Team Hurtz

Team Hurtz was a team from Oxfordshire that competed in every series of Robot Wars apart from Series 1, and the first series of Robot Wars Extreme. The team consisted of John Reid, who designed the robots using computer software, with Rebecca Reaston-Brown from Series 2 to 4 and Dominic Parkinson from Series 2 to 6. After Series 6, Parkinson left the team and was replaced by James and Nick Lynch.

Team Hurtz's first robot in Robot Wars was Killerhurtz, which fought from Series 2 to 4, also competing in the First World Championship, representing the Czech Republic, due to Dominic being half-Czech. Killerhurtz had horrendous luck in the main competitions, despite placing very well overseas, especially in BattleBots and performing reasonably well in certain side events.

Their next machine, Terrorhurtz, was much deadlier with a more powerful axe and finished fourth in Series 6 unseeded, defeating seeded robots Panic Attack, Spawn Again and Bigger Brother on the way. It was seeded third for Series 7, but unfortunately but the team were unable to prepare it in time, so they withdrew from the competition (on the show itself, it was shown to be disqualified, but this was purely staged).

Team Hurtz's machines performed well in a variety of settings, and this was recognised by both Killerhurtz and Terrorhurtz receiving places in Mark Joerger's Combat Robot Hall of Fame, the only UK team to have two heavyweight representatives there.

Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 13
 * Losses: 12

Series Record

 * Series 1: Did not enter
 * Series 2: Heat, Arena Semi-Final with Killerhurtz
 * Series 3: Heat, Round 1 with Killerhurtz
 * Series 4: Heat, Round 2 with Killerhurtz
 * Series 5: Heat, Round 2 with Terrorhurtz
 * Series 6: Fourth Place with Terrorhurtz
 * Series 7: Withdrew with Terrorhurtz

Outside Robot Wars
Team Hurtz continue to fight today with Terrorhurtz in the live events. They have done well since Robot Wars left the screens, winning the Roaming Robots UK Championship in 2004 and 2009 and finishing second in 2005 and 2007.

Team Hurtz also attempted to enter BattleBots with a robot called Beta, which was armed with a hammer. Beta was due to fight Bender in Battlebots Season 5.0 which would have made Team Hurtz the only British team to enter every season of that show. However, Beta was forbidden to compete as Team Hurtz had miscalculated the power of the magnet in the weapon motor, which kept on pulling up the floor. This meant Team Hurtz ended up withdrawing from the final series of both Robot Wars and Battlebots. Like Terrorhurtz, Beta was capable of leaping up into the air upon firing its axe, as proved when John Reid tied it to the floor at a barbecue as a demonstration. Upon firing, the weapon pulled all the ropes out of the ground and launched Beta up in the air.

Beta was offered a place on the rebooted BattleBots on the channel ABC, where it was due to fight Tombstone, often known as Last Rites. However, despite qualifying, a 25kg bag containing several parts of Beta was lost while flying overseas, and it could not be found in time for filming. Thus, Beta was replaced by reserve robot Counter Revolution. However, the missing parts were eventually recovered after the competition, and Beta is currently planned to compete in the next series, due to take place in 2016.

Trivia

 * Team Hurtz was the only team to be merchandised by both BattleBots and Robot Wars.
 * John Reid's brother Anthony was a successful touring car driver.
 * Typhoon 2 was the only one of the six UK champions Team Hurtz never fought, having battled Roadblock in Series 2, Panic Attack in Series 6, Chaos 2 in The First World Championship and the Northern Annihalator, Razer in Series 6 and Tornado in the Challenge Belt in Extreme 2.