current 2WD buggy that XRAY off-road drivers have been racing looks almost identical to the XB4 with the body on. Can you tell us a little about the new buggy?
 
Martin: There is not much to say as nothing is final yet. Since the team started racing the XB4 at major races, they needed a 2WD car to utilize the time on the track. The fastest way was to use the XB4 and develop it into 2WD. Surprisingly the prototype has worked very well on the carpet tracks and as such we decided to continue with this 2WD project. The car works very well in high-traction conditions such as carpet or astro surface. Just few weeks ago, Jirka Mara won the 2WD Czech Nationals on the astro surface with the 2WD prototype. At the outdoor mud tracks the car works decent as well; at the recent European Championship Martin Bayer was able to get into the A-main final even though it was his first-ever race at a mud track. We continued to work on further testing and development of the 2WD version of the XB4 for the mud outdoor tracks, but it seems we will need to make a purpose-designed 2WD for the outdoor track with the motor in the back. But for sure the 2WD version of the XB4 works perfectly on carpet and high-traction tracks and we are considering to offer the 2WD version of the XB4 this winter season. I am also very happy that Martin Bayer won the European Championship 2013 4WD, our first European Champion title for the XB4.
 

LiveRC: Will we see a production 2WD at the upcoming IFMAR World Championships?
 
Martin: No, we are not that far. Due to this plus the limited experience of the factory team at outdoor mud tracks, we decided not to participate at the Worlds this time. We are realistic and need more time.
 

  

LiveRC: With the release of the 1:10 off-road vehicles, in addition to the 1:8 lineup, should we expect to see the XRAY factory team growing here in the United States to compete in events such as the ROAR 1:10 Off-road Nationals (in which XRAY's heavy hitters aren't usually seen)?

Martin: To compete with Losi and Associated at their home tracks will certainly be difficult, but we are as usual fully dedicated and will put out our maximum effort. When we started with the professional electric touring team we were facing well-established and ultra-strong factory teams filled with top name drivers, but even so in the US we were still able to collect more than 30 national titles in the on-road classes. As the off-road product portfolio will be now complete, we can address more potential drivers. We do not plan to “buy” any top names because as a small family company we cannot afford that, but rather we will look at and choose young talents. Like in the electric touring classes we found and chose young talents the likes of Jilles Groskamp, Victor Wilck, Andy Moore, etc. who all grew together with us and later on became World and/or European champions.

LiveRC: We continue to hear amazing things about the Hudy Racing Arena, can you tell us a little about it?

Martin: Hudy Racing Arena is the world’s largest and most sophisticated RC car venue in the world. When we do something, we strive for perfection and when designing and building the facility there was no compromise! The facility has two indoor and one outdoor on-road tracks. The indoor tracks include one carpet and one asphalt, so at any time we can turn the on-road track into an off-road track with temporary jumps. At this moment we are designing and planning to build a permanent outdoor off-road track in a covered hall so we can test all year long. All the tracks are primarily used for private testing, so when we design something today, we produce in-house tomorrow morning and test at the track in the afternoon. There is no other company in the industry that can even come close to this flexibility and speed in development. We use the tracks from time to time for races and usually host the XRAY Challenge races at our venue.
 

  

With the great positive word spread around, last year we were approached by ETS organizers and this year we organized for the first time a large international event with almost 250 drivers. I believe from the feedback that everyone was amazed! With the huge success we already committed to ETS for next years’ finals to be held at our facility again. We also recently discussed with EFRA to organize a European Championship! So more races will be coming over here. To see a gallery from the last race at our facility see HERE!
  
LiveRC: What is your most embarrassing moment in R/C racing?

Martin: Sorry, but nothing comes to my mind, even though I was thinking a long time about this question. 
 
LiveRC: What is one thing most people don't know about Martin Hudy?

Martin: My friendly nature! Well, the people that I am in daily contact with or the drivers with whom I drive often know that I am always trying to help and I hardly say “no” if I have time. I always help our drivers with set-ups, provide advice and also help out as mechanic during the races. But when I go outside of Europe, I have the feeling that people at the race are a little bit scared of me. Guys… really you do not have to be scared of me! I am at the races mainly because of you and my first priority is to have happy, satisfied customers so when you need any help, please come see me!

LiveRC: Favorite trophy girl?

Martin: That’s easy… that would be our Hudy Arena trophy girl!
 

LiveRC: Martin, thank you again for joining us today! We look forward to seeing you and Juraj very soon, and wish you all the best! Is there anything you would like to add?

Martin: Thank you very much as well! I would like also to thank you for your hard work and keep going as I always watch important races online at your website when I cannot attend.

 

Photos courtesy of Team XRAY and Hudy Racing Arena. 

 

 

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