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The Cub Report, Version 05.18.08

Posted by Cubby @ 8:21 am. Filed in: Castle Creations, cubby, Hot Bodies, HPI Racing, Kyosho

Another week, another Cub Report- here’s all you really need to know about what went down in the rc universe last week.

It’s been years since the revolutionary Traxxas T-Maxx came out. Since then, most companies have jumped on the bandwagon and produced their versions of the platform. The HPI Savage was the first, and probably toughest competitor in the category. Guess who is the latest to jump on? Kyosho. They waited so long to release their T-Maxx copy that they didn’t just miss the boat, they missed the entire ocean. And while nitro monster trucks are still good sellers, the big K’s money would have been much better invested in anything electric, primarily an MP-8-E.

Speaking of the MP-8, where is it? Kyosho seems to have jumped from their MP-7/777 platform to the new MP-9. Is the number 8 unlucky in Asia? Who knows, but photo’s have been released of the MP-9. No under body shots have been seen, but it has been confirmed with sources at the big K that it is definitely still nitro powered.

2008 has been a real re-awakening for HPI/Hot Bodies. Last week, information for their new 8th scale off road buggy, the D8, were released. Their older “Lightening” series was not quite up to the level of the Mugen’s and K-cars, but this new model seems to have all the right features to make it a regular in the A-mains all across the country.

That’s it for this weeks folks, keep supporting your LHS and local tracks! The more you support them, the more they will support you!

Cubby

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The Way Super-Dope Cub Report (extended cub remix)

Posted by Cubby @ 8:05 am. Filed in: cubby, ROAR

Great week to do some more ROAR bashing don’t you agree?

With that in mind, the rocket scientists at our beloved sanctioning body ROAR, have called it quits to nitro 10th scale stadium truck and “production” monster truck. These two classes will no longer be held at the national level.

Well I say why stop there? Geeezus, there are plenty more classes to cut off the nat schedule- two is barely a lame start.

At some point, there will come a time when ROAR either decides to close the doors and go off and rot somewhere, or they will see “the light” and start making decisions to advance the sport. The path to advancing the sport is quite clear to those that are exposed to more sources of racing than the typical ROAR official.

Each and every ROAR official should be forced to race in an SCCA event, and AMA event, and a WSORR event to help them gain the global view of racing that is needed for them to make worthwhile decisions. Currently, ROAR is only good at making blind rulings and deeply rooting their lips deeply up a few select manufactures rear ends.

I’ve gotten hate mail from ROAR before. The typical letter goes like this-

“Dear Pissant,

How dare you speak the holy ROAR name in vein, and if you don’t like how we are doing things, then you should join up and run the place!

Signed,
Your Clueless ROAR Official”

It typically takes me roughly 4 seconds to print a copy of the hate mail, and about a day to use it. Anyone else ever notice that printer paper isn’t nearly as soft as an extra-soft premium toilet paper?

To guide the blind mice attempting to run the show. Once again, here is your path to salvation.

1. Get outside sponsorship of the ROAR nationals and/or Mr Eppes RC Pro Series. Monster energy drinks is literally shipping sponsorships dollars in every can they sell right now, and it’s your duty to relieve them of all that precious money. Ever wonder how kick ass of a national you could put on if Monster, Red Bull, Rockstar, or DC Shoes cut the venue a check for 20k? I bet all the transponders would register correctly then! The event could be properly run, properly tech’ed, properly advertised, and could even have proper prize money.

2. Outside sponsors are only wanting to cut those big checks if they are supporting the numero uno race in America. They want ONE national rc racing champion. Not 40, not 30, not even a half dozen. They want ONE (as in 1, one, or uno) national championship. Yes, I know the rc racing community seems hell bent on racing 50 different classes every year, but that’s what local racing is for. The nationals are to determine the ONE (as in 1, one, or uno) national champion.

3. It’s up to the leadership (ROAR or RCPS) to come up with a fair SERIES. Ever notice that every big buck racing title from AMA Supercross to NASCAR to Formula 1 does not determine their big title on just one day? Hummm.. makes you think a SERIES might be a good idea doesn’t it? In the ONE national championship series, I want to see the likes of the carpet God’s like Baker, Blackstock, Dumas, and Tosolini go up against the dirt masters like Cavalari, Kortz, Pavadis, and The Drake. So do the big sponsors. The series sanctioning body should probably start with the KISS approach. Run half the races of the series on carpet during the winter months, run the other half on dirt during warmer months. One national championship class on the carpet, one on the dirt. At this time, it would only make sense for foam touring indoors, and 8th scale truggy outdoors. Make the series as long as the teams like Losi, Kyosho, X-Ray and Associated would be willing to fund their drivers to make it.

The big outside sponsors are just begging for an outlet to advertise to young males between the ages of 14 and 35. Hummmm….. anybody look around the pits at a typical rc race lately?? Rc racing is absolutely the perfect place to advertise to large quantities of that genre at a very reasonable price. Rc racing is a bargain for Monster, Red Bull, DC Shoes, Spy Optics, or any mainstream company to reach their target demographic. Where as Monster and Red Bull are at full nuclear war in other racing series, one could come in and mop up the entire sport overnight in rc. Monster could pick up all the top factory shoes, plus the ONE (as in 1, one or uno) national championship title sponsorship for chump change. And, rc racing is probably closest to their absolute target audience! It’s a win-win situation. ROAR and/or RCPS gets the money they need to put on a true national championship series, and
Monster/Red Bull/Rockstar/DC Shoes gets loads of relatively cheap exposure. The only reasons that they probably haven’t jumped in already are- 1. Nobody has asked them to! 2. If they have looked at the sport, they didn’t like what they saw because of how screwed up the classes are!

Any other road than the one I’ve described above heads down one path- the path that rc racing has been on for decades now. More of the same. More poor turnouts and memberships numbers. More “look at those pathetic dorks racing their Wally World cars!” instead of looking professional with a truly worthy national championship.

Cub Reporter

ps- Send all hate mail to my boss at brian at BigSquidRC.com, I actually get paid on
“hate mail commission” now. Thanks and the more the better!

pss- Support your local hobby shops, and get out and race, just for the fun of it!

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The Cub Report 05.04.08

Posted by Cubby @ 9:23 am. Filed in: cubby, Hot Bodies, HPI Racing

In a week that featured the #22 of Chad Reed winning his second AMA Supercross title, and the beautiful filly Eight Belles giving her life for the run to the roses, it’s been awfully dead in the rc world.

Some news was made last week when Trinity announced that Ed Bridges of the famed EB Mods had come on board. Ed is best known for producing some of the gnarliest, pwnalicious nitro engines on the planet. Looks like we all can look for some new fire breathers to leave the Big T’s doors after Ed gets his hands on them.

The resurgent HPI/Hot Bodies released more info on their new Cyclone D4 World Championship Edition. To boil the fat off the top, it’s their rock solid Cyclone D4 with loads of uber-tech hop-ups. Strangely, after nearly two decades of decline, the electric 4wd class is all the rage again, and HPI/HB is not missing the boat. Their D4 CE is every bit as trick as anything on the market.

I would like to issue my first challenge to my readers out there. I’ve pondered just why there are 3 or 4 qualifiers, and only single mains used in racing rc cars. If you actually have a good reason for this, please email the answer to Brian at BigSquidRC.com. Personally, I’d rather have more racing and less screwing around all day qualifying. My challenge is for my readers, both the lovers and the haters, to
conjure up a reasonable explanation on just why qualifying three quarters of the day is so much better than racing. Carry on.

Well that draws to a close the shortest edition of the Cub Report. Some might think that is a wonderful thing, but I’d rather the industry bust out some interesting products or bumbles for me to write about!

Till next week, crash hard, qualify all day, God Speed Eight Belles, and support your local hobby shop guy, he misses you.

Cubby

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el loco Cubo Reporto versiono 4.27.08

Posted by Cubby @ 10:18 pm. Filed in: Castle Creations, cubby, HPI Racing, Novak, Traxxas

Let’s get right on down to the nitty gritty here.

For you crawler fans, XTM looks to be the second manufacture with a full on competition chassis right out of the box, the XTM X-Crawler. It seems every week the crawling segment gets more support, and the new XTM “super class” crawler is just more evidence to support the case. How much longer till every LHS and track decides to incorporate a “crawling course” into their normal tracks? Who knows, but several rc marketing experts I’ve talked with already expected the crawling segment to be dying out by now. Obviously it’s not, and in fact, it looks like it’s barely starting to take off. Much different than when AE and Losi pushed “rally” conversions about 5 yrs ago. (anybody else remember those? Hehehe)

Also in crawler news, the original Big T, Trinity, has released a series of crawler specific brushed motors. They come in 45, 55, and a real stump pulling 65 turn. Suggested price is around $45 smackers, and don’t forget to buy plenty of extra brushes and dust off your comm lathe.

Are the guys at Traxxas marketing geniuses or what? If you are a hard-core rc hobbyist, you might even be po’ed that Traxxas spends huge bucks on full size racing, while they spend virtually nothing on an actual rc race team. Everyone has seen the full size Traxxas monster truck, and this week, Traxxas announced their support of 3 full size wfo CORR (championship off road racing) trucks. Well that’s where the genius is, everyone has seen the full size Traxxas monster truck, and I’m sure the story will nearly be the same with their support of the CORR series. RC racing is confined to back lots, under-used parks, and inside old warehouses, where it’s nearly impossible for someone from outside the sport to even see the cars run. Traxxas is smart enough to know this, hence the reason they are spending some crazy coin on full size racing to bring the noobies in. Also, being a new sponsor in the CORR series, they will get truckloads of free advertising, not only on television (where CORR has a good deal with Speed Tv, which just recent aired the first live coverage of a CORR event), but also in the full size off road rags and internet sites. So this weeks kudos go out to Traxxas- for actively seeking to take our hobby/sport to the mainstream.

Now, on to the brushless front. Not only does the HPI Flux system come in their rtr’s, but they are also going to be sold separately. These controllers can do 70 amps continuous, or up to 380 burst, and are a great set-up for your 10th scale touring car or off road truck. Perhaps the best feature will be a very user friendly price tag.

The guys in green (or perhaps black and gold?) at Castle released more information on their much anticipated Monster Max system this week. Indeed, they will initially be releasing just the speed controller w/o motor, which will have an intended LHS price of $199. Information directly from CC states that the continuous power handling is “more than you can handle”, so I guess that means I can run my Toyota hybrid off of it, and your 8th scale conversion shouldn’t be much of a problem. CC has released the exact date that manufacturing will start for the Monster, which is stated to be May 12th. And shockingly, they are discounting roughly 15% off the normal price if you pre-order one right now through their web-site. So get in line fast and get your pre-order in before you are forced to support your LHS and pay the normal $199. Savvy buyers will be scooping up a half dozen on the pre-order so they can E-bay them the day after for a “buy now” price of $300 (or more) to the lame suckers that didn’t pre-order or wanted to support their LHS’s.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a week in rc without Novak releasing some new motors. This week, they add to the motor banzais with new HV series motors (the big 550 guys intended for use in monster trucks and 8th scale conversions) with 5mm shafts. It hasn’t been more obvious that the rc world is begging for an out of the box Associated, Losi, Mugen, Ofna, or Kyosho 8th scale electric truggy to fit these big boyz in. Will one of the major chassis manufactures just give in and give the public what they want?

Well that was the week in rc. Remember to support your LHS’s, support your local tracks, and if some noob asks you how much your rc car costs, don’t be a dillrod and say “thousands!!!”, tell’em the price of a new rtr at your local shop.

Cub Reporter

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Traxxas

Cub Report – The Week in Review 420 Edition

Posted by Cubby @ 12:13 am. Filed in: cubby, Traxxas

Trade shows in general are so 1980′s. Back then they were heavily attended, with huge manufacture, dealer, and consumer support. Manufactures would debut oceans of hot new products and offer large incentives to dealers. Dealers couldn’t wait to get away from their stores in middle-of-nowhere America to reap the deep discounts and to party down on some manufactures expense account. And consumers were stoked to get an exclusive first glance at the technology of tomorrow.

But then came that pesky internet. Manufactures started debuting new product on-line nearly every week. Dealers were tired of hitting the same old convention halls every year. And well, the consumers had already seen the new products on-line, so there wasn’t much need for them to hit an expo to see old news.

Cue the 2008 RCX. This is the second largest trade show in the rc industry, held out in socal, and presented by the fine folks at Air Age Media, the publishers of RCCA magazine. It’s a tough road to hoe getting a new expo going in the internet age, but Air Age Media has made a fairly good run at it. And while the show is far from perfect, and attendance probably isn’t as good as it should be, at least they are
showing some real support of their sport, you have to give them kudos for that.

While most new products are released over the internet, a few new pieces were shown this weekend at RCX. The biggest news? Traxxas Finally did it. They showed the new E Revo. That’s right, a hugely anticipated electric powered Revo. It’s obvious that the rc industry is headed back to electric, and that is confirmed once again with Traxxas‘s information released on the E Revo. The public has been Begging for one of these for 2 years now. Traxxas gets the biggest props of the week for listening, and giving the consumers what they really want. That’s how you make money in this industry, or any industry really.

The E Revo features a very E-maxx like power system (for now), with twin 550 motors feeding off a pair of batteries. But this truck just begs for brushless/li-po power, and Traxxas boasts that they’ve tested the drive-train up to 6S lithium with no problems. While I find that hard to believe, it will certainly be my pleasure to bolt in 6S worth of power and find out for myself! At the very least, Traxxas attempted to heavily fortify the drive-train, knowing full well that thousands of insane power systems will end up in this platform.

Also shown at RCX, the new Novak telemetry system. Of course these types of systems are really cool to play with, but it seems the only people that truly use them actually work in the industry. Any which way, the Novak system looks to be the king of the hill as far as telemetry goes.

Also of note from Novak at RCX- operating Mongoose systems (including a 9000 rpm/v motor), and each of their 10 different 8th scale conversion kits.

RC drag racers have been looking forward to the release of the Castle Monster Max speed controller for years now. 8th scale conversion nutz- ditto. Castle has shown different versions of the Monster system since RCX 2006. At RCX 2008, they showed easily the most finalized version. This speedo comes with a case that actually covers the top of a built in fan, and is claimed for insane power handling. On one hand, a big heatsink and fan can get rid of a lot of heat. On the other, if a speedo needs a fan and heatsink, perhaps it’s not built to handle as much power as it should. The latest rumor is that we’ll be able to find out for ourselves come early June. (just about perfect timing to go in my E Revo!) At first, this speedo might very well be sold by itself, with a ground churning Steve Neu/Castle designed motor coming shortly thereafter.

Speaking of Castle, they also debuted their new 8th scale conversions at RCX. The coolest feature? Radical looking battery trays. But will they actually get them out on the market before car manufactures like Ofna and Losi release their out of the box 8th scale electrics?

While this edition of the CubReport did not contain as much hate as it should have, should you feel the need to complain about this column, please do so. I’m looking forward to doing a feature story on some of the more colorful hate-mail letters. So think up your very best digs, and email them to the head cheese. Brian-at-BigSquidRC.com is the email address you are looking for.

That’s it for this week geeks. Drive fast, crash hard, and make sure you have enough room on your credit cards to put a down payment on a new E Revo and Castle Monster Max at your LHS’s this week!

Cubby

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Traxxas

The el’ Cubo Report’o Version 04.13.08

Posted by Cubby @ 12:45 am. Filed in: cubby, Novak, Traxxas

Weed. So just why is it that many outdoor (and some indoor) tracks across the country have such a large proportion of racers that insist on smoking weed during races?

Certainly rc racing is not set up for youth racers, as it caters more to the 30-something age set. But, rc racing should always be youth friendly, and being such, that means no illegal substances at the track. Yet, if you are a racer, it’s more common than not to see, or at least know about, a group of racers at your local track that “sneak” away between the heats to pull a little Cheech and Chong action in someones SUV. Are local tracks simply so desperate for entries that they kindly “overlook” this illegal activity? Are track directors so obtuse that they don’t even notice? Youth racers look up to the more mature racers in every way, from set-ups, to driving tips, to what they are doing out in the parking lot.

This is America, the finest country on this big hunk of rock, and it’s based on freedom. But, this issue isn’t about being “pro” or “anti” weed, it’s about setting a good example for the young men and women racing in our sport. What weed based racers do at home is their own business, what they do at the track is all our
business. Track owners and club representatives- do the right thing, and encourage “that group” of people you have sneaking away to their SUV’s and vans to simply leave it at home. Get high on the racing at the track, get your other buzzes on at home.

Now, on to the product news of the week. Recently, Horizon/Losi introduced their Desert type truck. I complained about why they decided to introduce a truck in a non-existent genre? Well guess what, it looks like it will turn out to be a big summer for scale desert/short course trucks! Traxxas introduced their entry in this market last week, the Traxxas “Slash” short course truck. The “Slash” looks very much like a real CORR truck. It’s a 2wd off-road, electric.

Couple interesting notes here. The first being that it’s Electric! Traxxas are the kings of nitro, yet, on this mostly new platform, they decided to build on electric. Yet another sign that electric is on the way back up, and nitro on the way down. The second interesting note is that it’s one of the few on the market with an all metal transmission. You can look at every Associated and Losi electric, and see all kinds of plastic gears. On high power li-po and bl power, plastic gears equals transmission Death! So big props to Traxxas for going the extra mile and putting all metals gears in the Slash, it might actually stand a chance against 3S lithium power on a 600 watts brushless motor.

Onward I go to another subject entirely. Brian, editor-in-chief of BigSquidRC, and the guy that so nicely signs the checks, sent some hate mail my way this week. It seems that last week, I mentioned that a product was being sourced from Novak, when it wasn’t. So after getting some facts straight, if you want genuine Novak quality, make sure it’s orange and has Novak on it. If it looks like a Novak but has someone
else’s name on it and is a different color, assume that it’s a back-engineered knock-off made in China and stay away like it’s a nest of killer bees.

That’s it for this week Cub-hounds. Keep your hands off the girl next to you (unless she’s your wife, then beg her to let you touch), leave the weed at home, support your local hobby shack, and get in some laps at your local track.

CubReporter

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Traxxas

The Week that was 04.06.08

Posted by Cubby @ 11:23 pm. Filed in: cubby, HPI Racing, Losi, Team Associated, Traxxas

Brian, the head cheese and uber editor of BigSquidRC.com suspended me last week. I never thought he would have been personally offended at what I had last turned in, but I guess he wasn’t impressed with my last Cub Report that contained more curse words than a typical rap song. This week, I’ll try my very best to keep the spicy language to a bare minimum.

The biggest news of the last two weeks? Traxxas!! The very latest rendition of their top selling T-Maxx is on the way to your dealer’s shelves. The latest, dubbed the “New T-Maxx 3.3″ is the largest T-Maxx yet- featuring larger tires and a longer wheelbase. If you are a typical consumer, you are probably stoked to see the new rig. If you are an LHS, you scratch your head and wonder how you are going to sell off the last two versions, and think about how mad you are that you’ll now have to stock even more parts that will be outdated in 6 months. Literally, the very minute Traxxas unveils a new T-Maxx, selling the older versions is like selling the plague. More dead stock, yippee!

Horizon/Losi kept up their quest for world domination releasing a slew of new items. It doesn’t matter if you drive their small, ill-handling Micro-T, or their Losi 8 series, new gear was all around. The highlight of the Horizon releases is the new Losi 10th Scale Desert Truck. Now, this truck fits in absolutely zero niches. It’s a class of it’s own, but was born off the XXX-T chassis. It seems this truck was released simply to put out a new truck, as new sells in this hobby market. (remind anyone of their 20 different versions of the Mini-T and Mini-LST?) Most consumers have already owned 2 XXX’s, and 4 XXX-T’s, so for Horizon to get any more of their money they simply had to put out the cheapest “new” design they could. (Even if it comes with one of the slowest motors ever made.)

Horizon/Losi’s second largest release of the week was their 10th scale brushless speedo’s and motors. Horizon must really not give a damn about the Losi name, taking a well known chassis manufactures name and jumping into the BL and li-po market with it. But then, it is the most recognized and famous name they own, so what not use it? The Losi names sells, at least for now till they ruin it. (I’m sure Gil Jr is sooo happy he left before the butchering of the family name began in full force) At the very least, Horizon could have asked their BL source to disguise the speedo’s and motors better. They look nearly identical to another brushless out there. The Horizon/Losi model is blue. I’ll let you find the other.

Associated made some news releasing their RC8 drive-line hop ups last week. Throw a couple hundred bucks at these and you can race your RC8 for a month without the drive-line blowing up. Wait, shouldn’t it have come out of the box that way? Silly me, I come from the ole’ school where Associated equalled reliable.

HoBao showed their new high end 8th scale racer, called the “Hyper 9 World’s Contender”, and their new Jammin CRT .5 killer called the “Hyper Mini-ST”. First off, I can’t even properly pronounce HoBao. Next, name recognition is the single biggest reason anyone advertises. (ever notice that HoBao/Ofna is RCCA’s biggest advertiser?) So why not just say “Ofna” instead of HoBao or Jammin?? Any which way, Ofna/HoBao/Jammin sells about a zillion cheap azz 8th scale buggies every day even if they have 3 names. But who’s to say they wouldn’t sell more if they just stuck with one?? My vote is for plain ole’ Ofna. I recognize the name, and can actually pronounce it.

Finally, the new and revived HPI showed pics of their new Vertex Ridge Toyota Soarer drift car. Now, I’ve made fun in the past of Losi’s drifter that came stock with working headlights. (working headlights are for the Wal-Mart crowd I’m sorry) But, this new HPI has to be the Best Looking hobby grade rc car ever released. Yes, it might be in some goofy azz drifting configuration, but it just looks hot. The type of car that just looks too nice to even be driven. This car might become one of the hottest selling shelf-queens ever in this sport.

That’s it for this weeks goons. I have upheld my promise to keep the naughty language down, and hopefully made some of the people behind this industry mad. Or at least given them the view of what the average consumer thinks when looking at their new “hot” releases. Chao, aloha, peace out punkz.

And as always, support your local hobby shops and tracks!
Cubby

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Traxxas

The Week That Was 03.22.08 (better late than never edition!)

Posted by Cubby @ 11:13 pm. Filed in: cubby, RC Pro Series

Not much news this week. The biggest news was that Trinity is releasing a new brushed stock motor- it seems they didn’t get the memo that nobody gives a crap about brushed motors anymore. At this point, putting out a new brushed motor is like coming out with a new set of horse shoes instead of tires.

Seems my paychecks will not arrive if I don’t write about something, so I’m going to give RC Pro Series the enormous props they deserve.

If you are anything like I am and can remember the early days of this sport, electric dominated. Once a year some goof ball would show up with a nitro car at the track, and everyone would stand around watching him try to keep the dern thing running, and soak up that unforgettable smell from the fuel.

Jump ahead to the late 90′s, when racers at their incredibly rough and bombed-out dirt tracks, discovered they could put in faster laps times with low-tech 8th scale gas buggies than they could with the latest generation of electrics. Then Traxxas released the historic T-Maxx, cementing a decade of dominance to nitro.

Carlton Eppes, head of the RC Pro Series, has now made it legal for electric and nitro’s to compete Head to Head in two classes this year- Monster Truck and 10th Scale Stadium Truck. Eppes is certainly deserving of the largest of kudos for doing this.

Why?

Simply because in rc racing, there are just too many classes. If you are an outsider to the sport, you would only care about who is the single best rc racer, not who won the 12th-scale/intermediate/power-puff/carpet/full-moon nationals. The easiest way for rc racing to hit the mainstream is to pull in large outside sponsors. By this I mean, instead of Associated, Trinity, and Kyosho being the primary sponsors of large racing events or teams, having Monster Energy Drinks, Red Bull, Etnies, DC Shoes, or Pepsi cutting the checks instead.

These larger outside sponsors have infinitely more monetary resources than Associated/Trinity/Kyosho do, therefore, big rc races/racers can be much better funded and advertised. Also, the Monsters/Red Bulls/DC Shoes of the world have much greater pull with mainstream magazines and television. If Monster Energy decided to jump into the rc sport, they would surely bring a television deal with them-providing more exposure than our sport has ever known, the single fastest ticket to mainstream America acceptance.

But, Monster Energy isn’t going to jump into a sport that has 50 different “national champions” every year. Also, between all these different national champions, the carpet guys rarely race against the dirt guys, and the nitro guys rarely race the electric guys. The very elite racers rarely get to race against each other (if you don’t believe me, when was the last time you saw Barry Baker vs Jared Tebo on a track?) To take rc racing to the next level, there has to be one, and I mean just ONE, national champion. This, large outside sponsors can relate to, and would be
much more willing to fund.

What Carlton Eppes has done by allowing electric vs nitro is to get one step closer to a unified national championship. One step closer to the next level where this sport deserves to be.

RC Pro Series also has stepped up to the plate to decide the single most asked internet message board board questions, “what’s faster, gas or electric?”. That in itself is deserving of the highest award the rc industry has to give. Carlton Eppes has my vote for “RC Man Of The Year 2008″.

Remember, support your local hobby shops! Support your local tracks, and hit a RC Pro Series race to see what is faster, nitro or electric!

Cub

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The Week That Was 03.16.08

Posted by Cubby @ 12:01 am. Filed in: cubby, Losi, Pro-Line, Schumacher

Let’s dig right in.
Trinity announced a new engine line-up this week. Or should they have said “we will be importing a new engine line-up”? For years and years the Big T has done a great job of convincing the general public they actually make something. At least in their latest press release they state up front the engine is Sirio based and made in Italy. So why would anyone not just buy a Sirio and skip a middleman mark up?

Schumacher has made huge leaps and bounds since the hiring of p.r. and marketing man Shawn Palmer. Announced this week their latest CAT 4wd off-roader- the CAT SX. Back in the day, the Schumacher CAT was one of the most potent race weapons on the planet, and the new CAT SX looks to be of the same caliber. I say this because even from the early press photo’s, you can see it shares parts with their Mission 3 touring car, a very underrated racer. The Mission 3 is not only one of the elite touring cars on the market, but nearly a masterpiece of engineering. Having run a Mission 3, if left me in awe of just how refined even the smallest details were. Robin Schumacher really stepped up to the plate engineering wise with the Mission 3 If the CAT SX is of the same quality, it will be a large step above and beyond the Associated’s and Losi’s on the market right now.

FYI to everyone- the crawling world is really taking off! Get a crawler, be part of the “super dope” crowd! This week, Pro-Line showed it’s new Hammer and Badlands crawling tires, along with some uber-tech memory foam inserts. More choice is always a good thing when it comes to new treads, and Pro-Line once again is pro-active, not re-active to the latest trends. Huge props to Pro-Line for giving the public what it wants, when they want it.

It had been a few weeks since Losi rebadged one of their 18th scalers again, but this week they pulled through with yet another version- their 18th scale Mini Late Model. Now, in some parts of the country, Losi mini-t based oval cars are all the rage. Only time will tell if there is still room in the marketplace for yet another color of the same tasting gummy bear.

After flipping through one of the new rc rags, I happen to see several pages yet again wasted on a boat review. This has gone too far, as now nearly all the rags blow precious pages on utterly worthless boat or airplane info. Are they so in love with boats and airplanes they can’t help themselves? More likely, their advertisers give them the ultimatum, “Write up this POS boat in your car mag, or we are pulling advertising”. Does it really take that many balls for an editor to just say “Sorry,we cherish you as an advertiser, but we only review cars in our car mag”? Do you ever see a new fishing boat reviewed in the latest issue of Car and Driver?

That’s it for this week freaks. Support your local hobby shops and your local tracks!
Cubby

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The Week in Review – Version 03.02.08

Posted by Cubby @ 10:57 pm. Filed in: brushless, cubby, Hot Bodies, HPI Racing, Schumacher, Traxxas

As I sit here watching “Giant Squid: Caught on Camera” on the Discovery Hi-Def channel, I can’t help but to reflect on just how far BigSquidRC has come in the last 12 months. This site has come from a little known basher site, to one that now gets more hits than most of the mainstream rc magazines sites get. That’s a huge accomplishment, and a statement to the fact that the paper based rags are in a for a butt kick’n by internet only news sites. Thankfully, BigSquidRC is one of the leaders in providing internet only rc news, reviews, and other information. So thank you readers and contributors for helping push BigSquidRC closer to the top every day!

Enough tooting of the horn. The show must go on.
One news item you won’t be seeing in the paper rags has to do with something I touched on last week, rc’s era of litigation. Early in 2007, several rc companies were sued by private individuals over labeling their products as “Made In the USA”. Novak, Horizon/Losi/Spektrum, Castle Creations, and Thunder Power went under the legal microscope in the state of California. To boil it all down- in California, to legally promote your products as “Made in the USA” not only must they be made here, but every single part in your product must come from the USA as well. In todays world, it is impossible to find every single part you would need for a speed controller from an American manufacture, making it impossible to meet California’s criteria for the “Made in USA” logo. So no matter if 100% of the actual work to design, assemble, and distribute the product happened right here in the US of A, a 99.9% American product could never legally wear the “Made in the USA” logo in the state of California.

It appears that all four companies have reached out of court settlements. What this means to the Joe Blow American rc driver is two things. First being that money hungry lawyers now smell blood in our industry, and we can expect even more litigation. Secondly, the more lawsuits that are filed, regardless of win or loss, the more the prices on rc products are going to go up. Companies that lose or settle out will be forced to raise prices to keep their doors open, and even companies never sued will start taking greater measures to limit losses in such case. Those preventative measures will raise costs of operation, and thus trickle down to higher prices at your local hobby shop.

Now, to take a quick look at some of the products and news released this week.
HPI announced their off road series this week. Yet another week where HPI manages to make it back into the news. It looks like an awesome idea on club racing. The rules are pretty simple- you have to drive an HPI or Hotbodies platform. Wouldn’t it be neat to race where everyone is essentially running the same vehicles? Imagine how much tuning info you could gain in just one race weekend!

Also on the HPI front, HotBodies has shot out the press info on their new 2wd dirt off-road competition buggy. This really is a landmark release. I mean really, who would have ever thought HPI would have sold a competitive 2wd buggy? Well it’s here, so now the buying public has more choices in that class than they have had in years. And the biggest design feature of the new buggy? An aluminum chassis! Awww, takes me back to the good old days when the original RC10 came out.

Isn’t it interesting that both Hotbodies and MRC/Academy have both released new 2wd buggies? Yet another sign that the manufactures are gearing up for the big switch from nitro back to electric. Can anyone say “B5 on the way”??

Traxxas announced their “Platinum” edition Revo. I guess that’s fine and dandy, but the buying public would much rather have seen the brushless/li-po powered Revo. True, the Revo in any form is arguably the single best engineered rc vehicle of all time, and also one of the toughest. But let’s get on with the electric revolution already.
Speaking of the electric side, Schumacher USA shot out the press release for the new 3250 mah CORE li-po pack they are distributing here in the USA. Looks like a fine pack, but a bit shy on capacity. Schu has had amazing success with their new Speed Passion brushless line-up, and deservedly so. Let’s see if their li-po’s take off with the same intensity.

That’s all for this week rc fans. Support your local hobby shops, support your local tracks, and be sure and get your daily dose of BigSquidRC!

Cub

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Traxxas

The Cub Report – End of February

Posted by Cubby @ 9:07 am. Filed in: brushless, cubby, Lipo, rock crawling

I’ll get right down to the most important thing that happened this week in rc. Brian, CEO/CFO/C-Everything-O at BigSquidRC showed that not only does he have mad skillz on an rc drag track, but showed mad crawling skillz as well by winning his
first crawling event over the weekend. Crawling world watch out!! Brian likes to get into something new and pwn it asap!

Looking at new products this week left a lot to be desired. Nothing of real note was released, just the typical nic-nac crap. Yawn.

The rc world is ripe and about to burst waiting for the first production 8th scale off road electric buggy/truggy. You can’t go anywhere without seeing the signs. The technology is here to do it. Whoever is first to the plate is going to make some mad money. (And AE will release their version about 10 years later, B44 anyone?)

This sport has had two boom periods. The first in the late 80′s, when hobby grade rc cars were relatively new to the world. And the second came when the Traxxas T-maxx was released. It amazes me that you can still go to pretty much any track and see evidence of these two era’s. Ask around in the pits, and you’ll find that most 90% of the people at the track got into the sport during these two boom periods.

It certainly doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the third boom period for our beloved sport is nearly here. The circle will become complete yet again when the rc world turns back to electric, away from nitro. And goodness knows, the sport could use the boost, with nearly record low sales and race attendance.
My guess is that Horizon/Losi is going to be the first to step to the plate with an electric Losi 8 buggy. They’ve already made the leap to selling a li-po powered rtr, and by releasing their “own” line of brushless motors and speedo’s. If Horizon/Losi isn’t first, then it might actually be Hobbico/Duratrax. I say this based on the
fact that only Horizon and Hobbico have enough financial backing to put up a proper legal defense.

Do you remember back in the 80′s when 3 wheel atv’s were all the rage? It only took a couple years for them to become dinosaurs because of litigation. It only took a couple kids getting their grapes popped and a few million dollars being awarded to their families to permanently change the face of the atv world. That is what is
still known as the litigation era of that sport, luckily, the rc world has yet to see one of those.

Any company wanting to sell an 8th scale bl and li-po rtr is staring dead in the face this same problem. It’s only going to take one landmark court ruling to put a company out of business. There is a lot at stake here- make big money by giving the public what it wants, while facing the very likely chance that some idiot is going to burn down a house full of babies while charging his Brand XYZ brushless/li-po truggy.

That’s it for this week geeks. So hit your local hobby shop, hit your local tracks, and remember, we are in this to have fun.

Cub-Reporter Out

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Friday at the Birds….

Posted by Cubby @ 12:07 am. Filed in: cubby, Lipo, Max Amps, Snowbird

I’m still down here at the Snowbird Nationals ,my cell phone keeps going off every 3.259 minutes.It must be BigSquid calling, urging me to get out of this wonderfully heated outdoor pool and submit my daily report.

I must admit- the reasons are few to pluck myself from this perfectly warm water, with a perfectly clear view of the evening stars, with a calming view of the underbelly of the surrounding palm trees, with drunk scantily clad 20 something year old females wearing virtually non-existent swimming attire mindlessly bumping into me underwater. Only for you readers am I willing to make a such sacrifice.

Cheater, cheater, cheater!! So just what is cheating? Just what are the rules? Here’s the low down. If you are running a factory issued, non-tweaked BRUSHLESS motor at the Birds, consider yourself in the minority. In the “unlimited/mod” type classes, it doesn’t matter much if your brushless motor is putting out twice the power that did from the factory. But in other “slower” classes, where 10.5, 13.5, and 17.5 motors are mandated, this enters a grey area. Isn’t the entire point of specifying turns in these mandated classes to keep everyone roughly on the same playing field? Did you know you can fairly easily tweak 10% more power out an OEM 17.5? I learned how to do it today, and it took less than a half hour.

And it doesn’t stop there. The Li-po world is also home to the tweaking game. Seems the standard procedure now is to “bump” your Li-po. This is how it is done. First, fully charge your pack on a Li-po charger. Second, immediately charge the pack as a Ni-mh until it reaches 20-40 degrees over ambient temperature (btw sports fans, this is EXTREMELY dangerous, do NOT do this at home!!!!!). This typically yields another half volt or more while being discharged under a load. A half volt under load is a MILE in stock class racing.

Rules state that Li-po packs can only be of 7.4 volts. Now, there are “roughly” two ways to actually see a 2S Li-po pack at 7.4 volts with a DVO. The first, a static voltage reading of “roughly” a half charged pack. And second, a 2S Li-po pack under “roughly” a 8-10C discharge load. Neither of which are easily tech’able at races. So- because you can’t really “see” 7.4 volts in a legal Li-po racers car, a person tech’ing can’t really deem a “bumped” pack illegal. A maximum static voltage rule should be implemented. 8.4 volts maximum with the pack at rest would eliminate “bumping”, and is easy to check for. Or better yet, remove an upper voltage limit altogether. There would be no reason to dangerously “bump” a Li-po if the driver would be faster by simply using a properly charged 3S or 4S pack.

More Li-po news. The hottest rumor around the pit is that SMC is about to jump into the Li-po game. The best part of the rumor- their Li-po’s will be the first to be fully matched with numbers printed on each pack. The other hot Li-po rumor is about the MaxAmps “B.R.O.” packs. Word spread early and quickly at Snowbirds about these producing unheard of voltage under load for 4000 mah packs, and about their high-end price tag rumored to be $300 each. The best never comes cheap.

Everyone by now has heard about Muchmore products are now being exclusively distributed by Hobbico/Great Plains. The basher crowd may not know what they sell, but they do have one product on nearly everyones pit table at the Birds- the CTX-D2 discharger. This is the discharger of choice by the esoteric racing crowd on 6 cell ni-mh packs. You too can join that crowd for slightly over $200.

That’s it for today, I have to get back to the pool. Babes, beer, and warm water await me.

Sincerely, Your
Scrub-A-Dub-In-The-Tub-Cub Reporter

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Snowbird Nationals Indoor On-Road Carpet Race Pics!

Posted by Cubby @ 12:58 am. Filed in: cubby, Snowbird, Tim Mohr

Cub Reporter here with a bunch of pics from the Snowbird NationalsI do not know who some of the people or who all the cars belong to, but I do know that the first picture is Pro Driver Tim Mohr’s car, and that the second car is Pro Driver Wesley Dennis’s car! Notice the Big Squid Stickers! Awesome! Enjoy the pics. Make sure to hit the more button or the title link to see them all!

(Click here for all the pics)
READ MORE

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