Here's the deal with us and the X Team. If you want to be on the X Team you must, 1) Be great at representing our products, 2) Be great at testing and developing new products, 3) Win races. In that order. # 1 and # 2 are close to equal, while winning is less important.
So let's look at #2: Mark, please look carefully at all our drivers' cars. You'll find that just about every part has been touched by a Dremel. Further, there are several parts on every car that are home-made. We encourage it, and we encourage our drivers all over the world to communicate their ideas with each other. E-mails, IMs, texts, phone calls fly all over the world every day.
Who are the top drivers on our Team? Brian Kinwald and Ellis Stafford. BK is known world-wide as the most innovative person in the entire industry. After knowing him almost four years, I'm sure Ellis will argue about that ranking.
Our drivers can use just about anything they want if we don't manufacture it. For instance, they all use our chassis, our tranny, rear arms, rear tower, etc. We make those things, and all drivers use them.
Shocks? Couldn't care less. We urge every Family member to use whatever parts make him fastest. Nobody notices the shocks when you are posing for pix with the trophy girls and an X - 6 Squared in your hand.
We supply AE shocks with the EC because they are proven, work well, many customers are familiar with them, parts are easily available, and the price is right.
When our 4WD comes out we will make every part on the car, including shocks, and input from the Team will, as always, be crucial. "I like this about the Kyosho." "I like that about the AE." Etc. So having the Team running different shocks is a good thing.
99.5% of all drivers in the world will go equally fast on just about any good shock. After all this time, when this shock thing comes up, we run screaming for the exits waving our arms and needing a pint fast.
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