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.

Last fall I was pretty burnt out on our hobby. When I had originally signed on with BigSquid I agreed to write a Cub Report each week, but over time I was seriously slack’n, and when I didn’t have anything good to write about the Cub Reports would often be a week or more late. Well, each year iHobby expo is the time we sit down and see how things are going, and last year it was obvious I was pretty burnt out, but I promised I would try my best to keep pump’n them out. BigSquid continued to grow, so right before January I decided that I would give 100% to BigSquid for one more year, one more big push to see just how far we could take this website. So when I made my commitment to give a big push for 2010, I also had the talk with the man in charge Brian, asking him to do the same. We basically had the talk of “lets make a big push in 2010, give it 100%, then sit down at iHobby 2010 and just see if it’s worth all the work”. So far, 2010 has been ridiculously incredible, basically going from a wanna-be/poser website to the rc site that is leading the pack into the switch over to the internet era.

As I have mentioned before, THE Cub Report starts out on Sunday mornings. Texts go flying back and forth between myself, Brian, and a half dozen industry peeps trying to come up with good ideas to write about. Yesterday (Sunday) I was coming back from the AMA motocross national in Southwick Mass and the normal texts were exchanged, but I was nowhere near a computer, and even worse, I was feeling down about our hobby. If you are too deep into our hobby it’s hard to see it, you just get used to it and it’s hard to see all of the problems, but when you frequent events that aren’t all F’d up like AMA motocross, it’s obvious that rc racing is under achieving. Hence the reason I was in no hurry to sit down and mash out a Cub Report last night, I just hate seeing a hobby that could be excelling, floundering around.

So I’m wondering, does a Cub Report on why I was late with a Cub Report really count? I guess it’s going to have to, because I’ve got nothing else for ya this week. LOL But thanks to all those people that flipped out because it was missing, it’s still hard for me to believe that people are actually reading this. I hate submitting less than stellar Cub Reports, but more importantly to me is that I do get one pumped out, and that is at least keeping it real with the readers, for better or worse. The only consolation prize is that I will have a pretty uber “ASK Cubby” coming out this week, so keep your eyes peeled on BigSquid Thursday.

Thanks for reading, and as always, support your local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

How are tracks keeping their doors open now days? Have you looked at weekly attendance at your local tracks? More likely than not, your local track is getting 15-40 entries on a weekly basis, hardly enough to keep the lights on and rent paid. Well, I’ll tell ya how many tracks are keeping their doors open, big “trophy” races. Many tracks depend on trophy races to bring in enough dinero to keep from going under, without them, they simply could not make it.

Depending on trophy races to keep your doors open is not how a “fun” hobby should operate. A “fun” hobby should depend on building up a base of local/not so serious racers that come out religiously every weekend. Having a strong “fun” local base makes noobs feel more comfortable, creating a snowball effect, one that encourages first time racers to come back every weekend, giving a local track a steady growth of new blood.

Walk into an “average” track now days and you’ll find the same 20 hardcore racers you would have found there in 1996. Hundreds of noobs have come, felt uncomfortable and/or totally uncompetitive, and never came back a second time. Those 20 racers are the ones that will go out of their way to win at any cost- from cursing, to not sharing common set-up information, to hacking, to flip’n out on marshals, to generally doing anything to run away potential challengers to their spot as local fast guy. But, these few local hardcore guys (the ones that are willing to travel to race) are the ones keeping most tracks open. Out of their pockets come the $30-$150 entry fees for all those trophy races that keep tracks open. The real question is, how much longer can our hobby keep milking these guys dry every year before they start asking themselves is it really worth it? At what point will the local hardcore guy see that he spent 15k last year for a few plaques and a couple of partial sponsorships? Was spending 15k and missing his kids grow up worth those plaques and partials? Those guys are hardcore, but they aren’t stupid (perhaps a bit obtuse), and many of those aging hardcore guys have just about had enough.

Not helping are some track owners. I’ve talked to several new track owners lately who just can’t wait to hold big races. They see “big” races as the only way to make any money. They see big races as the only way to establish their track as being a “good” one. They really could care less about what their local noobs want, they only people they seem to listen to are the hardcore racers on RC Tech who live 50 miles away but swear they’ll support their track (well, if the makes the rules and the track the way they want them).

Also not helping is ROAR. ROAR gave up on local racing years (decades?) ago, seemingly now only caring about nationals (upon nationals, upon nationals). After seeing dwindling membership year after year, they seemingly came up with the brilliant idea of holding as many different national races (and classes) as possible. They seemingly think the only way they can make more money is via entries to their national events, so they hold a ridiculous amount of them (anything for a buck eh? no matter how much it devalues their winners). If you race full scale motorcycles in the USA (dirt or street, it does not matter), you are most likely an AMA member, as nearly all local Joe Blow tracks in the country require an AMA card for even the most basic of events. It seems like ROAR is all about the money these days, funny that they don’t understand the real money is to be had at the local level.

Ok, to finally digress- the most important people in racing are the noobs, the guys that show up with the Stampedes, Red Cats, and T-Maxxs. Yet, while we all know that, nobody caters to them. We see it every single day. We see the future of the racing side of our hobby die a little each time a noob walks out the door never to return.

Enough of this racing talk, I could go on, and on, and on, so……

On to a different subject, we’ll be starting our 4S 8th scale Lipo shootout in mid September, and will hopefully be publishing the results the first week of October. On board so far is Thunder Power, Ace, and Checkpoint. Rumors still abound around the office that MaxAmps is IN.

Speaking of shootouts, our high zoot editor Brian says he has a boner to do a 2.4 Ghz transmitter shootout, lets say Futaba 4PK vs Tactic vs Spektrum DX3R vs one of the affordable alternatives. If you are a manufacture up for the challenge, fire off an email to Brian at BigSquidRC dot com, and if you are a consumer who thinks such a shootout would be cool to see (and what some of the criteria should be) send an email to that same email addy.

Ok, I’ve gone wayyyyyyyyy too long this week. As always, thanks for reading my drivel (sarcastic English butchering rants), and get out from behind that tube (ok LCD screen) and hit up your LHS, local tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Hope you all had a great weekend and thanks for tuning in yet again to the our hobbies most read editoral (sarcastic) column, THE Cub Report.

There was an uber huge rc drag event held right here in Chicago over the weekend, the IMDRA Midwest Nationals. Now, if you are an average rc’er, you could really give a crap less, but those drag guys are doing lots of homework for the hobby. By that I mean the nature of their racing is at the very extreme, and what they learn in their 132 feet is pure gold for the r & d departments of your favorite brushless and nitro engine manufactures. Btw, lots of records were crushed over the weekend, with the electrics busting out 132 feet (the scale quarter mile) in the 1.2 second range, with the nitros down in the 1.4’s. Top speed of the weekend was over 109 mph, those guys were not f—ing around, that’s burly fast. The faster those drag guys go, the more they learn on what power combos truly work, info that trickles down quite nicely to average consumer gear intended for blasting up and down the subdivision. Furthermore, I have raced rc drag cars a few times, while a bit boring to me (no jumps, no turns) I always had a really fun time. At an rc drag event you aren’t on the track much, so you’ve got lots of time to wrench, talk smack, and place real-cash-money bets on whomever is on track. RC drag events can be uber like the one in Chicago over the weekend, or they can be extremely laid back, something that any group of friends with any type of cars can put on. So if you’ve ever felt the urge to rc drag, grab a few friends and 200 foot of pavement and go have some fun. Seriously, give it a try, you might dig it.

I got in a long convo over the weekend on what the last “new” platform that Associated put out was. Amazingly, I couldn’t quickly come up with the answer. Well, lets start with the AE B44, it’s been out for several years now. The B4/T4 (and SC10 for that matter) is about a decade old (ya, I know the point 1 stuff is out, but it’s still considered the old platform). The RC8/T/SC/E is a several year old platform. Their touring car, the latest being the TC5, well it’s been out for quite some time. The oval/pan cars, I have no idea, nor do I think many people even care. The AE monster trucks, the MGT series, is several years old. That leaves us with their second series of RC18, their newer two belt platform, which have been out for less than a year (but nobody has bought or seemingly cares about). So I guess the answer is the their newest platform is the RC18 series 2 stuff. Associated was the leader in our hobby for so long, but their stranglehold on the top was lost years ago. Of course they are still respected in the racing world, but it’s still slowly sinking in to me that they aren’t THE top dog anymore.

AE marketing used to be the best (hands down), now when you walk into our hobbies biggest trade show, iHobby Expo, the first things you see are Hobbico, Horizon and Traxxas, the big 3 of our industry. Then you walk around and find out Associated didn’t even show up. To us in the industry, seeing them missing tells us Associated decided to save a few bucks and stay home, to the 20 thousand consumers that paid cash to get into the hobby expo, they see Associated missing and think they didn’t give a sh*t enough to show up. Associated could be back on top some day, but it’s not going to happen when they flip big middle fingers to paying consumers. And it’s certainly not going to happen shoving out rehashes of old products. AE product is still good (just aging), but with all the talent they still have working there, they could really put out mind blowing stuff. New platforms are NOT cheap of course, but if you are looking to win the war of moving units, they are a necessity.

That’s it for this week, as always support your local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

So why is this the Van Halen Unchained version of THE Cub Report? Well it’s that way (unchained) every week really, fortunately for me I can talk about whatever I like, something you won’t find on the print mags sites. Well, that and I like planting catchy tunes into peoples brains. Lucky this isn’t the Dexys Midnight Runners- Come On Eileen version eh?

The BigSquidRC Lipo Shootout 3 is getting closer, this time we’ll be testing 4S Lipos intended for 8th scales. You guys have been requesting 4S packs like crazy, so we’ll once again do our best to give the fairest comparison possible. If you are a company who wants in, we need your best 4S (greater than 4000 mah please) Lipo in our hands no later than September 15th. If you are a consumer who wants to see your favorite battery included in the shootout, please shoot an email to that company requesting that they enter. Anyone needing more info on the shootout needs to email Brian at BigSquidRC dot com.

Here’s a reminder that the Traxxas TORC series is coming to the ChicagoLand Raceway on Wednesday Aug 25th and Thursday Aug 26th. If you’ve never seen the full size trucks race, you will be amazed how burly they are. Traxxas will also be holding rc racing at the event. The TORC rc racing includes only Traxxas trucks and is all about having fun, so don’t be shy showing up with your Slash and getting some laps in. BigSquid will be covering the race, yet another reason to show up and hopefully get a picture of your mug (or truck!) on our front page.

Speaking of Traxxas, HUGE props to the Traxxas guys for setting up a demo at the AMA Loretta Lynns Amateur Motocross Championships last week. Traxxas brought out some cool trucks and even Monster Energy Kawasaki factory rider Ryan Villopoto got some Traxxas hot laps in. Cross marketing to a target audience is great for Traxxas, and great for everybody in the hobby.

Speaking of Loretta Lynns, if you aren’t a motocross guy, you probably don’t know how their national championships work. So here’s a brief tutorial. In AMA motocross they hold separate amateur and pro nationals. On the amateur side, area qualifiers are used to let only the fastest amateurs make it to the week long amateur national championship race (traditionally held at Loretta Lynns Dude Ranch in Tennessee). It’s truly an honor to qualify for the amateur national championship race, and for the masses, it’s what they work for all year long. There are tons of different classes at the amateur national, and this year there was over 1400 entries. Yes, that is not a typo, they had over 1400 entries. On the “pro” side of things, once a rider has enough of a resume built up they submit for their AMA pro license. This ensures only the best of the best can race at the pro nationals. The AMA pro motocross nats (there are only 2 classes in the pros, 250cc and 450cc) are a series, with qualifying on Saturday mornings, and two motos on Saturday afternoon to determine the winners (the top pros fly in Friday, and fly out Saturday night or Sunday, they are at the venue about 10 hours). This year there are 12 races on the AMA pro national series schedule. The AMA (American Motorcycle Association) knows that awarding the most coveted titles in their sport should NOT be based on just one race, it has to be earned over an entire series.

So why did I babble about the motocross nationals? Because the most elite titles in the rc world are considered a joke to those racing full size rigs. The full size guys do NOT think racing rcs as a whole are a joke, they think it looks fun, and even they know our top racers put thousands of hours into being the best. But unanimously, they (elite full scale racers) think single races for our (rc’s) most elite titles is just plain bogus, and a slap in the face to our top drivers who work so hard to be the best. Many rc racers think that full scalers consider rc racing a joke, but they don’t, they just think our biggest races are a joke.

On a different note, have you read BigSquids HPI Mini Trophy Truck Review? I had no part in that one, but Brian didn’t hold back on the good or the bad points of the truck. I am still sticking with my initial feeling on this one, it’s a game changer. If you don’t believe me, check back in 5 years and I’ll bet you’ll see lots more scale realism both on the outside, and inside of our new rides……

I was thinking of a new article for BigSquid, one that focuses on customer service. Every company “says” they have the best customer service, what we want from our readers is who YOU think is the best. You guys are the ones that matter, so if a hobby company has treated you well, please shoot us an email and let us know about your experience with them. Shoot it to Brian at BigSquidRC dot com.

That’s it for this week, support your local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

ps- Thanks for reading, and thanks for making BigSquidRC the most popular rc news site in America!

Another week, another drama in my beloved Formula 1 racing. Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel easily grabbed another pole position last weekend at the Hungarian Grand Prix, showing he and his Red Bull car are the fastest thing on the circuit. But once again, having the fastest car did not net young Vettel a win, as Sebastian was issued a drive through penalty, and ended up finishing third. Instead, his much older Red Bull teammate Mark Webber (Vettel is 23, Webber is 33) got out front and won running away in style. Webber’s win vaulted him to the front of the points chase, and perhaps more impressively, showed that being smart (and lucky!) is often times better than just being fast.

In case you didn’t know (and admit it, you didn’t), yet another IFMAR World Championship was held last week, this time for nitro touring cars. The event was held down in Texas, and even an American won! Us Yanks haven’t been doing so well against international competition lately, so it was cool to have an American at the top of the box. And it wasn’t just some American, it was X-Rays Ralph Burch. I’ve known Ralph for years, he’s core for sure, and one of worlds best TC racers. Ralph isn’t exactly a spring chicken (nor am I), making his win even more impressive. If you are an older guy (30+) then you know exactly how much better your reflexes were in your 20’s, and how much more energy and drive you had to succeed when younger. So a huge congrats to World Champ Ralph Burch, all your hard work has paid off, and congrats to X-Ray, makers of the most esoteric touring cars on the market.

More huge props go out to Byron Fuels. The good peeps at Byrons supplied all the fuel for the IFMAR Touring Car Worlds. It’s obvious they support the hobby, please try to support them back.

The official BigSquidRC test of the HPI Mini-Trophy Truck should be getting posted in the next couple days, but till then, I want to say I really like the truck. I love the scale looks, like how it drives, and really enjoy how tough the truck is. The staff here at BSRC has put it through all our normal insane abuse and it still hasn’t broken a part. Stay tuned for Brian’s full review.

That’s it for this week, as always support your local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Have I mentioned how much I love Formula 1 racing? Have you heard every race is a giant soap opera? Well today at Hockenheim my favorite F1 team, Ferrari, had a one/two finish all locked up. Massa got a great start off the grid then pulled away with the lead. Later in the race his Ferrari teammate Alonzo started making up time and the Ferrai team essentially asked Massa to let him by. Being the “team” player Massa is, he pulled over and did just that. Team orders suck, even teammates should have to legitimately pass each other. Oh the drama of Formula 1, I guess that’s what keeps me watching. This weeks grand prix- Budapest! Can’t wait.

Have you noticed entry fees for the electric ROAR nats at Leisure Hours is $85 per class? Wow. Let’s say they pull 200 entries, that’s a total of $17,000. It’s cool the venue will make some dough on the race (although it sounded like Leisure Hours didn’t make much last year after their ROAR gas nats event), as tracks have a hard enough time keeping their doors open, but high entry fees are part of the problem. $85 for a single class entry is simply insane.

I got in some wheel time with the new Duratrax Evader DT this week. I’m a racer guy, so that truck really isn’t down my alley, but it’s actually pretty fun to bash around with, and it’s a tank. I also just dig the way it looks running around the yard. One of the best parts of working for BigSquidRC is driving test vehicles like you stole them, and that thing just would not break, a far cry from what us hobbyists normally put up with. Remember having to bring several extras sets of front a-arms to the track if you raced an Associated T4? Or extra front towers (and a lot of other parts! LOL) if you raced a Losi XXX-4? The more rugged the trucks, the easier it is to keep people in our hobby.

You hate mongers are slack’n out there, I haven’t received one hate mail in over a week. Geez, get on it you guys, start mashing your keyboards.

Brian has done an extensive booth babe search for the fall iHobby expo and I think he’s hit the jackpot. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Brian will post a few pics of the eye candy that will be rock’n our booth this year. If not, you’ll have to drop by the booth to take a look and get a few pics shot with her. iHobby is good times, so mark your calenders for late October. Btw, entry fee is only like $8?

BigSquidRC helped Craig “Ramp Builder Guy” Nelson with an rc jump contest in Champaign Illinois over the weekend. Dubbed the “Hypergiant Huckfest”, I wasn’t able to attend due to busting out some laps with my Corvette at an SCCA event (no, I didn’t do well, but the car came home in one piece), but I heard it went smoothly, the ramp was spot-on, cars were destroyed and records were set. Maybe Brian will pry himself away from the naked WOW tournament he’s playing in and post some news about it. Anyways, way-super-dope to hear another basher type event was put on, the more the better. Oh and lastly, I’m quite certain the entry fee was well under $85.

That’s it for this week, as always, support your local hobby shops (they miss you!), your local tracks (they miss you too!) and your local bash spots (can never see you enough!).

YOUR Cub Reporter

Aha, here we are for yet another week of the ever so scrumptious letters from you, our precious (and ornery) readers.

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Hi Cubby
When reading your review of the HPI Blitz you mentioned scrubbing jumps. Can you describe what that is?

Morgan W. Ellis

Cubby- Yo Morgan, thanks for reading. As far as your question goes, let me start with a bit of background on “scrubbing” a jump.

Scrubbing comes from motocross, and riders have been doing it for years. It came into prominence when a rider named James “Bubba” Stewart took the art of scrubbing to a whole new level, so you’ll also hear it called the “Bubba scrub”. You see, a rider can gain time on a track by using the scrub technique. While a normal rider may hit a 60 foot long triple jump and his apogeee (the highest point in flight) is 30 feet in the air, James Stewart might scrub the same triple and only get 20 feet high. Because Stewart was able to stay 10 feet lower, he’s in the air a shorter amount of time, and able to get his tires back on terra firma earlier and get back on the gas sooner. As a rider hits the face of a jump his suspension compresses and the springs on the bike will store that energy. On a normal take off all that energy shoots the bike/rider vertically. When you scrub a jump you lay the bike over and some of that energy is released horizontally, keeping you lower to the ground while still carrying enough speed to make the gap.

True scrubbing in rc does not (and can not) happen, there just isn’t any way for us to lay our buggys horizontally upon initial take off. Scrubbing in rc normally refers to not hitting a jump perfectly square. If you hit a jump perfectly square you will get the maximum amount of vertical rebound, making for the highest arch possible. If you hit the take off face slightly off axis, not all the stored energy in your springs is released at the exact same time upon take off, making for a slightly lower flight, saving you time. When you see an rc racer scrub, they almost always land a bit sideways, which can be an advantage if there is a corner immediately after the landing jump. But landing a bit sideways takes a lot of skill, sometimes a small amount of counter steer, and a good set-up to not traction roll. Currently, Billy Fischer, Ryan Maifield, and Frank Root are some of the best drivers at using this technique. Check out THIS VIDEO of Fish and his Losi 2.0 working on scrubs.
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That’s it for this week Cub fans, shoot us your questions, funny stories, taco’ed chassis, and yes, even your questions to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Hello again rc hobbyists, industry types, and people that just stumble in from a Google search. Damn glad to see ya.

So…. I got to hold the new HPI MTT (Mini Trophy Truck) in my hands. I guess the main thing that entered into my mind while looking it over was just how much passion the guys at HPI have right now for their trade. It was glaringly obvious from looking the truck over that whoever designed this truck didn’t do it because of a paycheck, they did it out of pure passion for the hobby. And perhaps even more impressive was that HPI gave the project the green light. Within this industry there are a whole lot of designers who come up with great ideas that get shot down by the suits because the project would be too costly, or too risky, or just didn’t fall into some bland mold that “successful” products should come out of. So props to the entire HPI crew on the Mini Trophy Truck, Traxxas got the ball rolling in the right direction with their Slash, HPI finished off the job. Mark my words, two years from now, looking scale on the outside AND under the hood will be copied by every big name manufacture.

I have a new favorite driver. Reading through the press releases I saw that German Kyosho touring car driver Chris Krapp was kick’n butt at the Euro Touring Series. Perhaps in time, with enough practice, I can drive like Krapp.

For those industry types that dig THE Cub Report and are looking for a spot to market that Everyone reads/sees every week, shoot Brian at BigSquidRC dot com an email about how you can sponsor THE Cub Report.

Word just in- Thunder Power is IN for the third BigSquidRC Li-po battery shootout. Details coming in the next few weeks.

I saw that EPIC released info on some of their new brushless motors last week. Does anybody else have to giggle when they see those? Seriously, that rant that Trinity put out years ago about how bad brushless motors were will Never be forgotten, well, at least not by me. Anyways, looks like they’ve got some new 18th scale and 550/SC brushless motors on the way. Check’em out if you are also the hypocritical type…..

I heard the new issue of Xtreme RC Cars does NOT have a hot chic on the cover? I haven’t seen the latest issue, but seriously? I hope that was just a nasty rumor…

BigSquidRC should have some B I G news for you animals next week. Yes, this is a teaser, and yes, I hate teasers too, but I couldn’t resist. Please turn on the speculation machine now…….

That’s it for this week, as always support your local hobby shops, tracks, and local bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

The Silverstone F1 Grand Prix aired this morning on Fox, and while there wasn’t a lot of passing, there was plenty of drama. Watching on-road rc cars race is boring to me, but I can watch the F1 guys all day long. Congrats to the old man Mark Webber for taking home the win with his Red Bull.

Speaking of 1:1 racing, the Traxxas TORC series comes to Chicagoland Raceway on August 25th and 26th. If you’ve never seen these trucks race in real life before, they are spectacular! Traxxas will also be holding rc racing at the event, and of course the BigSquidRC crew will provide full coverage.

The 26th annual iHobby Expo is quickly approaching, but there is a problem. Not very many manufactures have signed up yet for booths. Sales are down across the board within our industry the last couple years, so it’s tempting to save some bucks and skip the show. And yes, show coverage should be featured more prominently in the print rags (and other sources) than it has been the last few years. But, I really feel that supporting the show is worth every penny. The consumers proved last year by showing up in record numbers that they are supporting our hobby. If manufactures want consumers to keep excited about our hobby, it sure helps if they show excitement towards the trade shows themselves. When manufactures don’t attend, it just tells the public that they don’t care about the hobby, and if the manufactures themselves don’t care, why should the consumers? There are a lot of incredibly passionate people in our industry, people ridiculously passionate about the products they produce, hell, I talk to them every day. That passion should extend to bringing their products to iHobby to display to the entire industry and consumers.

The biggest reason I look forward to the show is simply getting the hell out of Dodge City for a few days. The weather in Chicago typically sucks around iHobby time, but I’ll take Chicago any day over staring at the same 4 walls that surround me at “real” work. I also look forward to iHobby so I can get some real world feedback, not only the products that I am associated with, but also on our competitors products. Lastly, I look forward to it because it’s the one time of year that I can get some face time with all the major movers and shakers within the industry. We could argue all day about the effectiveness of trade shows, but would you argue with the three most successful marketing departments in our industry? The three biggest names in our hobby, Hobbico, Traxxas, and Horizon support the show, and I can assure you they know what they are doing, and they would not be there if it wasn’t advantageous to them.

I am also involved in another industry. Recently their trade rag, their equivalent to our “Model Retailer“, went out of business. And not only that, but because of lack of manufacture attendance, they also lost their largest trade show. Their trade show was busting all records just 3 years ago, and now it’s simply gone, a tremendous, far reaching loss to that industry. People don’t realize how important some things are till they are gone, I’d hate to see those things happen to rc.

You only get out of something what you put into it. Don’t support the show, and you won’t get anything out of it. Half a$$ it and get half a$$ results. Put in maximum effort, and you’ll have your best show ever. Btw, I don’t believe that putting in maximum effort means cutting the biggest check, it means being smart with your dollars (and your time on the show floor!!!). I’ve seen guys in tiny a$$ booths with just a 4×8 table and a little sign make 7 digit deals at the show, and seen big companies spend well into the 6 digits and go home tired, pissed off, and with little to show for their time, money and effort. Yes, having a good iHobby show takes effort, but the only things in life truly worth doing are the hard ones.

Till next week, support your INDUSTRY/Hobby, support your local hobby shops, and get out to your favorite tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Cubby pulls off two reviews in one week? Some check to see if the Cubs are about to win the world series! Head over to the RC Reviews section to read his latest review! This time he puts the new Pro-Line Racing Holeshot tires to the test!

Click the image or here for the review!

Another “big” race was held last week. I know, I know, there is seemingly a “big” race every week, but the IFMAR world championships for 12th scale and 10th touring car are only held every two years, and they went down last week in Germany. I bring this up for two reasons- one being that I bet you didn’t know they were being held, and that’s kinda like a tree that falls in the forest. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, did it even happen? And two- in the second 12th scale A final a driver put on the finest display of rc car driving I have ever witnessed. You see, Masami has been grooming a young protege, Naoto Matsukura, and in the second leg of the A he made the most elite racers in the world look like novices. So click HERE to see the BEST driving the Earth has ever seen. (Youtube Video Link)

Btw, while we were enjoying our country’s independence day over here, America got OWNED last week at the worlds in Germany. America might lead the world at many things, but rc racing isn’t one of them.

Let me be one the first to call the new HPI Mini Trophy Truck a game changer. It’s been a long time since a company other than Traxxas has produced the next big thing, but well, HPI has just done it. Sure, the Traxxas Slash (some would argue the AE SC8) started the short course truck revolution, but the new HPI Mini Trophy truck is a huge leap forward, not only in short course truck design, but in scale realism for our hobby. You’ve got people on rc forums saying things like “Hey HPI, here’s my bank account number. Take as much as you want, ’cause I gotta have this.” about their new Mini Trophy. I’ve been preaching for years that realism is good for sales and for the hobby as a whole, and this new HPI truck is the biggest leap in that direction since the original RC10.

Traxxas has not had to follow anyone’s lead for years, for over a decade they’ve pretty much lead the pack via the T-Maxx, Revo, and Slash. How will Traxxas respond to the HPI Mini Trophy, if at all? I bet they aren’t the only company that sits down this week in a board room, invites all the brass in, spreads one large, blank piece of paper in the middle of the table and says “Ok guys, we’ve got some work to do!”. What if you are a company like Thunder Tiger/Associated, who used to own the market, now all they do is react (quite slowly I might add) to the latest trends? What if you are Horizon/Losi (I hate to just call it Losi, because it’s soooo not Losi anymore) and are used to putting out a dozen “different” trucks based on one platform, and now you are faced with coming up with an all new design, and one that’s actually competitive, or even better than the HPI truck? Their last attempt at a short course truck, the Losi Strike, was way off the mark. I know they’ll never do it, but I’d love to see Losi cut a HUGE check and give Sr and Jr a call to see if they’d be willing to lend a hand on a scale Losi short course truck. We all know just how uber a true Losi truck would be. Sadly, it will probably never happen.

On a much different note- BigSquidRC is looking for more models for the iHobby Expo this October. In the past we’ve had readers help us out by suggesting their girlfriends etc, so if you know of a hot chic who is into rc and wants to make some cash, shoot Brian an email.

One more short note for the week, I gotta thank our readers for helping to spread the love about BigSquidRC. Thank you guys for emailing links to your buds, posting links on the message boards etc. Without you all, we’d be just another rinky dink rc site. Slowly but surely we are clawing our way into the rc mainstream, and we sure couldn’t do it without your help.

That’s it for this week, as always, support your local hobby shops, tracks, and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

So I was at a local track this weekend trying to finish up the BigSquid test of the HPI Blitz ESE, and there were a number of other rc enthusiasts there. I approach them all and ask a simple question, “Who’s gonna win the nats this weekend?”. Simple enough question really, and if you are a core racer, or work for a race oriented company within the industry, you’d know immediately what “nats” I was talking about. Well, none of the guys I asked this question to were hard core racers, but they were deep enough into the hobby that they were actually at a track busting out laps. To boil their answers down, none of them knew what “nats” were ever going on over the weekend.

Now my sample size was quite low, and it might have been quite biased, but zero out of ten rc guys at my local track had any idea the ROAR Nitro off-road nats were going down over the weekend. So of course I had to probe further, and while all of them “cared” about who won the big rc races, none seemed to know just what the important races were now days. Additionally, when asked who their favorite drivers were, they only had two answers, Drake and Tebo, and they couldn’t come up with any names besides those two. When questioned yet even further, the main reason why none of these guys tried to keep up with the current race scene was due to overload. When they log on to their favorite rc sites, or look in the mags, they see ad after ad, and pic after pic of “big winners/national champions”, all of which are different people. When there are 30 national champions, it’s hard to remember them all.

There are a lot of companies that spend a LOT of money to send guys racing with their rc products. Do they not see how watered down a “big” race win has become? Do they not see their precious marketing dollars going to waste? At the end of the day, if Team Joe Bobs best factory driver wins the biggest race in the world, but nobody realizes it, was it money well spent? Of course not…..

Congrats need to go out to Jared Tebo and Kyosho for sweeping the 2010 ROAR nitro off-road nats this year, winning both buggy and truggy classes. Sweeping those classes against the incredible competition at that event, is a monumentally difficult thing to do. But guess what? A couple dozen other national champions have already been crowned this year, and there are plenty more national championships left. Jared could easily win another half dozen before the year is over. Does that really make any sense? Can’t we just make ONE really important national championship, instead of having 30 that the masses can’t or won’t follow??????

That’s it for this week, as always, support your local hobby shops, tracks, and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

The year was 1974 and up rolls my old man in his Ford F-150. Being a curious young chap, and glad to see him, I run over to the truck. In the back of it was a small dirt bike. I had no idea why it was there, but even though I was curious, I was even happier to see dad, so I didn’t ask any questions. Two hours later, the curiosity was overwhelming, so I blurted out “Hey dad, who you fixing the motorcycle for?”. My father turned around and answered, “I’m not fixing it boy, I bought that for you, that’s your motorcycle!”. My old man must have gotten a kick out of seeing how long it was gonna take to figure out it was for me, and my mom was quietly having a heart attack as that was news to her as well.

The following years, I ate, slept and $%^& motocross. The walls in my room were covered with pictures ripped from mx mags of my heroes like Johnny O’, Rocket Rex Stanton, Marty Smith, Roger De Coster, Bob “Hurricane” Hannah, David “Lil Professor” (now known as The Icon) Bailey, Mark “Bomber” Barnett, Marty Moates, Kent Howerton, Bad Brad Lackey, Broc Glover and on and on and on. But I had a big problem, my father wouldn’t let me race. Dad looked upon racing as wasting money and just tearing up a perfectly good motorcycle.

Well, it took me about 2 years of begging every single day before he’d allow me to race, but that privilege came with one caveat- he wouldn’t take me to the track. Dad didn’t want to “support” my racing, nor did he want to watch me get hurt, or yet even more importantly, see me break parts that was going to cost money out of his pocket to fix. Luckily for me, the neighbors right down the road had a son who raced every weekend, and they had agreed to transport me back and forth. So every weekend they’d drop by and pick me up, and as we were backing out of the driveway my old man would give me the lecture “You break that bike you are pay’n for the repairs!”, and off I’d go to my personal nirvana.

In the late 80’s I discovered rc cars. During the summer months I was still racing motocross, then in the winters I’d race rc’s. Read the rest of this entry »

BigSquidRC, once a tiny unknown entity, has blown up lately. Ya, ya, we still have a long way to go, but our progress the last 6 months has been well beyond expectation. It seems that a lot of people are reading us daily as their guilty lil’ pleasure. If you are reading BigSquid, I’m certain you’ve asked yourself, “Just who the hell is BigSquidRC?”.

So what does a whois Google search yield for BigSquid? I’ll save you the effort- it gives you the site owners (and editor in chief) name, Brian Smolik, and also that BigSquidRC is based out of Naperville Illinois. You’ve probably never heard of Naperville, but to boil it down, it’s a burb of Chicago, a stones throw away (if you have a really kick a$$ arm) from where the iHobby expo is traditionally held, and just a couple hours drive from arguably the epicenter of the rc universe, Champaign Illinois.

About editor Brian, well he’s a true hardcore basher. Any day the weather is good enough to be outside, he’s jumping curbs and tearing up the sod in the local ball field. Ever notice that bashing is 90% of the market, yet all the mags and message boards cater to the racing crowd? Well Brian saw the need for a website that would finally cater to the majority of rc’ers, so he started BigSquidRC.

And then there is Bill. (firesprink281) He’s the poor guy at BigSquidRC responsible for building and fixing everything. If Brian and I go out and taco a new 8th scale on the first tank, it’s Bill’s job to get it running again. It’s also his job to build ramps, shoot video, get trade show stuff together, and give input on product testing. Bill is 10000% a bashing guy, and he looks at test product strictly from that perspective. Bill doesn’t care how fast it can get around a track, he cares how well it works, how much it costs, and if it doesn’t break when you jump it off the roof of your house.

Pro Driver Tim Mohr who has won more 1/18th scale races then I can count. He has been doing a little more writing around here lately and is a huge help behind the scenes, as he is one of the more technical guys. He and Brian have been good buds since the beginning of Big Squid RC, and Tim has been a great ‘go to’ guy whenever we need an opinion from someone with some racing knowledge.

Jeff is the new guy. He’s responsible for helping to get up new press releases and such. We get a lot of PR’s here, so Jeff and Brian censor out the “German Mini-Z Girl Nationals Won by Liz Lolita” press releases and try to only post the ones relevant to the bashing crowd. Anyone can post all the junk that’s out there.. Jeff does a great job of bringing in original content people actually want to read.

It’s impossible to get enough different opinions on testing product, and even more impossible to get them from a true electronics guru. That’s where Jim comes in. His day job is working on multi million dollar electronics, his night job is giving well educated opinions on test products for BigSquid. Jim has been racing for decades now, but he’s not strictly a racer, as you are just as likely to see him blasting an RC18 up and down the street at 60 mph as seeing him busting out laps with his B4.

Of course then there is me, the Cub-meister, but everybody knows who I am.

Last but not least is a dozen other people that BigSquid could not exist without. From Chris(thenewguy821), to Geno, to Tiffany, to Jason, to Wes, to on and on and on, it takes a lot of people to put on various events, a decent iHobby booth, test product, and post original material. These are the unpaid people that are helping out just for their love of the sport, and we appreciate their help immensely.

That’s it for this week, as always thanks for reading, and support your LHS, bash spot, and local tracks!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Breaking Bad is the best show on TV, yet every time a new episode premiers our fearless editor in chief calls me, to which I always ignore his call then send him a text saying something to the effect “Breaking Bad is on, are you CRAZY calling me?”. LOL So if you haven’t seen the show, do NOT catch next Sunday nights season 3 final episode without watching all of seasons 1, 2, and 3 first. BB is not a show you can jump in mid-ship and truly enjoy.

Are all you guys digging the BigSquid Charger Shootout? I was not an integral part of testing for that one, but I know Brian, Bill and the rest of the crew had an insane amount of hours piled into that one, so I hope you enjoyed it. If you haven’t read it, click HERE.

The boss was on vacation last week, writer guy Jeff seemingly has lost all internet access, and the hot lil’ hispanic gal that normally cleans the BSRC corporate offices has been at home sick. That left me in charge of things (Gasp!), a very risky move by the guy cutting the checks, but luckily I did NOT burn the office down. I do have one lil’ confession to make- Brian, I’m sorry in advance for the HPI 5B burn out marks on the hardwoods. It was really hot outside, so I decided to see how well a 5B corners indoors on carpet and hardwoods. (Pretty damn good btw)

Judging by the amount of conversion kits being made to convert the Losi XXX-T truck to a short courser I’d say Losi missed the mark on their Strike. Mental note to Horizon/Losi- no matter how much you lower the price on the Strike people are only going to lay down their hard earned cash for a XXX-T based SC truck. Or better, why not get Really Reallyyy crazy and start working on that XXXX platform? You know the XXX platform is over a decade old right?

For the second year in a row, exactly why would ROAR hold a separate national strictly for 8th scale electrics? I mean, they have an 8th scale nitro national, and they have an electric national (to be held at Joliet Illinois own Leisure Hours), yet they can’t find a way to fit 8th scale electrics into one of those events? I know I’m a broken record when I say there are way too many national titles, but I’m starting a new record by saying if you have 20 national titles do you really need 20 separate events? What’s next, a mod-2wd-spec tire-on the third tues-of the second new moon of the year national? What’s next, a ROAR national every weekend, one for every class? You know at some point the manufactures are going to count their pennies and figure out it’s not worth their money to send their factory boys to 5 separate ROAR nats for 5 separate classes, and once the factory boys quit showing, you can stick a fork in ROAR.

So I got the call the other day. “Cubby, put down your Dom filled flute and grab a Lipo, we want you to go outside and jumpstart a car with it”. I never thought when I signed on here that one of my job assignments might be to burn down a full size car. Luckily for me (ok, really lucky for the owner of the car.. LOL) we didn’t burn the car to the ground. The Lipo made it through without even a whimper, and I even put fresh batteries in the camera to make sure and capture the entire test. If you haven’t seen our segment on jump starting a full size car with a Lipo, click HERE!

I heard a rumor that a Lipo battery company that starts with the letter “M” is going to be in our Lipo Battery Shootout 3. But you didn’t hear that from me.

That’s it for this week, as always Thank You for reading, everyone at BigSquid appreciates you taking the time out of your busy day to give us a click. As always, try to get by your LHS, local track, or local bash spot!

YOUR Cub Reporter