Monster Truck Madness 24 – Kings of Fling
Monster Truck Madness is back, oh yes!
With JConcepts releasing the Fling King and Dragon Mega Truck tires/wheels, my club, Trigger King, is going to be racing a mega class for the summer of 2018.
In preparation for this, I have just converted my Rotten Apple SMT10 to mega mode. While I changed a few things around with the electronics to both add more power and waterproof it (it was a 17t brushed truck previously, legal for our Sport Mod class), the most dramatic change were to the aforementioned wheels and tires. Here are some impressions of mine, having now installed a set and poked around outside with them.
The Fling Kings are very accurate representations of cut/shaved rice and cane agricultural tires that the majority of full size mega trucks use. It’s so nice to finally have these in r/c form as they look ace! Coming from someone that previously was using a set of narrowed Clodbuster wheels & tires to race, these feel space age.
The Dragon wheels come with four different offset adapters, up from three which is what their Tribute monster truck wheels include, and this is awesome as you can fit ’em on pretty much any type of r/c vehicle that uses a 12mm hex. I’m using the thinnest 12mm offset on my SMT10 as I have plenty of clearance at that width and I feel it looks best. They go up to 32mm though, for you folks needing them to be really wide.
The green on the wheels is the included clear plastic insert which you can paint whatever color. I chose green, of course. This is a nice addition to the package for those wanting to complete their look.
The tires come in two compounds, the soft Gold and super soft Blue. I opted for Gold as I’m playing the hunch that in actual race conditions the slightly harder rubber will allow the lugs to stay a bit stiffer and not want to roll over under hard cornering conditions. Whether I’m right or wrong, well, that’s yet to be seen and will not be until it’s competition time in a couple months. I can tell you that on grass, the golds hook HARD!
We plan to race these primarily on sand. I already have a Bobcat booked to dig out the track which is going to be similar in style to full size layouts found in places like Dennis Anderson’s Muddy Motorsports Park. The reason for sand? Because mud is a total bitch to maintain as a track surface AND to be cleaning out of the vehicles after each use. The mega area is also going right next to the standard monster truck and pulling tracks at our facility, so mud would most likely create a huge mess with the other classes.
During the summer of 2014, when we did a full season of megas in mud (you can see coverage of the first event right here), the trucks were toast after about 8 events. We were all pretty diligent on both waterproofing and cleaning them out after each run. Still though, the elements took a major toll. We are hoping that by primarily using sand (with mud every now and then, of course) we can keep the trucks running longer with less headache while still having fun. My hunch is a deep, loose sand pit will be great. If not, we will audible back to the wet stuff. Regardless of what surface we wind up using, I’m hell bent on making this class work!
We already have about 10 trucks ready to go for our season kick-off in March, with more sure to come after, so I look forward to discussing the world of rc mega truck racing in-depth on BSRC just as soon as winter finally gives way to spring!
I will also be doing a full written review of the Fling tires and a comparison of the compounds as well, but in the meantime I figured you all would enjoy seeing my initial impressions and what they look like mounted to an SMT10.
I can’t wait for warmer weather.
