The focus is on the car, the drivers line is silent, 30 seconds to go and FINISH! The young racer asks “How many laps did I do?” It is clear, another enthusiast is born! Sunday, Hobby Town Orland Park invited the Chicago Mini RC Club out to the 9th annual Mopar/AMC Show and Shine to do demo of the new Losi 1/24th scale Short Course Truck (SCT) and Rally car. We’ve recently posted our unboxing of the SCT and Rally and the next step for a proper review was a day of bashing/racing in the hands of the target demographic, newbies, kids, and their parents (wallets). With the fleet of vehicles fresh in hand Friday night, I invited Craig Guibas from I-lap R/C lap timing systems over to my place for some PCB diagnostics. After some banter regarding Losi’s decision to include a 27mhz setup vs 2.4ghz, Craig was able to locate a regulated 3 volt circuit connected to the switch of the PCB. After a successful test the first harness was in. The transponder lit right up and our initial tests showed that even with just 3 volts, we were getting registered laps with the bridge sensor as far as 3 ft above the car (and this was with no holes drilled in the body for the transponder IR emitter). The game plan was coming along nicely. New trucks in the hands of new drivers running timed races. In the words of my 10 Y.O. at heart, “COOOOOL!”
When we arrived at the Show and Shine, we saw that the showroom was wide open and out of the sun. We had power but no air conditioning. I’m not the biggest fan of being under the sun from 12-3pm while running around marshaling cars driven by new drivers (my quadriceps are KILLING me). We decided we’d setup in the showroom where there was no breeze (Or roughly translated, we are filled with R/C passion and about 2lbs lighter and the end of the day). The new Losi Tracks aren’t released yet so we setup the club’s RCP tracks. Again, I tapped my inner 10 Y.O. and began looking for boxes to make ramps for the track. The corner markers Losi includes made for some nice little bumps in track too. On Craig’s advice we also made the track wider to accommodate a center area for inner marshaling. White board up announcing the race start time. Will a crowd form?
Continue reading this post…







So I started getting the text messages from Brian around noon today, “Cubby, where the HELL is THE Cub Report?”, “Hey call me, I am getting a bunch of emails wondering where THE Cub Report is!”, etc.










