Caster Racing USA and our own driver Tim Mohr won big at the St. Louis RC Pro Series!

RC Pro Series Midwest Division Race #1 electric 1/8 scale division. First place and TQ goes to Team Caster Racing driver Tim Mohr running a Caster Fusion Pro, proving once again that Caster Racing products are very capable on the track. Caster Racing is the first manufacturer to make an electric 1/8 scale buggy and truggy and the radically different design from conversions is proving effective once again.

Way to go Tim! Also, Huge props to one of our other drivers and occasional guest writer (see The Slash Report) Jason Annis (on the right) Taking third! Great job guys, you ROCK!
Taking second place there on the left is Mike Marshal. Wanted to make sure we got everyone!

Well we’ve gone over what to beef up your Slashes to make them a little stronger for racing and of course BASHING. Now its time to get straight to it. How do we make them faster? In this report I’ll go over a few cheap race legal speed tips.

The motor is the first place that you need to look for a little bit more speed. The motor is a closed end bell mass produced Chinese sizzle can. The brushes a super hard and take a long time to break in. Under normal conditions the com will be trashed long before the brushes break in. To speed up the process I use the water dunk method. The water eats away at the brushes, but leaves the com in good condition. The best method is using a charger that has a motor break-in mode. Run the motor at about 2 volts and dunk the motor in a cup of water. (Watch out for the water shooting out because of the fan in the motor!) I run mine for about an hour, because the brushes are so hard, but it’s not a must. If you don’t have a charger with a break-in mode you can use a two cell battery or just use the ESC and run the motor at about a quarter to eighth throttle. Once the motor is broken in, spray it completely out with a good motor cleaner and re-oil the bushings with a race grade bushing oil. One or two drops are all that is needed per bushing. Too much and you’ll just have a big mess. Don’t use bearing oil as it is too light and will burn up fast.

Second, your motor is now running at full power and you still have these crappy nickel plated bullet connectors. The best thing to do is just cut them off and solder them together, but some tracks require the stock connectors so all you to do there is just pull back the covers and solder the connectors together.

Third, I know this sounds stupid, but make sure that the ESC is set-up to the radio. If you changed the radio or the throw on the Traxxas TQ radio it will be off and you won’t have full power. So make sure it is right.

The last on the list is batteries. This is the one thing that isn’t cheap or free. Buy good batteries. The better made side-by-side NiMh packs and Lipo’s make a big difference in speed and torque. For racing stay away from the mass produced shotgun style stick packs. The low grade cells and spot welded paper thin bars than have a lot of resistance. Go with a good Lipo or 7-Cell side by side nimh. The 6-cell nimh can’t compete with the power of a good 2-cell lipo. Even compared to the 7-cell, the lipo is still faster because of the drop in weight and more constant power. The nimh will also drop voltage more than the lipo does under load. If you can; go lipo.

Racing the Traxxas Slash is a ball of fun as long as you just have fun. Don’t act like it’s a national finals and don’t be that guy that t-bones every car on the track because the crowd cheers every time you do. The next report will be about nothing but set-ups. I’ll give you a good starting set-up and I’ll go over tips and ideas to make the Slash drive less live a dump-truck and more like a CORR Pro2 truck. Till next time guys and girls.

The big draw to the Traxxas Slash is the racing. Where else can we all race a CORR Pro2 trucks fender-to-fender for about $300 (truck $200, batteries & charger $100)? Its good clean fun as long as you don’t take the class too seriously.

One of the reasons that I say this is because it gets a little rough during the races. With the Slash being so cheap to get in to, there are racers from all levels in the class. There are novices with this being there first class, and top level racers using this class as a stress reliever. At my local track there are two 2008 IFMAR Fuel Buggy World’s racers that run the class. I’ve also seen beginners show up and open their kits and start racing that night!

Full Fender Racing = Full Contact! With these trucks being full fender, drivers tend to get a little aggressive… ok, they will slam you like a 350 pound line-man would! On top of that the tires have so little traction that a good hit will send you spinning down the straight-a-way. Don’t think that if you’re in the lead that they are not going to hit you also.

The last issue I have about the Slash box stock racing is that mass produced gear is not all made the same. These motors and esc’s are mass produced on huge a scale by machines. I’ve heard of box stock slashes doing wheel stands on a 2s lipo at 7.4 volts. Some Slashes are so slow that you have to run a 7-cell nimh at 8.4 volts to just keep up. I really believe that the class needs a better controller motor, but that’s just adding more money.

So get your Slash, race it, and just have fun!!!! In the next report I’ll be going over so tips and tricks to make your Slash a little faster in both speed and lap times. So if you get slammed just laugh about it and just remember pay back is a …..

Jason Annis

The Slash is for the most part an over built truck. It’s based off of the Rustler and Stampede trucks so parts are usually easy to get a hold of. There are a few areas that could use a little bit of tweaking though. The main weak spots to look at are the shock caps, rear axle carriers, front C-hubs, steering knuckles, and the spur gear. Luckily there are some cheap and easy mods to help these areas and in this report I’m going cover number one problem; the shocks.

On the shocks caps you have a couple options. It all breaks down to your budget and track rules. If money and rules are not a problem then go with Traxxas’ Big Bore aluminum shock kit. They are very strong and SUPER smooth. The problem is that most tracks are not allowing full aluminum shocks, but they are allowing the aluminum shock caps. These really beef up the shocks and work as expected, but they are really, really tight. They are so tight that its a little difficult to bleed the shocks the right way. The last option is new shock mounts. The stock shoulder bolts allow side to side pivoting, but zero front to back movement. The shock towers are so soft that they do a lot of flexing. This puts the caps in a bind and pops them right of the bodies. To help this problem I run a button head screw and a short piece of fuel tubing. This allows the shocks to pivot front to back and relives the stress. I run this set-up, because it helps keeping the shocks together for spec racing and I can still change shock oil easily. I don’t think they will be strong enough for a brushless Slash though.

The shocks are the very first thing that needs to be looked at. They are good shocks; they’re just not good enough for hardcore racers or bashers. When you’re going fast you are going to crash. In the next Slash Report I’ll cover the rest of the points that brought up and how best to fix them. Till next time.

Jason Annis

The Traxxas Slash is by far the biggest hit in the RC industry right now. Companies, tracks, racing organizations, and the media are all scrambling to get parts, hop-ups, classes, and articles out as fast as possible involving the Slash and its nitro brother the Slayer. (Can’t leave him out….

The Slash is nothing really that new. The idea for RC CORR tucks have been around for years. Kyosho had a truck based on the first generation Inferno. Tamiya had the Pre-runner series of trucks based off of their TA-O2 touring car chassis. Team Losi sold a body conversion for the XX-4 four wheel drive off-road buggy. Team Associated SC8 is the one of the newest additions to the field, the idea is not new. So why did the Slash explode onto the market and the others didn’t?

The Kyosho, Tamiya, Team Losi, and Team Associated CORR trucks all have one thing in common that kept them from growing a new class like the Slash did. Price! They were either a kit, a conversion, or a nitro. It takes a good deal of money to get one. The Slash is only $200 RTR. And with every track and organization requiring them to run almost box stock (Servo, motor, ESC, tires, chassis, ect.) its rather easy to get int one. Figure $300 for a Slash, two cheap batteries, and a charger and you are Ready – To – Race or just blast it around the house.

The Slash Report will cover everything about the Slash. I’ll cover the bashing and racing side of the Slash, and also everything in between. So if anybody has any ideas or questions; please shoot us an e-mail. Till the next report, keep it rolling!

Jason

I would like to welcome our latest addition to the Big Squid RC Family, Mr. Jason Annis! Jason has been a pro-driver for a few years now with a bunch of big wins under his belt. He is one of the awesome drivers we had at the iHobby Expo 2008, wowing the crowd and bashing his heart out!
With the popularity of the Traxxas Slash these days, we wanted to start doing some articles about the truck. From stock startup to full blown, hopped up, bashing machine! Jason will be the main man behind these articles, talking about setups, parts and anything else Slash! After his performance at the iHobby show, I have all the confidence in the world that he will put the Traxxas Slash through it’s paces.

Welcome Jason! I’m glad to have you on board!