Spidertrax | Thom Kingston | CC BY 3.0

Time to review that holiday checklist. No, we’re not talking about the food still needed or where your relatives are going to sit — racing is what fuels our brains. There’s a few bits to cover before we take off for the holiday so let’s dive right in.

1. Holiday Closure – We will be closed Thursday & Friday for Thanksgiving (November 26th & 27th). Website will be running full steam, but in-stock orders placed during that time would ship on Monday the 30th.
2. Black Friday Sale – Yesterday, our 2013 Black Friday Sale was the #1 trending blog post, today it’s #2. So, for those wondering what we have in-store for 2015, what we can reveal is this. There WILL BE a Black Friday Weekend long sale, starting this Friday and ending Monday. The details of our sale will remain quite for now, but they should not disappoint. Be sure to check back then.
3. Axle Shafts for KOH – The start of King of the Hammers is just 66 days away, but who’s counting. For those needing spare axle shafts, or main shafts for that matter, our next axle shaft cut off is November 30th. Orders placed between now and November 30th will ship by December 31st. ANY SHAFT ORDERS PLACED IN DECEMBER WOULD SHIP FEBRUARY 1ST. So, best to get that order in by next Monday, otherwise it’s going to be an uncomfortably tight deadline come KOH race day Friday.

With that, for those in the states we do hope you have an amazing Thanksgiving.

Let’s see how good your memory is, for you faithful blog followers. Back in June of 2014, we helped design and manufacture a custom “Wide 5 Edition” Ultimate Unit Bearing. Part of a very unique IFS project fueled by Ben Bower himself, these Wide 5 bearings getting closer to finding their home onto the custom IFS billet outer bell, as shown in the video above. Just love the old school rotary table here, fancy CNC machines make things easier (and faster), but traditional manual machines can get the job done as well.

Be sure to check out Ben’s YouTube channel, not only does he share the inner workings of this IFS project but he’s also an avid wheeler and rock racing junkie.

The Ultra4 trend these days seems to be “go big or go home”. Granted, if you want to be on top there’s a fine line of making things just strong enough, it’s this that separates basic design from solid engineering. In the case of IFS outer stub shafts however, moving over to 40 spline just makes good sense.

First, we work with the same billet material as 35 spline IFS stubs, so there’s no cost difference in manufacturing. That’s a big win, but it gets better still. While outer IFS stub shaft failures are near non-existent, as we continue to push the boundaries of Ultra4 racing, increasing the stub shaft diameter will likely become necessary. Since we already manufacture  Ultimate Unit Bearings in 40 spline, making IFS 40 spline outer stub shafts was an obvious fit.

So there you have it. Spidertrax 40 Splined 300M Billet Series 30 Outer Stub Shafts are available on our online store, in-stock as of this post.

Ultra4Racing.com | Ultra4 | © 2015 All Rights Reserved

While we count the days to the start of the 2016 King of the Hammers (just 71 days!), let’s not forget that KOH is just the start of the 2016 Ultra4 racing season. Ultra4 has officially released next years racing schedule (pictured here) and we are in for another amazing year. No crazy surprises or upsets here, it’s pretty much an identical repeat of our 2015 season. The only officially ironed out bit for 2016 is the commitment to the VORRA 250, which was added after the fact in 2015.

With that, for you computer nerds we have a published version of the complete racing schedule HERE. Should work nicely with your favorite calendar program, best not to miss a race after all.

That’s it for today, have a great weekend!

Spidertrax | Thom Kingston | CC BY 3.0

It seems we are addicted to billet. Nearly everything (maybe everything come to think of it) we manufacture is out of domestic grade billet material. Forgings do have their place, and we have a number of products where forgings would traditionally be considered “the ideal way to manufacture”. Extreme racing (and crawling) push those boundaries though, even the slightest material imperfections can make the difference between 1st and last. We work with only the purest billet materials, from 6061 to 300M and beyond. It’s not the most cost-effective way to go, but it’s the best in terms of quality and reliability. With that, back to work we go.

Oh, and in case you were wondering… the in production parts pictured here WILL BE THESE.