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THE Cub Report, 03.18.2013, Version- Life Is Always Better In Spurbury Vermont

Posted by Cubby @ 9:21 am. Filed in: cubby

Happy Monday morning everyone, and welcome to another week in rc.

Thankfully the F1 season kicked off last weekend. After qualifying it looked like yet another run-away year for the Red Bull team, but when it was all said and done my favorite robot Kimi Raikkonen was standing on top of the podium. The Ferrari team also gave me some reason to cheer. The last few years they have started off the season with cars obviously off the pace, but last weekend they walked away with the points lead and looked to have top notch machinery. Might this season end with bright red on top? I can only hope so.

And on to rc…

March Bashness is here folks. The Sweet 16 have been picked (by you, our readers) and the real voting gets started this week. Let me go “on record” with my picks for the top 3- Axial EXO, Vaterra Twin Hammers, and the Thunder Tiger MT4-G3. We’ll know in a couple weeks just how far off I am, but be sure and vote for your favorites and enjoy the fun of a bracket style elimination tournament for rc.

Yes, I was wrong. Yes, I am a total, complete, utter idiot. One of our readers shot us a link for the lawsuit info between Trinity (and friends) and ROAR. We posted the link on our BigSquidRC G+ page so that you can check it out too. To boil it down, the motor guys filed an injunction to force ROAR to include their motors on the “approved list”. WireGate just keeps getting more interesting all the time, and there should be a lot more to come on this one..

Rally car shootout? Oh no we didn’t, oh yes we are! Yes, work has begun on our BigSquidRC rally car shootout. Traxxas vs HPI vs Thunder Tiger vs Kyosho- yes indeed, this one is going to be a burn burner. We’ll post more information about it when we get closer to posting it, but I’d look for it around the second week of April.

I hear our homie Stephen Bess is still under the weather, so here’s a shout-out to Stephen to say that the entire BSRC staff is thinking about him and hopes he get back up to full speed reallyyyyy soon.

Adam “The Intern” has been posting some cool pics over on the BigSquidRC Tumblr page. I am soooo not into Tumblr (or Facebook), but it’s cool seeing what Adam puts up. It’s been a long time since I was 18 years old, and well, a long time since anything in rc was “really new and cool” to me, so it’s sorta neat to see his youthful exuberance. Adam has literally hundreds of cool pics and projects that he has worked on to post, I hope some of you guys check it out.

Speaking of Adam, he’s just about to graduate high school. The first time I met him was about 6-7 years ago when he was just a snot nosed kid. Even back then he was an incredibly die-hard (and I mean die-hard) rc fanatic. Now days he still is hardcore rc, but it looks like he won’t be going into the hobby as a profession. Adam works hard, has his head on straight, and has always went wayyy above and beyond for anyone that needed anything, he’s always been a good guy to be around. Not to mention he’s thick skinned- having put up with our constant verbal jabs over the years. It certainly wasn’t easy for him to be an “intern” for the BigSquid bash crew, as we are all professional bull-talkers, and we certainly shot our best at Adam.

So what was the point of the above paragraph? Because of his vigor for the hobby I was surprised to hear Adam wasn’t thinking about pursuing it as a career after graduation. But… he’s a grown man with a good head on his shoulders so I’m certain he is going to kick ass in the field that he goes into, all the while enjoying the rc hobby in the years to come. If you any of you out there reading this are also young and thinking about what you might want to do after you get out of school, yes, the rc hobby is a lot of hard work and often times not a lot of pay, but it can certainly be quite rewarding. Whether it be on the manufacturing side, the media side, the marketing side, the engineering side, or working the counter at an LHS, this hobby provides a living for thousands upon thousands of people across the globe. And… I’d bet “working in the rc hobby” is rarely, if ever, mentioned by any school guidance counselors. Pretty much whatever you might be good at, there is a place for you in the rc industry if you should chose to go that direction. Just take a look at the job listings at Hobbico, Horizon, or Traxxas if you don’t believe me.

That’s it for this week ya’ll, support your local hobby shops and bash spots when you can.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 03.11.2013, Version- Paint it Black

Posted by Cubby @ 9:17 am. Filed in: cubby

Hello everyone, welcome to THE Cub Report, and I hope all you guys have a great week filled with trigger time.

First up- we are still looking for an account rep (or two, or three). The job involves being a kick a$$ guy (or gal) and taking care of our advertisers. If you know what’s up in the hobby shoot Brian an email. If you can’t figure out his email address chances are you can’t handle the job. LOL

Second up- Wavy Davi gave up the red plate last night in Daytona, “sigh”. 2013 was a breakout year for Millisaps in the big boy class but it seems a couple of injuries have thrown a monkey wrench into his plans for supercross domination. Lets hope RV2 doesn’t win out and make the rest of the season a bore. Btw, it was sure refreshing to see bright red Honda logo’s at Daytona instead of the Monster claws plastered everywhere.

Third up- The Formula 1 season is officially here! 6 days, 4 hours, 17 minutes and 51 seconds till the tone goes off in Australia for the first GP of the season. Alonso FTW, bank it! And… it should be interesting to see how the tv coverage on NBC Sports stacks up to previous years when it was on Speed and ESPN.

Fourth up- Don’t forget our Google + LIVE Show this Wednesday night. Last week Brian was wacked out of his gourd on Red Bull and Pez and couldn’t make the show, so this week expect something extra special from him. But seriously, we always seem to say something that ticks off half the rc community each week, so it can’t be all bad. Mark it down on your calender for 9 pm CST every Weds night from here on out.

Fifth up- The BIG news of the week is that BigSquidRC March Bashness is under way! If you are a new reader- March Bashness is the ultimate contest where you guys select the top bashers of the year, then just like in the basketball version, we do bracket style eliminations (based on your voting) to determine which is America’s favorite bash vehicle. Voting for the initial “Sweet 16″ is going on right now, click THIS link to get all the info on how to place your vote.

Hands down, March Bashness causes the most smack talk around the BigSquidRC offices. Brian has his favorites, Jeff has his, Bill always gets in his two cents, Craig lets it fly on his picks, Adam gets quite adamant about his fav, and of course I live to state the 82 reasons why my top bash-mobile is better than theirs. Here is a quick Cubby break-down on how I see March Bashness stacking up-

Axial- Axial doesn’t have a dedicated “racer” in its line-up, every vehicle they make can be considered a legit bash-mobile. Perhaps leading the pack for Axial would be the EXO and their new Jeep Wrangler.

ARRMA- The ARRMA Granite took home our “Basher of the Year” award (which was voted on by the staff here) for 2012, so it has got to be considered a serious player in March Bashness. The rest of their line are also bash-mobiles, so perhaps another one (or two) of the vehicles might be in the starting sweet 16. The ARRMA brand has been picking up momentum among the bash main-streamers, and it’s well known ARRMA is the “basher line from Durango”, so the odds of an ARRMA doing well in March Bashness look pretty darn good.

ECX- Mainstays like the Torment and the Ruckus have really taken off with the bash crowd, I would expect to see at least one go deep into the tournament. One of the new 8th scale buggies from ECX might also make it into the show.

Duratrax- Duratrax is known for their bash-mobiles, but they haven’t had many new releases the last few months.

Traxxas- There is no doubt Traxxas is the sales leader at local hobby shops and one of the highest regarded brands in the entire bashing world. Traxxas has several vehicles that should be capable of making it deep into the tourney. Their new LCG 4×4 Slash and Rally Car might very well be players in the big show.

HPI- Arguably the second biggest name in the bash world is HPI, and once again they have a half dozen vehicles that are enormously popular among the bash crowd. Their 5th scalers have an insane cult following, as does their Savage series of monster trucks. Will the Block Rally Car make the show? We’ll find out in just a few days.

Helion- The crew from Firelands Group took home a controversial win with their Helion Dominus last year. For 2013 they’ve got a new truggy and a monster truck on the way, but with the depth of the field it will be incredibly hard for them to repeat again this year.

Thunder Tiger- Just a few scant years ago Thunder Tiger was looked down on like their cars were made by Tyco. Now days, things are a lot different. Some key changes in their product line-up combined with a much improved marketing plan have resulted in a whole lot of happy Thunder Tiger owners out there. It is also a brand that many Traxxas haters have fled to. I would have to think their MT4-G3 and eMTA monster trucks will be in the hunt, as well as the truggy they released last fall.

Associated- Ummm… while their parent company is looking so good among the basher crowd, Associated has focused on re-hashing old platforms for the race crowd and fell off the face of the bashing planet. Certainly AE is still considered a good name in the racer game, but it is increasingly rare to see anyone actually bashing an Associated product.

Vaterra- The newest kid on the basher block is Vaterra. We’ve only gotten the chance to bash their little scalers and both of them took a pretty good beating. I would think their biggest threat to take home the March Bashness title would be their Twin Hammers crawler/basher, but I’ve yet to drive one, so I have no idea if it’s worth owning or not.

Losi- The 5th scale Losi 5T is a well regarded bash machine, as is their SCTE 4wd short course truck. Who knows, a Losi might just surprise some of us and make it deep into the bracket.

RedCat- There are a Bunch (an insane amount actually) of RedCats sold each year. Will they get enough votes from their hardcore army to make it into the show? RedCat has yet to place a vehicle into our sweet 16, will this be the year the RedCat faithful put a rig into the big show?

There are a bunch of vehicles I haven’t mentioned that might very well make it deep into the voting. I feel like I was only scratching the surface, there are simply a ton of great bash machines on the market right now. Everyone on the BSRC crew hopes that you take the time out of your busy day to vote for your favorites, wear your brand loyalty proudly, and show not just the other readers of BigSquidRC which machine is your favorite, but show the entire industry what machines are hitting the mark with the bash crowd. We don’t do the voting to try and spam you or get your email address or phone number, we do it simply because we want to learn exactly which bash vehicles are the best ones in YOUR eyes. This is entirely your vote guys, we hope you have a blast with it.

And on to…

Sixth up- Last week I asked for you guys to shoot me proof that the class action suit against ROAR actually exists. We have yet to receive anything from anyone other than the original PR. Are the courts just that slow down in Florida or….. Ya guys, if you can dig up some concrete proof the the suit is legit shoot it to us so I can post what an idiot I am for even having questioned it.

Seventh up- Adam “The Intern” has a new job around here- he’s the head of our New BSRC Tumblr Page. Look for a post on our front page early in the week with a link so you can check it out. Tumblr is the big player of social media with the “young” crowd and Adam has tons of cool pics and things to share with the sub-20 crowd. If you are “young” (in body, or at heart) and looking for something more your style, checking out the BSRC Tumblr page should be a must.

That’s it for this week folks, support your local hobby shops and bash spots when ya can.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 03.04.2013, Version- Living All KCCO

Posted by Cubby @ 9:49 am. Filed in: cubby

Hey gang it’s Monday morning and time to bust out another work week. Wherever you are I hope you kick ass and the week flies by.

First up is some actual rc news, and relatively big news at that. We reported a few months ago about the Thunder Tiger eMTA. If you are a core basher you already know what it is, if not, it’s a new brushless monster truck that features a rather futuristic chassis. Battery packs fit in the eMTA sideways instead of front-to-rear, it utilizes laid down shocks with a rocker arm system, and it generally has a much different look (under the hood) than a “normal” monster truck. Anywhos, the eMTA was first released overseas but now it’s headed to our shores, a fact that has many hardcore bashers rejoicing. Not many “new” platforms get released in the uber monster truck category, so the eMTA is a big deal to those guys fighting for king-of-the-hill at their local bash spot every weekend.

Speaking of hardcore bash machines… our “March Bashness” contest is right around the corner. Of course we’ll need your guys help filling out the starting bracket of the 16 top bash-mobiles, look for a post containing more info in the very near future. “March Bashness” talk around the office has heated up, we all have certain favorites that we would like to see make the sweet 16, but there are so many good bashers out there that making the top 16 isn’t going to be easy. For example- long time bash legends like Traxxas and HPI have lots of great choices, but you also have to factor in some of the new faces like ARRMA, ECX, Vaterra, and several vehicles from Thunder Tiger.

Our last two March Bashness contests have been freak’n insane, I can’t help but think this years is going to be the craziest yet. The #1 thing I’ve learned about March Bashness is- never underestimate brand loyalty, people go to great lengths to see there favorite vehicle come out on top.

And to another subject…

So… arguably the biggest news from last week was Trinity putting out a PR stating that they have (along with a few other companies that sell re-badged motors) sued ROAR. First things first- I have attempted to look up information on the case, you know, just to make sure it was actually filed, and I’ve yet to find that it exists in the real world. Ya, maybe I’m a total moron at using Google, so I’m going to ask you guys to help prove that I am an idiot. That should be easy enough right? Please feel free to shoot me proof that the class action suit was actually filed- links, a phone number, whatever. I’ll gladly post the information next week and freely admit I’m a total moron (if you guys can come up with concrete info).

So… “if” the there is a class action suit against ROAR, there are a bunch of different opinions floating around. Some people say it’s a disgrace to see it come to this, others are totally on the motor companies side, while ROAR fanboys are screaming how bogus it all is. Personally, I’m not a fan of either group, but it sure will be interesting to follow as it unfolds.

I would guess that a “worst case scenario” for ROAR would be that it ends up folding due to litigation. In case you haven’t already heard, a group of four men have apparently started a “new” sanctioning body called RCRAA, “ready” to step right in should that ever happen . No doubt rc racing needs a huge overhaul, so whether or not ROAR ends up kick’n the bucket, perhaps RCRAA can help further the sport. The RCRAA guys say they are hoping to sanction races as early as this summer, best of luck to them, they’ve got a long, tough, nasty road ahead of them.

Btw… RC Pro Series is still up and running, if people think ROAR sucks so bad why don’t they just support them???

Different topic-

So… over the weekend some of our moto industry friends gave the BSRC crew some VIP love at the St Louis Supercross. I am lucky and get to attend multiple rounds, but for some of our other contributors they just hit one, the St Louis event. This year the racing was as good as ever with Bubba, RV2, Bam-Bam and Reedy having a great battle in the big boy pants main. If you’ve never been, it’s worth your time and cash to see these guys risking life and limb for your entertainment.

As many of you know, Traxxas has stepped up their support of AMA/Feld Supercross this year. In case you can’t make one of the races, Traxxas has one of their try-me-tracks set up in the pit area and they get a short demo on the track right before the night show. At the STL round they had a pair of Revo’s huck’n one of the triples. Unfortunately they could only double in and ended up breaking one of the trucks, not exactly an ideal performance in front of 50,000 people, but none the less, still better than nothing. Traxxas keeps going huge exposing the masses to our wonderful hobby, once again props to them.

That’s it for this week folks, have a great week and support your local hobby shops and bash spots when ya can.

YOUR Cub Reporter

BigSquidRC Supercross Gallery

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THE Cub Report, 02.25.2013, Version- THE Fig Leaf Edition

Posted by Cubby @ 9:38 am. Filed in: cubby

Happy Monday everyone and welcome to another week in the wonderful world of hobby grade rc. Whether you work at a manufacture or an LHS, or you are simply a hardcore enthusiast, I hope you have a great week.

Brian’s favorite Supercross rider (lol), James “Bubba” Stewart, took the win last night (Saturday) in Hotlanta. Using his proven recipe of “holeshot then 20 perfect laps” Stew lead from gate drop to checkered flag. I’ve never been a big Bubba fan but even I was stoked to see him win last night. The wins came so easy early in his career, now they come so hard. I’d have to guess that the wins now days mean a whole lot more to him than they used to. Anyways, the SX circus rolls through St Louis Missouri this Saturday and the BigSquidRC crew will be there in force.

And on to rc…

Our first ever Quadcopter Shootout is going live this Tuesday. We pitting Traxxas against Heli-Max against Ares to find out which little quad was the best of the bunch. We’ve been flying (and crashing, and demo-derbying) the shootout quads for weeks finding out how they compared to each other, even if you aren’t in the market for one I hope you find the shootout interesting. Oh and yes, I’m 90% sure the winner will surprise you.

Also in BigSquidRC news- we are hiring account reps. Some of the qualifications required are- you have to be kick a$$, you have to be able to sell snow to an Eskimo, you gotta be service oriented, and lastly, you gotta be hardcore about rc. If you are all (or some) of those things don’t hesitate to shoot Brian an email (brian at BigSquidRC dot com). We are beyond slammed and seriously need the help.

It looks like ROAR decided their reputation hadn’t been slammed enough this year, so they put out information saying they’ll be using the new MyLaps RC4 system this year at most of the nats. To translate this to you guys that don’t follow racing- the new scoring system doesn’t work with all transponders, meaning some people will have to buy new transponders for the ROAR nats. This really doesn’t affect that many people, however, it certainly shows that ROAR is busy screwing around with the dumb stuff (and ticking off more ROAR members) instead of fixing its core problems.

Sorta on that note…

The SCT class is “our” great ambassador to noobs, outsiders and main-streamers, can’t we keep from ruining it?

JConcepts has been putting out some cool gear as of late for the bashing crowd, but, last week they announced their new “wheel dishes” for their scale short course rims. To translate this to the non-racer crowd- these are disc’s that pop into the wheel to make the scale looking JConcepts SCT wheel look more like the “dish”‘ wheels that “racer types” run at the track. I’m not gonna bag on JConcepts here, they are making the wheel dishes because the “racer crowd” wants to buy them. However, who I am going to bag on is ROAR. While they are screw’n around with wire diameters and transponders there is something more important on their plate- making rules to maintain the scale integrity of the short course truck class. Every day it seems a little more “liberty” is being taken on short course trucks, give it a few more years and they’ll look like UFO’s (just like every other class).

It is in ROAR’s (and the entire hobby’s) best interest to maintain the scale look of short course trucks (and SCB’s). ROAR has let the tires slide as they no longer look like anything authentic, the roof-lines on SCT bodies keep getting lower, and now dish wheels are trying to work their way into the class. For whatever unknown reason, racers still listen to ROAR, so they (ROAR) should be putting out rules to make sure SCT’s continue to look like their full scale counterparts. There is a place for “anything goes” tires, wheels, and bodies, but it is NOT the SCT class.

Lastly…

What’s going on at BigSquidRC this week? As mentioned earlier the Quadcopter shootout is going up on Tues, our review on the Venom Medion Dual Charger (the one with the speakers built in) will be going up on Thursday, and Brian should be posting a pretty cool car review this week as well. Oh and, as usual we’ll be doing our Google Plus LIVE show at 9PM CST on Wednesday night. Last week was our best show to date, I think we are finally getting that thing worked out.

That’s it for this week, support your local hobby shops and bash spots when ya can.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 02.18.2013, Version- Ron Burgundy Stole My Title

Posted by Cubby @ 8:23 am. Filed in: cubby

Hey guys, welcome to THE Cub Report, your weekly dose of rc bench racing and shoot’n the rc bull.

25 days, 1 hour and 42 minutes until the cars roll off in Melbourne, “sigh”. It seems like it takes forever for the F1 season to get started.

The “big” story from Dallas last night (Saturday) was why rookie Honda/Geico rider Zach Bell was allowed to race after literally crashing his brain out in his qualifier. Bell’s crash in his qual was one of the worst crashes I’ve ever seen (massive face plant after a triple), and from my big-screen it looked like he was knocked unconscious. Yes, racing is important, but not as important as actually breathing, remembering your name, etc. Seeing crashes like that (and Bell’s other big crash in the main) makes me feel good that I’m only climbing drivers stands now days, not swing’n a leg over a 450.

And on to rc…

WireGate 2013 rages on, last week Jeff from Fantom sent out another response to the ROAR banning of Trinity D3.5 based 17.5 motors. It seems Fantom sent out a wire sample to an independent lab who used a Smart Scope MVP OGP and it was determined the diameter of the wire was .031556″ (.8015 mm). ROAR posted a now infamous pic showing they measured .84173 mm. One of the two doesn’t know how to measure the diameter of a piece of wire, and at this point it doesn’t really matter who, Trinity is the big winner here regardless of how thick the wire might or might not be. Congrats ROAR, the exposure you’ve given Trinity on this one is priceless.

In more rc news…

It seems a lot of consumers believe that the Champaign based behemoth Hobbico has “bought” HPI USA. We first “broke” the news a few weeks ago during one of our Google+ LIVE shows, but the news is that Hobbico/Great Planes is the exclusive distributor for HPI in North America, not that they own the entire HPI USA company. We’ve spoken to multiple Hobbico people at length (in person) on the subject and they assure us they did NOT buy HPI USA, they simply bought up their inventory and got exclusive distribution rights. It sounded like HPI USA was having some financial ills so Hobbico stepped in and bought their inventory to shore them back up. That is the official word right now folks, but we can expect to learn more on March 1st when the “official” PR goes out.

Also…

Last week we posted our BigSquidRC Transmitter Shootout #2. If you haven’t checked it out HERE is the link. We certainly dig shootouts as we feel they are the best way of truly finding out how a product stacks up. Who won? The Futaba? One of the Turnigy’s? The Spektrum? Hit the link!

We’ve been working on a Quadcopter Shootout for some time now. We grabbed the Traxxas, HeliMax and Ares quads and have been bashing them like escaped mental patients (all in the name of science of course, LOL). We finished up our testing at Slot and Wing Hobbies in Champaign Illinois on Saturday. Our categories were- 1. Price, 2. Looks, 3. Durability, 4. Payload, 5. Ease of Flying, 6. Run-time, and 7. Features. The quadcopter shootout goes up Tuesday February 26th, even if you are a surface guy you’ll have a blast reading this one.

Lastly…

Another big week here on BigSquidRC, we’ll be posting our review of the Vaterra Kalahari and TrakPower DPS power supply (plus another surprise review), we’ll be posting all sorts of cool rc news during the week, and of course we’ll be talk’n the rc smack on our BigSquidRC LIVE Google+ show at 9 pm CST on Wednesday night.

That’s it for this week guys, have a fantastic week and support your local hobby shops and bash spots when you can.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 02.11.2013, Version- Going All Simple Jack

Posted by Cubby @ 8:15 am. Filed in: cubby

Hello everyone, I hope you all got your rc-on over the weekend, whether it was burn’n tires bald in your sub-division, jump’n off the old shed out back, or play’n airplane demo derby with 40 of your closest new found friends at eFest. We all work our butts into the ground Mon-Fri to earn the right to blow off some steam with our toys on the weekend. Happy Monday to you all, dig in deep, kick butt all week, and see ya at the bash ground this weekend.

Rockstar Suzuki rider Davi Millsaps won again Saturday night to extend his lead in the 2013 Supercross series. Every week that passes it becomes less of a surprise and more about a man who is finally reaping the rewards of all his hard work. Of course it doesn’t hurt that Bubba’s knee is a wreck, Reedy keeps putting it on the ground, and the Ryan’s have been having issues. It’s a long series no doubt, watch Speed live again this Saturday night to see how this fairy tail story unfolds.

I am soooo not an airplane guy, but as you all know we’ve started doing airplane and boat coverage this year, so I was recruited to check out some of the action at an event called eFest held in Champaign Illinois. Now, I’ve been to, lets say, a half dozen air events over my rc career (a lot more if you include trade shows) and this was actually my third time attending eFest, but previously I used air events for work reasons, not to actually pay any attention to what was going on. So… in this Cub Report I’ll be trying to describe how an indoor air event compares to an indoor car race.

First off the biggest difference was the stress level, there just wasn’t any at eFest. You can attend a local rc car race and see guys totally flip’n out from the moment they walk in the door. They flip out if they don’t get a good pit spot, they flip out if the track is over-watered, they flip out if there are short course trucks out on the track during practice, they flip out if short course trucks aren’t allowed during practice, and the stress just builds over the day. At eFest all the flyers seemed ridiculously mellow. They were just kinda hang’n in their pits chill’n, bench race’n, and smiling an awful lot. Needless to say I was having a hard time wrapping my head around this. And… it wasn’t just the flyers having a good time, all the industry types were especially mellow too. Yes, it’s a full on nuclear war between Hobbico and Horizon on the sales floor Mon-Sun, but eFest almost felt like a big dual company bbq. You could be sitting at a table enhaling a couple hot dogs with brass from both companies and they were having a genuinely good time talking about their kids volleyball teams, how the Illinois basketball team was doing, etc. At most trade shows they don’t seem to mingle much, at eFest it was one big good ole’ time.

Another big difference was the pits themselves, at a car event everyone is constantly spinning wrenches, at the air show it looked like a guy might bust out a hobby knife once every couple hours, but that was about it. Back in the day I actually enjoyed wrenching on my cars, now days I find it a total nuisance, I kinda like how these airplane guys operate. I’d enjoy car racing much more if I could spend 8 hours bench racing instead of gluing tires, re-building diffs, and changing shock oil.

The eFest show had a lot of spectators, something you won’t find at most car gigs. Watching rc cars go around a 30 second laptime track is about as much fun as watching paint dry for most muggles (and even for the hardcore racing guys), but the novelty of watching an rc airplane fly doesn’t wear off as quickly. For example, there are just so many different types of planes to watch, and at any moment they could very well make a major mistake, wad it up, and total that sucker completely out, and that compels you to keep watching. Also, you sorta gotta keep watching because one of those planes just might end up in your lap. I saw a couple planes land/crash in the pit area, one about 20 feet from me. Any which way, I could watch planes for an hour without totally being bored, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say that about cars (no matter how much I like driving them).

eFest featured an event called “combat” which is the direct equivalent to demo-derby (and it was easily the most anticipated event of the weekend). This says a couple things to me- 1. these guys aren’t afraid to bash, and 2. thus they are my kind of people. If you play demo-derby with an rc car you might very well break an a-arm that costs $6 and some car guys are “ok” with that, but if you play demo derby with your plane you could very well total it out, and there are veryyyy few surface guys that would even fathom of doing that to their baby. No doubt, I’ve got a new found respect for the bashing ability of the air crowd after watching them play “combat”.

One of the events at eFest was a type of night fly, they turned out the lights and let planes fly around that were all lit up with LED lights. I simply can’t imagine a track turning off the lights and just letting the guys drive around just for fun with their LED’s on. The night flying was really very pretty cool, and an event done strictly for fun. I think that was the biggest thing I came away from eFest with- it really was about fun, something that was seemingly lost in rc racing decades ago. No doubt there are still surface events held strictly for fun, our Bash-A-Palooza events are proof of that, but it should be noted that the biggest indoor flying event in the world revolved around fun, not tenths of a second in lap times.

On a different note..

As it always seems to be, we are lined up for another busy week around the BSRC offices. We’ve been bashing the Vanterra cars, look for our un-boxing pics and reviews to start being posted this week. Google+ made some changes (enhancements? LOL) last week so we had some technical difficulties in our LIVE show, but this week at least one of you guys is joining in the fun with us. And of course we’ll be posting all the news that’s worth knowing up on the front page.

That’s it for this week guys, thanks for reading and support your local hobby shops and bash spots when you can.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 02.04.2013, Version- Groove’n With DJ June Lopez

Posted by Cubby @ 10:40 am. Filed in: cubby

The AMA Supercross series is 4 races deep and Davi Millsaps is still sporting the red plate, who would have guessed that before the season began? Dungey visited the LCQ again Saturday night but went on to win the main, Speedy Reedy has become a first lap human torpedo, RV2 is the fastest guy on the track but 4th in points, and Bubba’s knee is a mess but he looked faster than he has in the last two years. Bam-Bam’s sx season is over points wise, but he put it on the podium, Shorty is a riding a bike off the showroom and beat a bunch of factory talent, and Canard’s early season speed seems to have gone missing. Yes my friends, supercross is awfully good this season.

On to rc…

First up a couple of reminders. This coming Saturday, February 9th, the BigSquidRC Bash Crew will be doing special coverage of the world’s largest indoor flying event, eFest, from Champaign Illinois. Expect news posts and a live video feed (as much as the net will allow) from the event floor. If you can’t join us in person keep an eye on our front page to see exactly what we come up with.

Last week we posted three reviews- the Axial Jeep Wrangler, iMaxRC X200 charger, and Radiant Reaktor brushless system. This week we’ll be posting reviews on Pro-Line Pro-2 performance upgrades, TrakPower DPS power supply and VR-1 dual charger, Atomik 8th scale Deegan SCT, and the electric Thunder Tiger Mini Cooper. Yes, another huge week for reviews here on BigSquidRC. Btw, shoot us an email on how you are liking our new A/B/C/D grading system, we’d like to know if you like it better than our old 1-10 system.

Also… try and catch our Wednesday night Google+ LIVE show. This week we just might be breaking more big news (like we did last week, more on that later), and we will once again be inviting you, yes you, to join us live in the Google+ Hangout live video feed. To be able to join in with us, you’ll need to have a G+ account plus a webcam and mic already set-up. More details on Wednesday…

Also in rc news…

The Nuremberg Toy Fair was huge last week, so huge it put a serious hurt’n on us media outlets. It’s pretty rare when we simply can’t keep up with all the new products being introduced. In fact, I think last week was the first time ever. Congrats to the big German show, and congrats to the industry for its continued growth.

What was the biggest news from the Toy Fair? You’d have to have been living on Mars to have not heard about Vaterra yet. Horizon has been teasing about an all new brand for months now and they did the official unveiling at Nuremberg. It was a nicely done introduction- a big reveal at the Toy Fair, the Vaterra dot com and FB page went live with perfect timing, and they even sent out some pretty sweet press kits to the media.

It’s quite obvious someone over at Horizon has been eating/breathing/shit’n Vaterra for the last 6 months. For example- the unveil was amazing, all the pics of the new vehicles were incredibly well done, all the videos were amazing, and all the products look to be solid inside and out. I have the feeling a bunch of midnight oil got burnt by the Horizon crew the last few months, but it turned out awesome and hopefully those guys are finally able to get some much needed sleep.

The actual Vaterra product looks incredible, to the point of being legit shelf queens that you can actually drive. As a hobby grade rc’er it was burnt in my brain from the start that you can either have a high performance hobby grade rc, or you can have an incredibly detailed scale looking body, but you can’t have both. Vaterra is the first entire line (off and on-road) in our industry that shows that yes you can, you can have your performance cake and incredible scale looking icing too.

Horizon already had two solid line-ups, the legendary Losi line, and the upstart ECX line of surface vehicles. Was there a need for a third? Some industry types will say definitely, the third brand name helps put even more Horizon product on LHS shelves to help push other brands off. Then other industry types know how long (and how much money) it takes to get a new brand off the ground. Certainly it takes years for a new brand to earn its keep on LHS shelves, and certainly it takes millions of marketing dollars to firmly plant the name into consumers heads.

Vaterra is certainly off to a stellar start. Everything they’ve done thus far has been top notch, certainly a testament to the rc passion of the staff over at Horizon. 2012 was very quiet for them, but thus far Horizon owns 2013. Now it’s a matter of waiting to test the actual product. Does the performance and reliability of the new Vaterra gear stack up to all the marketing hype and incredible scale looks? We’ll find out soon enough, and should the actual platforms be rock solid, Vaterra has a long prosperous future in rc. In fact, the Vaterra line might go down as a real game changer, the line that proved that us rc’ers can finally have machines that look as good as they perform.

On a different note…

We broke some pretty big news on our Wednesday night Google+ LIVE show last week. We broke the news that HPI will soon be exclusively distributed by Hobbico/Great Planes. In the past HPI was distributed by Great Planes, HRP and Horizon, starting later this year they will only be available from GP. No doubt Great Planes is the premier distributor of rc products in the entire world, they’ve got their act together, and they should be able to take HPI to new heights. Rumors have been floating around for years about the financial status of HPI, hopefully exclusive distribution by GP will fix any ills that might be going on over there. Look for the official announcement to be made March 1st.

Speaking of HPI, they once again had their Octane gas engines on display at Nuremberg. If there is one thing that can put HPI on top of the heap it would be their Octane powered vehicles taking over the market. If the Octane works as advertised, HPI is staring directly at a sales floor success like they’ve never seen before. Unfortunately, and I know first hand, that there is at least one other “big” name that is getting close to announcing their own gas power-plant for smaller scales. I hope HPI’s decision to announce their gas platform well over a year before it could hit shelves does not come back to haunt them.

That’s it for this week ya bunch of rc fanatics. Thanks for reading, and support your local hobby shops and bash spots when ya can.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 01.28.2013, Version- Chasing The Seattle Seven

Posted by Tim Mohr @ 9:32 am. Filed in: cubby

Welcome to another big week in rc, and thanks for tuning in to yet another CR. Last week was a busy week as many manufactures were intro’ing new product in advance of the Nuremberg show, with plenty more to be released when the doors open a couple days from now.

We’ll be covering the Nuremberg Toy Fair for you guys, mark it on your calenders for Jan 30th through February 2nd, and this year should be epic. Horizon had a relatively “quiet” 2012, but they are pushing full steam ahead for 2013, and proof of this will be found at Nuremberg. Horizon released the first teaser for their all new surface brand last week (btw- they really need to hire me to do their teasers for them, or heck even Stevie Wonder), and they’ll be doing a huge reveal at the Nuremberg show. Good for them for pump’n up their new line, it’s not every day a company introduces a new brand.

Other companies are busting it huge for Nuremberg too. HPI is showing their new Octane game changers (for the second year in a row), and word is Traxxas has something big lined up for the show as well. For ultra high-end gear, Serpent has been busy blowing up lately, and they are showing their all new 2wd 10th scale race machine for the first time in the flesh. Not to mention dozens of other companies that will be showing all new gear, Nuremberg 2013 has all the makings of their best show ever.

Also in trade show news, after a very soft iHobby 2012 in Ohio, they are headed back to the greater Chic-town metro area this year. The dates are Oct 3-6th, a bit earlier than usual (thank goodness, it might not be so freak’n cold), and their new venue, the Schaumburg Convention Center should be sweet. It’s in an easily accessible part of Chicago, the venue was built not too long ago so it should be all new and sparkly looking, and it should save exhibitors some cash compared to the old Rosemont. The Chicago consumers are notorious for busting big numbers when iHobby comes back to town, plus there are new peeps behind the scenes at iHobby, so iHobby 2013 is looking to be epic as well.

Enough trade show news…

Oh what the hell, one more (of sorts)…

Mark your calenders for February 9th. That’s the date for a big indoor rc air show in Champaign Illinois called E-Fest and we’ll be doing some nutty live coverage there. What’s it like to be a bunch of wacky surface guys at a big air meet? Find out along with us on Feb 9th. We’ll be doing posts from the show, as well as some sic live show coverage. And not just a webcam aimed out at the crowd, it’ll be some pretty neat live interactive video. Even if you don’t like air stuff (I know I don’t), hopefully you’ll dig us goofing around like monkeys just for your enjoyment.

On a different note…

I haven’t been following WireGate much this week, to me it was pretty much over by last weekend. Here is the simple scoop- the BIG winner here is Trinity (or Epic, or whatever they are calling themselves now days). It’s not a matter of legality, this is a matter of publicity, and Trinity has received the type of advertising you just can’t buy from all this. Trinity was still known in stock racing circles, but most everywhere else they were written off. After all the publicity that ROAR has given them, Trinity is back on the map with mainstream rc’ers, so mark this one down as a BIG win for Trinity here, regardless if their motor is or isn’t legal.

So, the big loser in WireGate is ROAR, and here’s why- their credibility right now has been shot to hell. I mean, they declared a product legal 10 months ago, and the product didn’t change, and now it’s illegal? Ya, it puts a doubt in the back of everyones mind. How many other products out there are not legal? Can they be trusted to uphold their own rules? If they dropped the ball once, who is to say they won’t do it again? Trust, ROAR has lost it, and not just with racers, but on the industry side as well, and it’s incredibly hard to get back.

And moving on…

Social media- dinosaur media is all over it, on every other paper page you see a “Hey, why don’t you put down our mag, skip our website, and cruise on over to our FB page!” blurb. Yes, for sure social media is an important marketing tool now days, but for us media types, we don’t get paid for hits on our FB or G+ page, we are only able to make money when people visit our dot com. And personally, I’d rather a few bucks go in my pocket to keep me and my family fed instead of them going into Mark Zuckerbergs. So what is the point I am getting too? Well there are a couple…

First off, we are going to introduce our newest social media page on Wednesday. There is a social media site that is more popular among the teen crowd than even Facebook, so that might give you a hint, but check in on Wednesday to our main page to find out, and check out our BigSquidRC LIVE Show Wednesday night for all the details. Also of note- we’ve been doing posts on our all our different social network pages that you won’t find on the other social pages or our dot com, so if you are looking to see everything we post each day, you’ll have to check them all out.

But… the real point I’m trying to make here is this- if you are big Facebook fan and only follow BigSquidRC on FB, two things are happening right now-

1. Only by you visiting our dot com can we show our advertisers that you are supporting us (and thus them). If we can’t show our advertisers that you are supporting BigSquidRC, then we can’t eat, and if we can’t eat, we can’t keep posting all the uber stuff we do.

2. We’ve hit that point with Facebook that their dreaded “algorithm” is kicking in. What this means is that while we may post 6 times a day on FB, only one (or two or three) of these posts may actually make it to your FB news feed. FB now charges money to ensure every post is actually seen by everyone that likes our page. We would have to spend thousands of dollars PER DAY to make sure every single person that likes BigSquidRC received every one of our posts. That is something we can not do.

This will be the second time I’ve ever asked for your guys help, and here it goes-

If you are big FB’er and want to help BigSquidRC, please “Like”, “Share” and “Comment” on our FB posts when you dig them. You can also help us by suggesting or inviting friends to “Like” our FB page. You can also help us by setting up your notifications on FB, when you do this you will get a notification every time we post on FB, thus making sure you don’t miss anything. And lastly, simply visit BigSquidRC.com every once in a while instead of only viewing our content on FB. A bookmark is quick and easy to set-up on your browser, and it’ll help keep our doors open. Oh and thanks ahead of time, from the entire crew here.

Lastly…

Big week ahead of us here at BigSquidRC. Brian will finally be posting our second transmitter shootout, Adam “The Intern” will be posting a new Axial review, I’ll be posting reviews on the Radient Reaktor brushless system and IMaxRC X200 battery charger, and we’ll have our BigSquidRC LIVE show going on Wednesday night at 9 pm CST. Throw in some Nuremberg Toy Fair coverage and hopefully we’ll have plenty of cool stuff for you guys to read and look at this week.

That’s it for this week guys, as always, thank you for your support here at BigSquidRC, and please support your local hobby shops and bash spots when ya can.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report- 01.21.2013, Version- ROAR vs Trinity “WireGate 2013″

Posted by Cubby @ 10:33 am. Filed in: cubby

Coming at ya 52 weeks a year- THE Cub Report, good morning everyone, lets set this incredibly sarcastic look at the week in the rc world in motion.

K-dub retired from Supercross racing last night in Anaheim (I am writing this on Sunday). Kevin Windham turned pro back in 94′ and has been one of the most elite riders on the circuit ever since, making this news a huge loss for the entire sx/mx world. K-dub was known for his incredibly smooth style, the ability to make big obstacles from the inside line (when nobody else could), and his uncanny ability to find traction on hard/slick surfaces. Back in the day, his heel-clickers after a win were epic, more recently, his rider-intro transfers (on the dark stadium floor) were enough to make even the gnarliest of mx’ers cringe. Here’s hoping the best for Kevin and Dottie, they will be missed on the sx/mx scene.

Traxxas keeps on blowing up. By that I mean, they keep getting bigger, and keep expanding their reach into the mainstream. More proof of this can be found from last week- Traxxas being a sponsor of the Barrett Jackson auto auction in Scottsdale Arizona is big news, and their announcement that they are now a sponsor of rookie Brittany Force in top fuel dragster is too. Huge props go out to the Traxxas guys for continuing to promote hobby grade rc to the masses.

But… the biggest rc news of the week was “WireGate”. What is/was WireGate?

The guru’s over at ROAR, with all their infinite wisdom, declared the Trinity D3.5 17.5 turn brushless motor illegal on Friday. Roughly 10 months ago they had declared this motor legal. ROAR deemed the motor illegal because they say the wire used in the stator was too large. A ROAR rep has also stated that the size of the wire in the Trinity motor did not change from when they first approved it to when they banned it. A ROAR rep has stated that they have recently gotten access to more precise testing equipment, and with that new equipment the wire used in the Trinity is now found to be too large.

So what’s the big deal? Since its introduction, the Trinity motor has been quite dominant in stock class racing, from the “biggest of the big” trophy races, to the smallest local Joe Schmo race, if you weren’t running the Trinity 17.5 you were at a power disadvantage. With that being said, owners of the Trinity motor are torqued off at ROAR because they may no longer be able to race with it, people selling the motors, from Trinity all the way down to local hobby shop owners are torqued at ROAR because they may not be able to sell their remaining inventory. Then you have people torqued at Trinity because of their alleged cheating.

And… then you have the public relations train-wreck for ROAR. It’s bad enough that they are banning a motor that seemingly hasn’t changed since they first approved it, but they also have Steve Pond (their former prez, and still on their ex-com) getting on a message board and “threatening” to take screen shots of “false or disparaging” remarks to put in the records over at ROAR. Seriously???? Does Pond not know that making a comment like that on an internet forum instantly makes him look like an 8 year old that just just discovered the net yesterday? The last thing ROAR needs is someone running around the forums spouting off like a little punk.

And… I’m not the only one sick and tired of hearing people from ROAR use the “we are just volunteers” card every time they pull some bonehead maneuver. Hey, I volunteer to help elderly/single/needy women down at the local church change the oil in their cars once every 3 months. The job sucks, it’s dirty, I always end up getting burnt, the women constantly complain about the work we do, yet I keep volunteering to do the job. When I volunteer for that job I don’t complain about how bad it sucks, and I don’t do a bad job just because I volunteered. And I continue to volunteer simply because even though it sucks, it’s the right thing to do. Any moron that raises their hand and wants to “volunteer” for ROAR should know these basic rules of volunteering, but seemingly they don’t.

Anywhos… I have absolutely no idea, but lets just say that yes indeed, the wire in the Trinity motor is too large to meet ROAR specs. IMO, the blame falls on BOTH ROAR and Trinity. It falls on ROAR because they didn’t properly check the wire during their initial certification process, and it falls on Trinity because they know what the maximum size is and did not inspect their own motors close enough to ensure they were legal.

(Hit the Keep reading to see the rest so Brian does not yell at me for taking the whole front page.)
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THE Cub Report, 01.14.2013, Version- Akrapovic Apocalypse

Posted by Cubby @ 9:07 am. Filed in: cubby

Hey guys, happy Monday, and welcome to yet another funk-a-licious edition of THE Cub Report. Put your head down, charge forward, and before you know it we’ll be sitting at the weekend.

That wacky carnival also known as the AMA Supercross series went through Phoenix on Saturday night. Dungey couldn’t beat Jimmy Albertson in the LCQ, Bubba smoked the qual but looked like his bike was stuck in second during the main, RV2 hit the dirt again, Speedy Reedy is keeping it real (real conservative), Canard continues to impress, Bam-Bam got his first big boy pants win, and Davi left the stadium with his points lead. Overall, one heck of an evening of racing. Oh ya, and Traxxas was once again all over the place with their cross-advertising, props to them.

So… last week I was a bit preoccupied, but this week is all about the future, more specifically what lies ahead for BigSquidRC, and for you, our readers, in 2013. First up for “changes” would have to be our announcement that BigSquidRC is not just doing car/truck coverage anymore, we are now covering the entire hobby grade spectrum- cars/trucks/heli’s/planes/quads/boats etc.

And here’s why- because that’s where the market is heading. While the mainstream media sources may still be telling you it’s bad to mix and mingle, and that you should only get into smaller and smaller niches, there are two pretty important factions going the opposite direction. 1. The manufactures have been pushing broader product catalogs for quite some time (Traxxas and Firelands Group adding air products are recent examples of this), and 2. the average Joe-Blow consumer is increasingly ignoring all the hype and has been buying whatever strikes their fancy, whether it be air, sea, or land. 3. Younger consumers, those who grew up on the internet, tend to be more global (as in, not confined to just surface or air) buyers.

For certain contributors here at BigSquidRC, covering all the major groups of the hobby grade rc market is quite simple. For example, perhaps the majority of the contributors here have been surface guys, but they have also been into boats and also played with planes and heli’s whenever they found one they liked. Other contributors here are completely the opposite- they have been programmed hard by the media sources to only like one segment of the hobby (cars/trucks) while ignoring others (like air and water) as useless and uninteresting. Today you can still see the mainstream media sources preaching this theme, to only like this or that, and to get into smaller and smaller niches. For example, these media sources will preach “just do surface”, and the flavor of the week is “scale crawling”, so just do that because everything else sucks. Then surely enough, 6 months later, forget about scale crawling, “rally cars” are the only thing you should be interested in. We aim to cover everything the best we can and let you guys and your various tastes make the smart decision on what you eventually spend your cash on.

Now I’ve been as bad as anyone at pushing one thing or another over the years, perhaps the only thing I have stayed consistent on is not being resistant to change, especially when it’s for the overall good of the hobby. Yes indeed, I’ve railed on the air and boat scene just because I never had an interest in them, and railed on mainstream media with the word “car” in their title when they touched a boat or an aircraft (luckily BSRC doesn’t contain any such limiting words), but even I can realize where our hobby is heading.

To boil it down, we’ve already seen a lot of synergy between air, sea and ground, on both the manufacturing and consumer levels, and it’s going to do nothing but grow, so BigSquidRC is going to broaden its coverage. We’ll remain surface heavy of course, but we’ll be covering what most “basher types” would find interesting in the air and water markets as well.

Big change number 2 for 2013- the words “live interactive content” has been extremely mis-used over the years, but we’ll finally be taking it to a level where it’ll be worthwhile. For instance- BigSquidRC will be covering a big indoor flight event, E-Fest in Champaign Illinois, about a month from now. Yes, we’ll be posting our normal coverage, but in addition, we’ll be doing a live G+ feed, where not only can you view the event live (and see what we are doing live), but you’ll be able to jump in on the feed, live on your own camera and mic. This will not only give you an unprecedented live look at an event that you’ve probably never seen before, but you’ll be able to talk with the BSRC staff in real time while we are there, and the world can catch a glimpse of you and hear your comments live.

Now certainly, this is virgin territory for us, and there are a lot of bugs to get worked out, and it will certainly be quite a learning process, but you will be able to come along with us, every step of the way. Our weekly Wednesday night G+ Live shows will become increasingly focused on more involvement from you guys, and we’ll be doing more and more G+ Live segments from every event we attend. The emphasis being, you may be stuck in a cubicle in Cedar Rapids, or a dorm room in Denver, yet you’ll be able to be able to be a part of all the live action from an rc show we are covering in Toledo, or an unboxing we are doing at the BSRC offices, or even be right there with us while we are testing a new truck down at the local track.

Yes, we’ve bit off a lot for 2013 my friends, and we might just be crazy enough to pull it off. Enjoy the ride, it should be a wild one.

That’s it for now guys, have a great week and be sure to support your local hobby shops and bash spots.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report- 01.07.2013, Version- Hot Since 82

Posted by Cubby @ 8:32 am. Filed in: cubby

Hola Amigo’s, happy Monday, and welcome to this weeks edition of THE Cub Report. If your tv was locked on Speed Channel Saturday night like ours were, you were treated to a complete show of dominance by Eli Tomac in the Lites/250 class (had the fastest lap time of the night!) and a real nail biter in the 450/Supercross/Big-Boy-Pants class with Davi Millsaps just barely edging out Trey Canard for the win. RV2, RD5, and Bam-Bam all crashed, but even if they hadn’t I don’t know if they could have beat Davi last night, he was on rails. Oh yes, Supercross 2013 looks to be one for the ages.

Speaking of Supercross… the rocket scientists at our largest rc sanctioning body have come up with a new baseline set of rules allowing 4 stroke engines to compete against the standard 2-stroke versions in rc racing. Wow, where were these rules two decades ago? Which company is coming out with a new 4 stroke for surface vehicles that this new rule will prove advantageous to? Gasoline powered two strokes, like the HPI Octane, look to be the next “big thing” in rc, where are the rules for them? Why not just open up the rules and allow for more technology that directly trickles down to longer and better running nitro engines of all types? Wow, just wow.

While I like seeing more diversity in engines choices, based on their press release I wonder if they have the faintest clue what they are talking about. For instance- “Four stroke engines have dominated the SX world, and they’ve eclipsed the performance of the two-stroke engines once thought to be superior in terms of total power and power-to-weight ratio.” What freak’n idiot wrote this sentence? Did the person that wrote this not know of the displacement advantage the AMA gives to 4 strokes vs 2 stokes? Has the author never ridden a 125cc 2 stroke and 125cc 4 stroke back to back? Ever ridden a 500cc 2 stroke back to back against a 450 4 stroke? Obviously not, because the reason 4 strokes are given such a huge displacement advantage is because they put out much less power per cc than a 2 stroke in the moto world. If 4 strokes are indeed “more powerful” then perhaps the 2 strokes should be given the displacement advantage.

Or how about this gem- “But proper four-stroke technology applied to RC car engines can offer increased efficiency, a reduction in exhaust noise, and as seen in the SX world, potentially much more usable power.” Whew, there is just so much Wrong in that sentence, where am I to start? How about noise. If the person that wrote this load of crap even had the slightest knowledge of the motocross world, or heck, has even heard a modern 4 stroke motocross bike run in somebodies garage, they’d already know how much louder a modern racing 4 stroke is than a 2 stroke. The 4 stroke “revolution” in motocross really took off back in 97′ with Doug Henry racing the factory Yamaha YZM400F. When Doug’s bike was the only 4 stroke on the track you could easily hear it above a full field of 2 stokes. And since the moto world was converted over to 4 strokes, arguably the biggest reason for track closures has been noise issues. Taking a B&K or Audio Control sound meter (regardless of weighting) and reading 2 strokes vs 4 may only yield a 3 db difference in sound pressure level, however- the type of sound each emits is much different. The 2 stroke has a higher exhaust pitch which doesn’t carry as far and is more easily absorbed when hitting objects. The 4 stroke is a lower pitch that carries further and tends to resonate inside of sealed enclosures (like a house). I know a whole lot of rc tracks sitting near residential housing that currently have no noise issues, but, put a full grid of 4 strokes on the track and their neighbors WILL be calling the cops every Saturday.

How about I take up the “much more usable power.” part from the previous quote. There are two problems with this. One- has the person that wrote that sentence driven one of the modern high-end racing .21 nitro engines? I have, and I had no chance of using all the power it was putting out. The top 50 racers in the world probably use ever single bit, but what good would even more power do for the other 99.999% of users? None, that’s what good it would do. How about making some changes that will benefit the masses- such as engines that freak’n actually start and run consistently? Secondly- a 4 stroke would be able to put out more power, but only with a huge displacement advantage. Having double the displacement isn’t a heads up fight, where is the asterisk to mention that little point? Compare a .21 2 stroke against a .21 4 stroke and lets see what’s up shall we?

4 stroke engines were pushed on the motocross world by the manufactures for environmental reasons. The “big 4″ were afraid that government regulations were about to tighten up on the “dirty burning” 2 strokes, so they started cutting back on the 2 smokes and pushing the valve clankers. No doubt, because of the smoother powerband and huge displacement advantage given to 4 stroke motocross bikes, they were easier to go fast on at your local mx track. However, the 4 stroke revolution has been slowly killing the mx scene at the local level. Prices for buying a 4 stroke race machine are significantly higher than their 2 stroke counterpart, this has been a big problem. The noise issue has also been a huge issue causing many track closures. And perhaps the biggest problem has been the cost of racing has gone up. Popping a piston and a set of rings in a 2 stroke might set you back $175 and an hour of your time. Blowing up your 4 stroke can cost thousands to fix. Changing out the rings and piston in your YZ250 2 smoke once a year is simply a whole lot cheaper than keeping a YZ250F running an entire season.

Motocross bike sales are at the lowest levels in years, and many people in the the industry are blaming it on the 4 stroke revolution. If our rc sanctioning body is going to learn any lesson from the moto/supercross world, perhaps that’s the one they should take away. Costs for rc racing are already astronomically high, 4 stroke engines would only increase them, cause track closures from noise complaints, and gradually kill racing as we know it today. Rc racing should truly be an everymans game, not strictly for those with fat pocketbooks.

On a different note… traditionally the first CR of the year is about “what to expect in the coming year”, but that’s going to have to wait till next time. Have a great week everyone, be sure and check out our Wednesday night Google + Live show (we are slowly getting our footing and getting all the bugs worked out) and support your local hobby shops and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report- 12.31.2012, Version- The Year That Was 2012, My Annual Year In Review

Posted by Cubby @ 10:46 am. Filed in: cubby

Being the last day of the year it’s only fitting that I write up my annual year in review. I not only looked back over the last 94 pages of posts here on BigSquidRC, but also called some of my industry homies to “boil down” how the year 2012 will go down in the rc history books. Lets dive in shall we?

Biggest news of the year- There was tons of “big” news in 2012, but the biggest of the big was the announcement that Traxxas was entering the air market with their QR-1 quad and DR-1 heli. Announced late in the year Traxxas was still able to get these on LHS shelves before X-mas, and speaking to shop owners they sold very well. However, hard-core Traxxas loyalists were left in disbelief, not understanding why Traxxas would jump into the air market while so much of their surface line is in desperate need of updating.

While the air gear was their biggest news, Traxxas kept themselves in the limelight all year long. The XO-1 Supercar was announced late in 11′, but shipping in Feb 12′, and you couldn’t get away from the hype machine around it. A couple months later came the widely publicized but poorly received Traxxas drag car. Throw in their new Rally car and LCG Slash 4×4 and Traxxas had yet another year at the top of the buzz (and sales) charts.

Second biggest news- Early in the year it was announced that the Champaign behemoth Hobbico had made a deal to acquire Axial, Durango, and ARRMA. This was some serious eye popping news to many industry peeps, they knew Hobbico has the cubic cash and market savvy to use those lines to take their world domination to a completely new level. Axial was already a hot name brand in America, but during the year you would have to blind not see how Durango and ARRMA climbing the sales charts here in the USA.

Biggest dropping of the ball- It was August 2011 when HPI first announced that they were attempting to put gas (not nitro) engines in regular 10th/8th scale rc vehicles. A few months later in February 12′ at the Nuremberg Toy Fair, HPI had multiple models on display all showing off their “Xtreme/Octane” series engine. While HPI did tease us once again a few weeks ago in mid December, we’ve yet so see one come to fruition. We really just want to drive one.

Biggest head-scratcher of the year- When the announcement came off the wire that HPI was now the exclusive distributor for Hobao in North America we weren’t the only ones scratching our heads.

Euro gear coming in style- You may or may not still consider Durango a European name, but alas, companies like X-Ray, Serpent and Schumacher also made positive strides in America. Many industry types make claims like the Euro’s are just trying harder right now, they are more focused, pushing harder, the internet is changing the game, etc, and I think you can look for more European brands to start making waves in the American market in the next 12 months.

Product trends of the year- 2012 will go down as the year that saw the emergence of the Rally car, quadcopters, scale off road buggies, nitro powered SCT’s, an uber battery charger war, and of the 8th scale roller “XO-1″ killers.

Rally has never been “so cool” here in America, and both Traxxas and HPI capitalized on this by putting out new rally style cars.

Quads which were once considered $19 stocking stuffers by true hobbyists, but they became a hot item after Traxxas announced their QR-1.

For scale buggies, Axial got their EXO Terra Buggy to the market, the HPI Apache hit (and missed), and even Associated threw their hat in the ring with the SC10B.

Associated made the news again with their SC10GT, Losi announced their Nitro Ten SCT, and finally Traxxas showed their hand and entered the nitro SCT market with their Nitro 2wd Slash. New offerings for the nitro crowd have been minimal in recent years, but the nitro SCT’s of 2012 gave fuel burners something new to play with.

After years of brushless/Lipo dominance, the battery charger companies went balls to the wall in 12′. Everywhere you turned was another company putting out some uber mega high current charger. Venom put out a charger with built in speakers, iCharger put out a charger you can probably weld with, and TrakPower put out one of the most esoteric chargers the market has ever seen. And.. uber chargers weren’t only about putting out ridiculously huge amounts of power, they were also about doing so on multiple channels. Reading some of the specs now days reminds me of the old car stereo days- 4 channels, bridgeable, mono-block, 500 watts, etc.

Why pay over a grand for a Traxxas XO-1 when you’ve already got all the electronics sitting in your garage? Late 2012 showed multiple brands putting out 8th scale roller on-road cars ready to bust out triple digit mph numbers once you’ve slammed in your own electronic goodies. Going crazy fast on-road should continue to be a big trend in 13′.

Accessory companies blowing up- Pro-line is no stranger to having huge years, but a number of other accessory companies put their dent on the scene in 12′ as well.

Pro-Line was everywhere in 12′. Their product line-up exploded with items for not just racers, but also for scalers and bashers. Pro-Line also went WFO on the 2wd Slash, now offering nearly a complete truck of their own in replacement parts. Also of note was the staggering amount of product give-aways that Pro-Line did over the course of the year. 2012 was Pro-lines 30th anniversary and they certain did it up the right way.

JConcepts made their waves too. They are living the dream, getting bigger and bigger and 12′ was a banner year for them. From spur gears for the Slash, to a high speed Traxxas truck body, to tons of racer gear, to sponsoring tons of races across the country, JConcepts was pushing it hard all year long.

RPM ventured out to numerous new models in 2012 and put out perhaps their most involved product yet- a tranny case and metal motor mount for Traxxas 2wd trucks. Consumers have been asking RPM to branch out a bit for years, in 12′ they arguably branches out more than ever before.

MIP, who has been a player in the rc game for years, saw a fresh resurgence in 2012. Their Pro4mance kit for the Losi SCTE and uber shock pistons got the ball rolling early in the year, and they are looking more solid than ever going into 13′.

RDRP blew up on the accessory scene in 12′. A little known Euro company a few months ago, they are now one of the “hot” brands to have in your pit at the local track.

Exotek was once a tiny company making a few 18th scale parts, in 2012 they really expanded their product catalog and market share.

You can’t talk about upgrade parts without talking about STRC. They landed a big deal with Great Planes and keep putting out more and more parts for nearly every vehicle (worth owning) on the market, plus their LCG Chassis for 2WD and 4WD Slash Vehicles!

Other significant happenings-

Thunder Tiger was once a joke in the American market. Today, with distribution from Great Planes, they are one of the biggest names in the bashing market. After multiple new releases in Q4 of 12′, expect their market share to keep on growing in 13′.

Firelands Group is making some waves. From Anza hop-up parts, to Helion, to Radient, to Ares, they might just be the model company of the future.

Venom Group had a big year. From putting out loads of innovative products, to changing their name to Atomik (and seemingly failing, everyone still calls them Venom), to inking a deal to sell Brian Deegan/Metal Mulisha gear, Venom is working their way towards the front of the pack.

Associated made the news here and there, the introduction of their SC10B was huge news, as was their announcement of their new “Qualifier Series” basher line-up.

ECX also had a big year. Sales were solid and they ventured into uncharted territory with their new 8th scales, one electric, and one nitro. Expect to see more big things from ECX in 2013.

Kyosho made a push in 12′ with loads of new products (the Scorpion XXL Ve for example) and a solid marketing push. Unfortunately their distribution blows here in the states and most consumers only saw the new stuff on the web, not in their LHS.

Oh ya, BigSquidRC had pretty good year too, thanks to you guys-

Our March Bash-Ness contest was huge again, and it sported a controversial winner, the Helion Dominus. We did a great job of busting out juicy Traxxas news in good time and our “chat with us in the forums” morphed into our live Google Plus show. We also had solid coverage of not only iHobby, but of RCX SoCal, Nuremberg, and the HobbyTown USA show. And lastly… traffic was once again way up, for that we must salute you guys out there!

That’s it for this week ya’ll, next week will be my also annual “looking forward to the coming year” Cub Report, till then, support your local hobby shops and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 12.24.2012, Version- My Lil’ Weekly Festivus Party

Posted by Cubby @ 8:41 am. Filed in: cubby

Hey gang, welcome to Christmas week. My how time flies, it seems like just yesterday we were ringing in the start of 2012, but here we are and it’s almost over. I sincerely hope you guys get a few extra days off work and that your Christmas is a very merry one.

We won’t be taking any days off here at the BigSquidRC offices, that’s just how the internet game works. The internet game is 25/8/366, we don’t work dinosaur media hours here. You guys are on-line every moment of the day, therefore we have to be ready to post big news regardless of when it might pop up. This week we’ll be doing our normal compliment of articles/news/reviews, plus our Wednesday night Google + Hangout Live Show. We hope to totally hook you guys up with rc based entertainment while you are at home enjoying your holiday. There may not be “loads” of news till after the new year, but we’ll be here to report any important stuff that might surface.

On a different note…

I’ve told this story before, some of you TCR (THE Cub Report) aficionados will remember it, but while I was growing up I raced motocross nearly every weekend during the fair weather months, and rc during the winter. For whatever reason, my departed father never watched me race, nor lifted a finger to help me in either of those endeavors. Which, as I get older, I find stranger and stranger. He was constantly chastising me for my love of man and machine, yet if he truly hated it that badly he could have instantly brought my racing to an end, but he never did. I would like to think he had some “master plan” behind his hatred of my racing, but I’ve yet to figure it out.

As many of you know I’ve got a young son. This year I feel like he’s finally old enough to get his first ever hobby grade rc truck. Like many of you dads out there, I’ll be placing a hobby grade rc truck under the tree for my youngster and I can’t believe how stoked I am about it. There is a certain pleasure that comes with passing down one of my life long passions that I have never had the opportunity to experience until now.

I spent a good deal of time thinking about which truck was going to be his first, then prepping it to be ready for its first run on Christmas day. The first car/truck/whatever you get in this hobby is an extremely memorable event, ask any hobbyists and they will go on and on for hours about their first car, so I took picking the right vehicle extremely seriously. I ended up going down to my LHS and picking up a new ECX Torment for my son. We’ve had probably a dozen of them around the office and they’ve proven themselves as a capable noob bash machine. I have no doubt the Torment will bring my son as many hours of fun as it has brought to myself and the other staffers here at BigSquidRC. The Torment has been our “go to” vehicle for over a year now when we just want to grab a truck and play some demo derby in the parking lot or hit some small ramps.

But of course, being the noob rc dad that I am, I couldn’t leave the Torment stock, I mean I am THE freak’n Cub Reporter. My son is still fairly young so he’s still big into things being his favorite color, this necessitated a new Pro-Line Flo-Tek and painting it a bright red. Maybe this first red body will morph into his personal “paint scheme” in the years to come. Next up was water-dipped his motor, a “must do” if you are looking for any kind of life from an RTR brushed motor. The stock cast pinion leaves a bit to be desired, so I picked up a new Robinson and dropped one tooth. A drop in pinion size will help motor temps and run-times, plus the more precisely cut Robinson pinion will be less likely to burn up the spur. Next up was loosened the slipper a bit, at my sons age I’m quite certain he’s not gonna let off the gas when up against a wall and I’d rather him burn up the slipper than some of the other drive-line parts. Finally, I charged up and installed a new 6 cell 1800 mah sport pack, set all the trims, then wrapped that sucker up. It’s ready for a drive as soon as he opens it on Christmas morning, and I’m ridiculously stoked to say I am looking forward to my very first bash session with my son.

Now… I totally realize I may be creating a monster here. In the years to come my son may become an rc freak like me, spending entirely too many hours of his life truing tires, adjusting camber, rebuilding diffs, then putting in countless hours wearing out the local track.

Or… I may be setting myself up for a huge let down. My son may take one look at the truck and go “Meh, what were you thinking dad? Where is my Kindle Fire HD with Angry Birds on it?”. Of course being an rc’er I’d like to see him enjoy the hobby I’ve spent a gianormous portion of my life on, but I’m mentally prepared for the opposite as well. Any which way, whether my son becomes an rc-a-holic or ends up dedicating his entire life to the Halo franchise, I fully intend to support whatever hobby he may end up with. My only real wish is that he finds one that he can be passionate about. I know the time I spent fanatically wrenching and racing a gold tub RC10 (and YZ Yamaha’s) kept me out of trouble in my youth, with any luck a good hobby will do the same for him.

That’s it for this week folks, have a very Merry Christmas with your families and/or friends, and… support your local hobby shops and bash spots if ya can!

YOUR Cub Reporter

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