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THE Cub Report, 08.20.2012, Version: UFO Classes For Everyone!

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

First up the important stuff- don’t forget that tonight at 8pm CST we are giving away a way-super-uber truck. Hit THIS LINK to register! We’ll be announcing the winner tonight at 10 pm CST. But… even better, if you don’t win, we are giving a truck away EVERY week for 3 months so you’ll have plenty of chances to win!

Last week was a busy one for us around the BigSquidRC offices, Jeff was busy doing something that even NASA scientists wouldn’t know how to explain, Intern Adam was back to school (which really cuts into his cleaning the BSRC offices time), Wrench was doing what comes natural to him (destroying stuff, then fixing it), Tim was busy finding the most obscure items possible to post on the front page, Craig The Uber Ramp Guy was busy making quads out of doubles, Brian was work’n the phones trying to find more advertisers to pay for all the bandwidth you guys are burning up, and I was out exploring all new ways to destroy rc trucks. Fun, oh what fun. Anyways… we’ve been working on reviews for the new Duratrax 8th scale buggies, been getting some video of bashing one of the Durango short course trucks, been working on a review of a Checkpoint saddlepack Lipo, as well as loads of other stuff. Any which way, there just haven’t been enough hours in the day around here, all thanks to you guys.

A reader ours noticed that one of the rc media sources uses the word “exclusive” a wholeee lot and shot me an email asking me (yes me.. LOL) to explain how their post was an exclusive when dozens of websites also had the same information posted. Certainly the word “exclusive” carries a lot of weight when it’s true, but unfortunately in the internet age, nothing, and I mean Nothing, is “exclusive” for more than a few hours. And when that word is used when something isn’t exclusive, it damages the credibility of the source, and I don’t think I even have to mention that certain media sources simply can’t afford to lose any more street cred. Personally I don’t care what anybody else puts up, I’m too busy workn my butt off, but I do find it laughable when other media sources shoot themselves in the foot just for kicks. Just say’n…

Ryan Cavalieri is get’n a bum deal. Why? Because he is an all time bad-ass of the same magnitude as Masami/Kinwald/Johnson, yet because every Joe-Blow trophy race gets the same amount of media coverage as the ROAR nats and IFMAR Worlds, most average consumers don’t realize he is one of the all time elites. Yup, posting coverage of every “Friday Night Worlds At Bubba’s Race Shack” waters down the importance of the legit “big races”, as does having dozens of ROAR national champs. “Sigh”. Anyways, in case you didn’t already know, RC is arguably the best driver this hobby has EVER seen.

Speaking of ROAR nationals… the “Super National” out at West Coast just got over after 9 days featuring 11 classes (RC won 4), and guess what? There is another ROAR nat this week, this time right here in BigSquid’s backyard, Leisure Hours Raceway in Joliet IL. This time only a half dozen class champs will be crowned over only 4 days. What’s up with that? Did someone miss the memo that stated “real” big races have to last a month, have 30 rounds of quals, and feature 60 different classes? Maybe next year…

Yup, that’s all the sarcastic rants that I can come up with this week folks, support your local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 08.12.2012, Version: You Love Her Coz She’s Dead

Posted by Cubby @ 10:16 am. Filed in: cubby

To start off the “news” this week- we have some big news coming out of our own lavishly decorated BSRC offices. Since we’ve been such slackers the last few months, we are about to go uber-huge- we will be giving away 1 brand spank’n new vehicle Each and Every Week for the next 3 MONTHS. Yes, you read correctly, we are giving away 12 new vehicles. We will be giving away vehicles from ARRMA, to Thunder Tiger, to Duratrax, all the way up to the way-super-dope Durango RTR’s. So…. if you want to win a kick ass new rc, keep your eyes freak’n peeled on our front page for complete info.

But that’s not all, far from it actually. We will be giving away Loads of new Pro-Line product as well. We are still ironing out all the details, but for the next few months we are going to give away an insane amount of really trick Pro-Line gear. We really thank all you guys for reading BigSquidRC, hopefully you guys enjoy all our upcoming give aways.

Oh and…. you probably saw Brian’s post on the iHobby Cleveland show that is coming up in October. Like always, we’ll be giving away a new vehicle to someone in the crowd at each of our demonstrations on consumer days at the show. If you are within an 8 hour driving radius, try making the trip to iHobby, it’s something that every core hobbyist needs to attend before they die.

Also on the topic of iHobby…. we are in need of 2 female models to help out in the booth, give away stickers, and generally just stand around and look hot. The pay is decent, and it makes a nice addition to a resume. If you know of a hot female that might be able to work our booth at the Cleveland iHobby show, shoot Brian an email.

And lastly, seriously lastly, on the iHobby topic… Much of the rc industry is doing quite well right now thanks to all the long hours and hard work they’ve been putting in (and the mainstream advertising, among other things), yet, manufacture support for iHobby is lackluster. Do the manufactures hate the show or the people putting it on? If that is indeed the case I’d hope they would speak up and get things changed to make it a better fit for their company. Do they just don’t want to spend the cash? Geezus, quit being such cheapskates guys, cut the freak’n check, put some people on an airplane and support your own industry (and, get to hang with the most important people in your professional lives, your consumers). If anything, get a booth there so you can harass me for 4 days, I’d gladly welcome all the smack talk for the show to be a success. And no, I have no commercial interest in the show doing well, I only want to see it do well because it is simply good for the hobby (yes my motives really are that simple).

On a mucho different note…

I had a meeting in SoCal on Thursday and Friday of last week with a certain rc company, so afterwards I decided to drop by West Coast R/C Raceways to check out how the prep was coming along for the ROAR Supernats being held this week. I was treated with nothing but rudeness while there, which I normally accept when people know I am “Cubby”, but the people being a-holes to me at WC didn’t have a clue to who I was. As far as they were concerned they were just being rude to some Joe Blow that walked off the street. You’d think that during the biggest event they’ll probably ever host that they’d treat each and every person in the best way possible. What is the use of putting on a “prestigious” event if you just end being douchebags to people? Isn’t the point of get’n a big event is to impress everyone with not only how good of a track you make, but also how good you and your people are? So ya, instead of hang’n around a few days and covering the event, I caught a flight back on Saturday, feeling 100% certain I was not going to miss anything important.

And… don’t even get me started on the whole ROAR “Supernats” topic. What the heck is a ROAR “Supernats”? Well, it’s ROAR holding a “national” level event that crowns 11 different champions over a 9 day time span. In other words, it is everything that is wrong with rc racing. There are wayyyyyyyyyy too many different classes, and the event is wayyyyyyy too long for its own good.

Races are held for two reason- to determine A winner, and to SELL product. How the heck do you determine who the fastest rc racer in America is when there are 11 different classes with potentially 11 different winners? If I was indeed the fastest guy in America, the guy who put in the longest hours wrenching and practicing to become the best of the best, and I had to share the spotlight with possibly 10 other “national champions” I’d be pissed.

On the sales side of things, when you water down a “national championship” by crowing dozens of them each year, consumers can No longer tell by race results what the fastest gear is and what is not. Just how many different press releases are there going to be, by how many different companies, after the “Supernat” (LOL) is over telling the public they are the “national” champion? I can tell ya how many, wayyyyyy too many. So many different PR’s that all those Normal Joes are either going to be too confused to take the results seriously, of so overloaded by the shear amount of different national champions that they simple ignore the results. Certainly the ROAR “Supernat” is going to be a big event, certainly there is going to be a lot of blood, sweat and tears in that building during those 9 days, but sadly it does nothing to truly find out who the fastest rc racer in America is, nor will winning result in a proportionate impact on sales floors. “Sigh”

Oh and, one last note… Traxxas and Stadium Super Trucks?

That’s it for this week ya’ll, support your local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots (and trade shows!!!) if ya can!

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 08.06.2012, Version: Roll’n All Zef Style

Posted by Cubby @ 9:05 am. Filed in: cubby

No mx national or F1 grand prix over the weekend. “Sigh”.

Let me get a little old biz out of the way. Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned that one of our interns helped out a big league rc manufacture at one of their booths but he didn’t get paid? Well, he finally got a check in the mail. Needless to say our intern was totally stoked, and it’s nice to see the big guns taking care of everyone.

You may or may not have known, but we busted out what we called “Review Week” last week. Monday started off with a bang- “Mini-Z” Greg’s review of some Atomic Mini-Z motorcycle wheels and Brian’s review of the HPI Bullet MT Flux. Tuesday we posted our ARRMA Granite review (if you haven’t checked out the torture video yet you are missing out). Wednesday we went live with our MIP Pro4mance package for Losi Ten SCTE review. Thursday brought our review of a Pro Match Racing 5200 mah Lipo battery, and Brian posted his MaxAmps 12 Volt power supply review on Friday to cinch things up. All in all, 6 reviews in only 5 days, we certainly hope you enjoyed reading them. And while it may have only taken you a couple hours (tops) to skim over all 6 reviews, it goes without saying that we had a lot more time than that in them. Just looking at the MIP review, we easily had 50 hours in it, and that’s exactly our job. Totally up all 6 from last week, and well, it’s easy to see all of us have been quite busy. We do all this to save you a lottttt of time, and hopefully to help save you a lot of money.

We continue to receive emails about the pot I stirred regarding the state of on-road rc in America. Of course us BigSquidRC guys aren’t much concerned about the racing side of on-road, but the everyday bashing side got use to talking amongst ourselves last week. The normal routine around here is to get really tired of working about 2 pm (who am I kidding, it’s a lot earlier than that… LOL) in the afternoon, so we grab some gear and hit the pavement for a couple hours of bashing. It’s not uncommon to see “Wrench” Bill driving an HPI Savage XL nitro truck, to see Brian wheel’n a Thunder Tiger MT4, or myself driving a Losi SCTE. However, one thing you will not see us driving is a touring car. Why? Because you really don’t want to be the guy out bashing with us in the parking lot with a TC. You show up with a TC and you are instantly the guy we want to smash, crash, and spit out the back of our trucks. Oh and, our bash sessions almost always end up being a jump contest, and while we’ve hucked plenty of touring cars, it’s never pretty, and quite frankly the ROI on jumping a TC 15 feet in the air is Very low.

It’s clear to us whey touring cars aren’t popular bash-mobiles, they are too small, and they simply drive like crap on normal streets. Each little rock and road joint ends up causing an unwanted trip in the air or flip. So what would the BigSquidRC crew do if we had to create a “bashing” on-road car? Well, I think it’s already been done, and it doesn’t look, or drive, anything like a normal touring car. Wayyyy back last August we reviewed a conversion kit made by ST Racing Concepts that converts a Traxxas 4×4 Slash into an on-road car. The converted “car” maintains all the marvelous wheel travel and good handling traits of the Slash 4×4, yet it looks like a road car. I’ve seen Adam “The Intern” huck the STRC conversion off big ramps without issue, and when you get slammed by a monster truck it lives to keep on fighting. Now that is what on-road bashing should be about.

The “big” manufactures have yet put out a production car like the STRC conversion (an on-road car that can be fun in real world driving conditions), but IMO that is what it’s going to take to put on-road back onto the bashing map. Nearly every manufacture already has a 4wd off road platform to build one off of, but who knows if they’ll ever gather up the gumption to bust one out. I have to think that one gnarly, burly, on-road car that can bash and huck with the best of them would have to be a good seller.

We are also talking about fixing the racing side of on-road, but the only conclusion we came to involved the rule book, gasoline, and a match.

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

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 07.29.2012, Version: In a Mirror, Darkly

Posted by Cubby @ 9:40 am. Filed in: cubby

We have a big week ahead here on BigSquidRC, we are calling it Review Week. This week we’ll be posting a brand spank’n new review each day for your viewing pleasure. Monday we start off with Brian’s review of a hardcore bash-mobile, the HPI Bullet ST Flux RTR truck. Tuesday brings the review of another big-time bash truck, the ARRMA Granite 2wd RTR Monster Truck. Wednesday we’ll be posting our review of the much talked about MIP Pro4mance tuning package for the Losi Ten SCTE. For you guys that like battery reviews you should enjoy Thursday, that’s the day we’ll be posting a full review of one of the new Pro-Match Racing Lipo packs (with discharge graphs up to 60 amps). Friday, well that one is a surprise for right now. Any which way, we are going huge this week with all the reviews and we hope you enjoy reading them.

Over the weekend I was at an rc event and one of the local guys came up and asked me this question, “Cubby, I’d do anything to work in the rc industry, can you hook me up with a job?”. I actually get asked that quite often, and I always (at least lately) give the same response. Right now there are lots of open jobs in the rc industry, if you’ve somewhat got your life together, you’ve got a half-way decent resume, and you are truly into the hobby, there is already a job waiting for you. Most of these jobs are based out of Champaign, Plano, or SoCal, but they Are there for the taking. Think I’m just kidding? One look at the “career” section of the more prominent rc companies will prove that I am not. To boil it down, to get a job in the rc industry isn’t some impossible goal, with the right qualifications you’ll have multiple companies banging on Your door to work for them, you certainly don’t me to get your foot in the door.

Let me ask you a couple quick questions. Did you know the IFMAR 12th scale and TC on-road worlds just concluded from the Netherlands? Do you know who won? Do you know who won 2 years ago? I know a few industry and racer types that could easily ramble off the winners (and everyone else in the top ten), but… the other 99.9% of the population would have had 3 no answers to my questions. So where am I going with this? The amount of interest (and participation) for on-road in the United States right now just might be at an all time low. Congrats guys, you guys know who you are, you have finally succeeded and ruined on-road in this country. “Facepalm”

That’s enough water cooler fodder for this week ya’ll. Support your local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 07.23.2012, Version- When E.F. Hutton Talks…

Posted by Cubby @ 9:36 am. Filed in: cubby

Hello fellow rc’ers, welcome to another edition of THE Cub Report, the satirical column that is responsible for 87.2% of the chat around rc water-coolers every Monday…

First off, VIVA FERRARI! Yes, the church bells rang yet again over the weekend, and yes, Alonso padded his points leads even further!

Now on to what really matters, rc…

So rc is on the verge of total domination by vehicles with scale looks, which of course is a good thing for the future of the hobby. But… one company has been a slacker, actually they’ve got a history of being slackers, and this company being late to the show room floor with a scale short course buggy has slowing the conversion over to scale looks. What I’m talking about here is- Axial has the EXO Terra buggy, HPI has the Apache C-1, Kyosho has the Ultima DB, and Losi has the XXX-SCB, but where are the slackers at Associated? Those guys would be last in line at free samples day down at the local @#$%@ house.

Short course trucks took a while to catch on, but once all the major players were in they’ve become the standard. Btw, when I say “standard”, I mean for the vast majority of the buying audience, not the race crowd who are a small minority. The race crowd are still all over Martian mobiles. Anywhos, the rumor has been plugging away since the Losi SCB came out that AE was working on their own version, and yet we keep hearing more and more that AE will jump into the scale buggy class. Once AE jumps in they will finally cement scale looks as being the norm in rc. I for one can’t wait for the day when the major classes are short course truck and short course buggy, instead of the Martian looking “buggies” and “stadium trucks” that old school racers simply can’t get over. Btw, it took years for the core old school racers to switch over to brushless and Lipo, heck, many of them argued to the very end that brushed and Ni-mh was the bomb (OMG I am SOOO Glad to have not turned a comm in 8 years), but gradually over time even they finally said screw it and jumped into the 2000′s. I can only hope that Associated one ups everyone with an uber scale buggy, one based on new tech instead of the tired old 4 series platform, one that truly looks scale, and one that turns even the oldest of the die harders around to driving vehicles that actually have a full scale counterpart.

Speaking of short course trucks… Losi announced their new 22SCT last week. Let’s hope that “third times the charm” for Losi with a short course truck. Yes, the 22SCT uses the newest tech in 2wd electrics, but it comes with an amazingly high price point for what it is. The market will be the final judge of whether it makes it or not, but when you can buy its big brother, the Losi TEN SCTE, for nearly a hundred bucks less, the 2wd 22SCT had better be one SIC a$$ truck.

Also on the short course note… yes, the BigSquidRC crew had a way-super-uber-dope time covering the Traxxas TORC event last week. The TORC series has come a longggg ways in the last two years. The accommodations keep getting better, the racing has gotten even better, and the size of the crowd grows each year. I can honestly say that I enjoy watching TORC racing, it’s just plain cool to watch those guys huck 4000 lb trucks with 900 horsepower over 100 foot tabletops. However… and this isn’t the fault of Traxxas, their were some security issues at the Joliet round. Route 66 Raceways needs to hire some freak’n security guards. Having (I’m just gonna guess here) 10 thousand drunk off road fans comes with inherent issues, issues that 3 rent a cops can’t handle. The majority of the BSRC crew didn’t have any issues, but I noticed multiple instances of barbarism, with the grand finale finding 2 plastered young women (I use the word “women” pretty loosely sometimes) pee’ing on the ground next to my 5 series BMW as I was getting ready to leave. The drunken brawl called “tailgating” at the TORC event in Joliet was closer to a Die Antwoord concert than a family friendly off road event. In fact, I’d go as far as to recommend you NOT even think about taking kids to the TORC event in Joliet next year. And… unless you enjoy watching girls pee on your car, or dudes barfing on each other just for fun, you might want to consider staying home and watching it on SpeedTV instead of attending it live. But then, that’s just me…

That’s it for this week folks. Support your local hobby shops, they miss you, drop in and say hello to them! And… your local tracks and bash spots miss you too, give’em a visit if you can.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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A Walk Past Cubby’s Pit Table

Posted by Tim Mohr @ 9:41 am. Filed in: cubby, MIP, miscellaneous

A few days ago while walking past Cubby’s pit table in the back of the BigSquidRC offices I snapped off this picture. As you can see above, Cubby has hoarded our review sample of the MIP Pro4mance Tuning Package for the Losi TEN SCTE. From the looks of the note that says “You Touch, You Die – Cubby” he’s pretty serious about being the first person in the office to test it out!

Until our review gets posted click HERE to find out more information.

Looking for more Losi TEN SCTE news here on BigSquidRC? Look right HERE.

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THE Cub Report, 07.16.2012, Version- All Hail The King

Posted by Cubby @ 9:48 am. Filed in: cubby

I am writing this on Sunday evening before the season 5 premier of AMC’s Breaking Bad so I have zero clue if the new season will live up to some extremely high expectations or not. But any which way, I am certainly pumped that there will be 16 more episodes of the wacky adventures of Walter White and his nutty sidekick Jesse Pinkman ahead for our viewing pleasure. Btw, I hope if you are a new fan that you watched the first 4 seasons before attempting to view the season 5 premier, it’s one of those types of shows that requires some back story to fully appreciate.

Monster/PC/Kawi/Traxxas rider Blake Baggett put in two freak’n EPIC rides on Saturday at the Millville Minnesota motocross national. I dare say we haven’t seen anyone ride so possessed in the tiddler class since Stewart was wringing the guts out of his factory 2 stroke Kawasaki 125. If you haven’t gotten a chance to watch the moto’s yet, even if you aren’t a moto guy, check’em out (at Allisports.com). You can skip the 450 moto’s though, watching Dungey win by 45 seconds is about as fun as watching CA glue dry in Adam The Uber Interns hair.

Michigan Mafia member Nick Wey got pretty busted up on Saturday at the Millville national. He got squirrely in the monster sand whoops and went down hard, cracking his L2 and dislocating his hip. Thankfully, the early word is no spinal cord damage. Get well soon NW27.

So… the surprise I eluded to last week was about BigSquidRC getting to cover the HobbyTown USA National Convention in Lincoln Nebraska. That’s sort of a big deal seeing as how they have never allowed “media” coverage before, so we were pretty excited that they’d trust us to do the job. Why would there be trust involved? Because there are a lot of items intended strictly for dealer eyes, not consumers, displayed at the show. We were asked to cover the show under the condition that we didn’t leak anything. So as much as we hate to not leak a good story, we’ve held up our end of the dealio.

So how about an insiders look at the show…

If you don’t work in the industry (or don’t work at a HobbyTown) you’ve probably never heard of (or cared about) the HobbyTown national convention. But… their convention is a fairly big deal in our industry. Anywhere that Hobbico, Horizon, Traxxas, Associated and HPI turns up to is no joke. And yes you should care, because typically several new items get first introduced at that show, not to mention all the buying power of all those HobbyTown dealers can’t help but to influence future trends in the market.

And no, the HobbyTown convention isn’t open to consumers (although there are rumors that perhaps on certain days in the future it might be), it’s open strictly to manufactures/distributors and HobbyTown dealers. Their convention isn’t held in some giant expo hall, it’s held in a hotel where most of the manufactures “booths” are actually in hotel suites. But not all their booths are in suites, some are located in a huge, open, conference type room. The reason why I am mentioning this is because it’s a unique, and pretty dialed set-up. Why? Because if you need to get in 30 minutes of uninterrupted face time with the guys from Traxxas it is very easy to do at the HobbyTown show. As a HobbyTown dealer you can actually get the quality time that you need with all the right people. Having legit issues getting parts from “Happy Flower Car Company”? The HobbyTown show gives you a true opportunity to sit down with them and get the issue worked out, not be forced into some short convo about “how the show is going” like at some other places.

From what I’m told that HobbyTown convention has been going on now for around 17 years, and that this years event was the largest ever. There was a strong showing of rc surface manufactures, as well as manufactures from other aspects of a hobby shop (like kites, water balloons, etc). Dealer attendance seemed pretty solid, the conference floor seemed busy, but not so busy that you couldn’t get in plenty of quality time with the manufactures.

To do the HobbyTown show as a manufacture is fairly affordable. Manufactures run into some pretty massive bills hitting the bigger shows, but the HobbyTown peeps have arranged things in such a way to keep prices down. Kudos to them.

Hospitality was off the hook at the HobbyTown show, as was organization. I’ve attended dozens upon dozens of trade shows in various industries and the Hobbytown USA people solidly have their act together. Every little detail was taken care of, every small need was quickly taken care of without issue, huge props to the people that put on the show.

There were just a lot of happy smiling faces at that show. Maybe it was something in the water IDK, but everybody just seemed to be in a chipper mood.

And lastly before I get off of the subject, the show organizers had put together lots of things for the dealers to do. It certainly wasn’t some boring event for dealers, there was always something going on for those looking to keep busy (a good example of this was their carnival night on Wednesday). For those wanting to keep it laid back, that was fine as well. Oh and really lastly, there was food and drink Everywhere you turned. Seriously Very awesome.

On to some other business…

I’ve been working on a review of the MIP Losi Ten SCTE Pro4mance chassis and tuning package. With any luck I’ll get that busted out by next Tuesday. So far, so awesome.

I hear we’ve got a new contest cooked up, something that involves just how core of a basher you are. As always, keep your eyes peeled on the front page.

And really, really lastly… BigSquidRC has been blow’ing up like crazy the last 24 months, and we thank you all for reading and supporting the site. But we can get bigger, a LOT bigger. What I am asking is this- if you dig BigSquid, spread the love around. Mention the site to a friend, spread a link to an article you like etc. We aren’t in the biz of begging for hits around here, however we are at a big stepping stone. To make that next big leap in size, and to do bigger projects we would like to do, is going to require us to go WFO for all the readers we can get, and everyone from Brian, to Adam The Uber Intern, to myself would appreciate your continued help and support. To you guys already out there spreading the love, we salute you!

That’s it for this week ya bunch of mongrels, thanks for reading, and support your local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report- 07.09.2012- Version: Blinded With Avarice

Posted by Cubby @ 10:12 am. Filed in: cubby

Of course you watched the Silverstone Grand Prix today (Sunday) on Fox. Ferrari very nearly took the win, but late in the race that persistent Aussie Mark Webber was able to snatch away the lead for the big W. Oh well, a solid second on the podium is still good points for Alonso, and he retains the lead in the championship race. Next up is Hockenheim in two weeks, go SCHU! Btw, have you gotten your tickets for the USGP in Austin Texas yet? Its November date will roll around before you know it…

Red Budddd! Oh yea, there was also a little mx race called the Red Bud National sponsored by Red Bull over the weekend. It’s an annual 4th of July party with a little mx tossed in, and this year saw Monster/PC/Kawi/Traxxas rider Blake Bagget pwn the little class, and Red Bull/KTM rider Ryan Dungey do the same to the big boys. At least James Stewart was back on track to make things a bit more interesting, and while he didn’t win, he put in solid laps and looked like he was having a blast while doing so.

The Chicago round of the TORC series is nearly here, and like last year, there is some big news regarding the event. TP199 (Travis Pastrana) will be making his debut in the Pro2 class at that event (last year James Stewart was the big news). If you know anything about Pastrana, you know dirt off road is what he grew up doing, so he should put on one hell of a show with all that power beneath him. BigSquid will be there to view all the action, and we hope you make it out as well.

One quick note on the uglier side of rc…

A couple weeks ago one of “our guys” was asked to work a booth as a weekend gig for one of the big names in the rc biz. Our guy, who is only 17, was totally stoked and agreed. To date he has not been paid (as he was told he would be) nor did the company take down his contact information to compensate him at some point in the future. I guess the moral of the story here is- when some big-shot rc company asks you to work for them, you might want to get your compensation up front.

And on a different note…

We’ve got a surprise kick’n for you guys this week, something we haven’t done before that should turn out pretty cool. Check the front page on Wednesday to find out what we have cook’n.

I know you guys love reviews so we’ve got a few good ones coming up in the next few weeks. Our HPI Bullet Flux review is coming along now (Hooray for parts!), as is our Traxxas Funny Car review. We’re also doing a mini-review on the MaxAmps internal plug Lipo packs. So yea guys, we’ve got some interesting reviews headed your way in the near future.

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

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 07.02.2012, Version- Pastrana Got Freak’n Hacked

Posted by Cubby @ 9:36 am. Filed in: cubby

Yes, the X-Games took place a bit earlier than normal this year, in case you didn’t notice they went off over the weekend. The biggest news? The middle school invasion and the fact that Travis Pastrana got hacked good ole’ “rc style” in the rally cross race. Such a pity, I was looking forward to watching TP and freshly turned HPI man Ken Block battle it out in the rally main. Maybe next year…

Speaking of rc racing, last week Brian posted a blurb about a new timing system from a company called “Kawada“. This particular timing system allows a handicap for the noobs. Maybe you aren’t an rc racer, if not, let me explain something to you. It’s quite common at the local level to have a handful of super fast/experienced guys racing heads up against noobs. Actually, I don’t think I’d call it racing, because as Ricky Carmichael used to say “If you are getting the blue flag (meaning getting lapped), it means there is a race going on and you aren’t in it!”. It is common to see the winners of local races finish 5 or more laps ahead of the noobs they have to race with, and really, all that succeeds in doing is running off the noobs. Anybody that goes to a race of any type hopes (and deserves) to at least have a small chance of winning, and sometimes that just isn’t the case in rc. At many small local tracks there are just too many classes with too few entries. This results in seasoned “regional speed” racers going head to head with guys that simply have no shot of finishing within 5 laps of the winner.

Anywhos (and yes I know it’s supposed to be “anyways”, but I like bugging certain people)… Handicapping in full scale drag racing is quite common and I truly believe it has a place at the local level in rc where there aren’t enough racers for separate A, B, C, D, mains etc. I know every local fast guy is shaking his head and pounding his fists when he hears something like that, but racing at the local level is about improving your skills, having fun, and providing for fair racing. If you only have 6 guys sign up for mod 2wd SCT every week, and two can make the B at the ROAR nats, and the other 4 guys are driving box stock Slash’s with BL systems in them, then the racing would be more “fair” to all involved using a handicap system. The noobs would actually have a shot at going home a winner, and the uber fast guys would actually have to push their own skills to win. Just say’n…

On a much different note…

See the new Ken Block HPI car? Ouch Traxxas!

Ok, so Traxxas may have lost Block to HPI but they did pick up Ashely Fiolek and Liam Doran. Liam Doran is a Euro rally car guy very few people outside of rally circles have heard of in the USA, and Ashely Fiolek is an American women’s motocross champ. If I was the man responsible for signing some big rally name after losing Block it surely wouldn’t have been Doran, as the American public is mainly obtuse to rally except for watching Block, Pastrana and Foust huck it at X-Games. And while I totally dig Fiolek- she’s faster than the VAST majority of men to ever throw a leg over bike (including yours truly) and she has kick a$$ style and isn’t afraid to jump the big stuff, unless you are a core mx’er you’ve probably never heard of her.

We seem to have a LOT of new readers here on BigSquid. In case you didn’t know here is the schedule around this joint. Monday mornings bring THE Cub Report, Tuesdays we post our weekly review, Wednesday nights we hold chat sessions, Thursdays bring the “ASK Cubby” column, and Saturdays are Jeff’s “Around The Web” (wait a minute… LOL), and all week long we filter through the rc news to post what we feel is most relevant to the bashing crowd. Also, here are the names you need to know from BigSquid- Brian is the head cheese, Jeff actually makes the website work, Adam cleans the floors and keeps the Dom properly chilled, I am the staff pundit (and make sure Adam did a good job with the Dom), Bill keeps the cars running and does all the real work, Tim and a couple other guys post the news, and pretty much everybody works on the reviews.

One last note to the industry types- we are working on new shootouts for both transmitters and battery chargers. The next transmitter shootout is going to be radio systems under $200, and our next charger shootout is for chargers under $100. If you’ve got a product that you want in the shootout hit Brian up with an email, Brian at BigSquidRC dot com. We are looking at about a 2 week timetable before we start testing.

That’s it for this week, have a happy and safe 4th of July, and support your local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 06.25.2012, Version- The Bells Once Again Ring In Maranello

Posted by Cubby @ 8:45 am. Filed in: cubby

Days like today are why I believe in miracles. You see Spanish driver Fernando Alonso didn’t have a shot at winning the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Valencia Spain today. Alonso and his Ferrari had a lackluster performance in qualifying on Saturday, putting them 11th place on the starting grid. Certainly Alonso and his Ferrari would work their way into the points (F1 awards points to the top 10), but it was simply impossible for him to stand on the top step of the podium today. The the field in front of him was simply too strong, pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel was too dominant, and there are still questions as to the Ferrari’s true pace. No question about it, Alonso was staring straight at climbing Mount Everest as he sat on the grid. But then the miracle occurred, every brave move Alonso made worked flawlessly and all the chips fell his way. A safety car came out to bunch up the field, then Vettels Red Bull went belly up, then perhaps the only man left standing that could deny Alonso the win, Romain Grosjean, pulled to the side of the track when his Lotus gave up the ghost. After the checkered flag even Alonzo couldn’t believe his win in front of his fellow countrymen, you could see him crying after pulling off the side of the track, and even when up on the podium. An epic drive, by an epic man, in an epic machine, simply incredible. One of those wins people will be talking about for decades to come.

Oh and… Michael Schumacher made it back to the podium for the first time since his return to Formula 1! I think you could tell by the glimmer in Schu’s eyes that the older you get, the sweeter those podiums are. Podiums once came to him in buckets, now I’m guessing he will savor each time it sprinkles. Schu put on his own epic drive, coming from out of the points to the podium in the closing laps. It’s been a long time coming for Schu and his fans, I think that makes it that much sweeter for all involved.

While Alonzo, Schu, and the Iceman were putting on a miracle show in Spain, America’s best rc’ers were going at in in Pennsylvania. I’ve gone on and on about how screwed up rc racing is, but no matter how messed up the system is, our 2012 national buggy and truggy champs were determined today.

Let’s take a look at how the ROAR buggy and truggy champs were determined. Thursday was “practice” day, but it wasn’t really “practice”, as your fastest 3 consecutive laps in “practice” determined what qual you would be assigned the following day. If you didn’t bust out 3 fast laps in “practice” you’d be stuck in a qual with all the spodes, hurting your chances for a fast time in your first qual. The next two days included 4 round of qualifying to determine a “TQ” of sorts, and to determine the order in the euro ladder style of qualifying races that would finally determine who would make it into the “grand” final. The final day finally got down to some “racing”, with the TQ’s having to earn their way into the “grand” final via qualifying through one of the tree/ladder mains. Yes, you could have qualified for two entire days and earned TQ, yet not made it to the “grand” final.

That’s a whole lot of qualifying don’t ya think? And a whole lot of qualifying for the TQ’s not even to earn their way into the “grand” final. Which begs me to ask, what is the big boner ROAR (and IFMAR, and the Euro’s) have with all this freak’n qualifying? It also begs me to ask, why do the racers even put up with it? That’s an assinine amount of qualifying, period, I don’t care how you look at it. In larger, more professional forms of racing, the actual racers simply wouldn’t put up with 3 and a half days of non-sense before finally being able to “race”. At what point does someone finally raise their hand and say “Geezus, can we get down to some F’n racing?”. Just freak’n say’n…. (yet again, for the millionth time)

Have I mentioned how both an 8th scale buggy and 8th scale truggy look more like something driven on the planet Mars than something driven on planet Earth? ugghhhh….

And have I mentioned a national championship should really be determined by a series, not by just one weekends worth of racing? uggghhh….

Yes I do believe in miracles, I honestly do believe that someday, somebody, is gonna have the balls to fix the issues we have in rc racing. To fix the issues so that rc racing can take the next step towards being more professional and being more respected. There are so many people (and companies) that pour there hearts and souls into rc racing (and empty their bank accounts into it) that it is unacceptable that most normal/average hobbyists could care less who wins a big race because even they don’t respect what rc racing has become, let alone all the people outside the hobby that think rc racing is nothing but a silly joke. Rc racing isn’t a silly joke, people devote far too much of their lives to it to be a joke, how fast the elite racers go takes such a vast amount of time and skill, yet because of a few issues with how the racing is done the vast majority of people out there have no respect for the racing or the racers. But while that fact may be sad, it is something that can be fixed.

Anywhos… the young new school guys put the pwn’n on the old school guys at the ROAR nats this year. HPI/Hot Bodies/Pro-Line driver Ty Tessman took the win in both buggy and truggy, with another young gun, Dakotah Phend putting his Pro-Line shod Losi’s into second place in both classes. I think TT putting his Hot Bodies on top once again shows you don’t have to use the most expensive car to win, and Pro-Line going 1-2 in both buggy and truggy shows that arguably the most important piece of equipment for winning any race is tires.

Btw… Pro-Line Blockades won both buggy and truggy, and I hear we’ll be posting a Blockade SC tire review this week. Obviously they jam when used at the most elite levels of racing, but how do they stack up for us average Joe Blows when we hit bash day at the local track? Keep your eyes peeled on the main page to find out.

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

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 06.18.2012, Version: Brian’s Affinity for “Call Me Maybe”

Posted by Cubby @ 11:00 am. Filed in: cubby

Why does Brian constantly crank his Seinheisers up so loud that I am forced to hear what he is listening to? I have no idea, but I’m think’n I need to hack his Pandora account and seriously dial him in with some better channels.

Btw… the notorious duo of Walter White and Jesse “Jackson” Pinkman return again to AMC’s Breaking Bad on July 15th. Yes, I know you aren’t a fan, but I am and I can talk about whatever I want to here, so there ya go.

Did I mention… I do a column each week with your guys letters, but probably what you don’t know is the vast amount of emails we get that say “When are you reviewing the new Happy Flower truck? I’m not buying one till I see your review!”. We’ve always tried to keep our reviews simple and easy to read for noobs, just boiling it down to whether the item is a buy or a skip, and it seems we’ve developed quite a following by doing so. It seems there are a lot of people sitting on their wallets until given the green light by BigSquid, which is super cool that you show us such trust. Now it’s up to us to keep on the straight and narrow and keep earning that trust of yours.

Also of note… for those of you still waiting on our HPI Bullet Flux review, you might wanna quit holding your breathe now, it’s may be a while. You see we broke our Bullet early on during the review and still have not been able to secure replacement parts. No parts means we can’t finish the review, although at this point I’d think the major talking point of the write up will be about the lack of parts. We initially had high hopes of the Bullet, some of us were actually thinking it was a front runner for “Bash Vehicle of the Year”, but I can assure you none of us are thinking that now. This is one of those situations we HATE to see. The RC world is far from perfect, but it seems like this is something that’s fixable with a little planning.

Word is… that we’ve got a revised version of the MaxAmps 12VDC power supply headed our way for review. We have previously tested one of their super high output 24VDC models, we can’t wait to test one of the updated units.

Rumor of the week is… that a certain media source’s last issue is going to be this December. While this is total rumor, and you know I love to rag on the mags, but wow, I’d hate to see yet another one go under. The last time we heard a rumor like this was about Xtreme, and unfortunately some of their people learned of the mag going under on BigSquid, I hope that is not the case on this one.

Arguably…. the most prestigious race in America this year is going off in Oakland Mills PA this week, it’s the ROAR 8th scale nitro off road nats. So look for your Facebook and G+ feeds to get blown up with info/pics/vids from that particular race this week. I know you are used to being bombarded with “Team-X Driver wins BIG!” press releases every single week, but if you are going to actually pay attention to race results, this is the week to do so. This is the race that all the big boys will make, and it’s the one that matters most to pretty much everyone involved in rc racing. I predict there will a few new, young faces in the A this year, those young kids just keep getting faster.

Whoa, wait a minute… Craig “The Crazy Ramp Builder Guy” spent Saturday at the Large Scale RC Power Jam in Monon Indiana. From talking to Craig it sounds like 5th scale is alive and well in the Midwest. Heck, 5th scale seems to be doing really well just about everywhere. They handle well, you can drive’em about anywhere, they are loud, burly and fast, so no doubt they are popular with the bashing crowd. 5th scalers aren’t cheap, but they are gnarly, and sounds like the Large Scale guys had a good turnout last week. Hopefully Craig dials us in with pics of some of the uber 5th scale scoots from the Power Jam so we can share’em with you this week.

Well that’s it for this week, support your hobby, LHS’s, bash spots and local tracks!

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 06.11.2012, Version- The Sweet Sound of Chassis’s Slap’n the Pavement

Posted by Cubby @ 9:15 am. Filed in: cubby

Hola friends, bashers, industry types, and rc hobbyists, you’ve made it to yet another funtabulous edition of THE Cub Report.

BigSquid’s way uber Summer Kick Off Bash went off with sizzle on Saturday. The weather was perfect, there was a great crowd of fun loving bashers, and all the events seemed to provide big smiles across the board. All day long there were drivers out doing general bashing on the ramps, some going big, others going huge, and some going downright stupid. It was amazing to watch some of the guys huck their rides as big as they were going with such little breakage, you could tell those guys had bulletproofed their rigs before the big bash. Brian also held a few bash events including obstacle course, sumo wrestling, shopping cart jump, and the ever popular demolition derby. Huge thanks to all the drivers that came out to support the event, and huge props to Hobbico and Pro-Line for supporting bashers and supplying some really cool door prizes.

The venue of our Summer Kick Off Bash was the parking lot of the Orland Park HobbyTown USA. The shop owner was a great host and his store had one of the best stocked surface rc departments that I’ve ever seen at a HobbyTown. Some hobbyshops don’t have very large rc departments, they fill their stores with crafts/beads/kites/games/etc, but the Orland Park location was filled to the rim with rc gear, props to them.

On a different note…

The new Pro-Line Performance Transmission for the 2wd Traxxas Slash/Stampede/Rustler/Bandit is creating quite a buzz, not just around the office, but all over the web. We first reported the new PL tranny during our RCX coverage this spring, and now it’s nearly here with a release date of June 15th. Needless to say, there are a LOT of Traxxas owners who can’t wait to get their hands on one. We will be posting our full review of the new Pro-Line transmission on Tuesday morning, keep your eyes peeled.

Also of note from Pro-Line… if you are a true basher you’ve bent more than your fair shares of shock shafts. The folks over at PL posted a shot of one of their new shock shafts on their Facebook page last week. Other than them being black in color there is no further info is available at this time, but if they are from Pro-Line you can expect them to be the best.

Did you know the BigSquidRC Bash Vehicle of the Year 2011, the Thunder Tiger MT4-G3, has been disco’ed? Yes it has, but not due to lack of popularity as it has been known to sell out in a matter of hours after it hits the dock doors at Hobbico. The MT4-G3 has been temporary discontinued as Thunder Tiger ramps up production on the model that will replace it, a truck that is virtually the same except for a new radio system. Look for the replacement truck to hit shelves in the near future. Btw, there were multiple MT4-G3′s at the bash on Saturday and I am still amazed at the beating they can take without breaking, Xerxes in particular was huck’n his like crazy.

ARRMA is a dedicated basher line, no doubt about it. The hot rumor around the office last week was that ARRMA has more goodies coming out for the bash crowd, perhaps a new platform or maybe more power is on the way? Who knows for sure, but kudos to them for catering to our type of people.

We have uber new BigSquid “909” style hats in stock! Wear something cool on your dome while you bash and make a statement while doing so, hit up the BigSquid shop and get one headed your way. (Store will be updated later today)

That’s it for this week folks, I didn’t even have one decent rant in me this time (guess I’ll have to really go off the deep end next week!). Thanks for reading, and support your LHS’s, tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

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THE Cub Report, 06.04.2010, Version- Internet Super Trooper

Posted by Cubby @ 11:41 am. Filed in: cubby

Bubba DNF’ed both moto’s at Freestone over the weekend thus making the 450 nationals a whole lot more boring for the rest of the summer (looks like a Dungey runaway now). You see one of those crafty photographer types ran across the track just as Stewart was mid-air from a jump. This distracting Bubba causing him to crash and hurt his hand, resulting in a DNF and a DNS. When I saw the Bubba/photog “incident” on video it reminded me of about 6.4 googolplex times a marshal has stepped directly in the path of my truck on track causing me to crash for no good reason at all. If you are a noob rc’er, cars racing on the track have the right-of-way before marshalling the poor schmuck that just crashed, just fyi.

We are big video gamers around the office, how can we not be? Brian was an uber award winning game designer in his former life (yes, you’ve played many a game he designed), and the rest of us huddle around game consoles whenever we aren’t running rc’s full speed into cinder blocks. The big E3 show is this week and you can be assured we’ll be plastered to SpikeHD starting at 11 am CST today for their live tv coverage of the show. Interesting how E3 is getting record coverage even though the gaming industry is in a state of turmoil yet rc is arguably the biggest it has ever been, yet iHobby Cleveland 2012 has lackluster support from our industry. WTF.

Ryan Cavalieri crushed’em over the weekend at the Top Gun Shootout winning 3 classes. I don’t think most people know just how much hard work and determination it takes to be as dominant as he has been for so many years. Crazy huge props to RC and his sponsors AE, Orion, Pro-Line, LRP, and Airtronics.

Speaking of racing… Gary K. (of Horizon fame) posted a blurb on his Facebook page last week concerning the rising costs of entry fees at big races. Gary mentioned the $85 entry fee for the ROAR nats this year and I totally agree, entry fees have simply gotten out of hand (but even $85 isn’t that much compared to certain other events). Weekly attendance at many tracks has been down, so the tracks attempt to make up for the loss of funds via charging crazy prices for their ever more frequent “big” races. By the time you throw in high entry fees, gas, hotel room, and several sets of race tires, the cost of one guy racing a couple classes at a “big” event is easily a grand. If one “big” event was truly superior, providing the very best track, stand, pit area and other accommodations, as well as the best media coverage and prestige, it would be justifiable to have such a high entry fee, but $80+ has quickly become the norm for every Joe Blow race that carries the moniker of a “big” event. As long as people continue to pay the crazy entry fees race promoters will continue to raise them, but there will become a point where overpricing will start to shrink attendance at large races, you’d think $80-$120 has got to be approaching that limit. Vote with your wallets people…

Speaking of Facebook… Pro-Line posted a brief history of PROTOform and Dale Epp last week. Pro-Line has been providing the uber cool for the off road crowd forever, and the same can be said about PROTOform for the on road crowd. Learn a brief history of PROTOform by clicking HERE. Everybody seems to have a Dale Epp story and here is mine- About 5 years or so ago at iHobby I got into a long convo with one of the guys from the Pro-Line booth. I didn’t know exactly who it was, but I’ve been known to talk the paint off of walls, so that wasn’t a problem. I walked away not only impressed with this mans knowledge of the industry, but also by how he seemed to have his finger right on the pulse of the hobby. A couple hours after the convo my cell rings and it was one of my industry buddies asking me if I had a good time talking to Dale Epp. I was more than a little embarrassed as I informed the caller that I had no idea I had been talking to an rc legend! Since then I can assure you I know Dale Epp by name AND face, he’s a cool guy, a great ambassador for the hobby, and he puts out works of art for bodies.

The BigSquidRC Summer Kick Off Bash is nearly here! What is it? It’s a bunch of bashers meeting up to do some driving, huck some ramps, pop block long wheelies, and chew the fat. Cost? Zero, nada, FREE! Where is it? It’s in the Chicago metro area at the HobbyTown USA located in Orland Park. When is it? This Saturday. Why should you go? There are lots of reasons- you can have a blast driving your rc car/truck/buggy, you can show off your hop-ups, compete in rc sumo, shopping cart jumping, etc, or just chill with the Squid Bash Crew. If you are reading this you are cordially invited, I personally hope to see you there. Support your hobby and make it this Saturday if you can. Click HERE for complete info.

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

YOUR Cub Reporter

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