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

And on to rc…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

YOUR Cub Reporter

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

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

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

And to another subject…

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

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

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

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

Different topic-

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

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

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

YOUR Cub Reporter

“It is with great regret that I must inform the racing community that lawsuits have been filed against R.O.A.R. this morning the 26th day of February 2013 in the State of Florida. Case # CA-13-976-16W and ROAR and Plaintiffs to appear before Judge Dickey for resolution. A class-action suit pending involving Trincorp, EAM, Fantom Motors and Putnam Propulsion is now in place with the Court System and will have to be defended. We as a group have done everything in our power to negotiate with ROAR, asking for a time period for new specifications using this new protocol testing to allow time for manufacturer’s and consumers to adjust to their new protocol yet using the same vague rules but we were denied! Our goals are to protect our good names and our customer base from purchasing new motors for a season that has not ended due to the precocious and what we feel irresponsible behavior of ROAR to change the “testing protocol” which has been used for over 30 years, terminate both Independent Labs, keep a rule “with no maximum tolerance listed in the rule and be arrogant enough to still leave it “as is” have left us no alternative at all than to allow a “fair and equitable” court system to decide the “fate” of all involved with the D3.5/17.5 it’s customers both National and International and it’s race organizers and promoters.

Ernest N. Provetti
Managing Director
TRINCORP, LLC”

We will be bringing you more information as we receive it, until then HERE is the link for Trinity, and click HERE for ROAR’s website.

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

And on to rc…

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

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

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

Sorta on that note…

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

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

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

Lastly…

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

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

YOUR Cub Reporter

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

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

And on to rc…

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

In more rc news…

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

Also…

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

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

Lastly…

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

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

YOUR Cub Reporter

Hey guys I check your site quite often for great reviews on new RC vehicles etc. I am in the market wanting to buy an electric 1/8th scale basher and when I saw the new Thunder Tiger E-MTA I fell in love. This is what I want to get. Do you guys know where I might possibly be able to get it as I am unable to find any dealers in the US that has this. I don’t mind purchasing over seas but I need to find a hobby shop or store that has this baby in stock and can ship it to me. I am emailing you guys because I believe you did a review on this truck. I tried contacting Thunder Tiger America and the guy on the phone said he has never heard of this truck and doesn’t know what I am talking about. I found that to be a bit funny buy oh well. Hopefully you guys can help. Thanks.

Sujal P

Cubby- Hey ya Sujal, thanks for the email.

So where is the Thunder Tiger E-MTA? I have no idea, and I’m with ya that I’d reallyyyyy like to see it hit the states. For you readers who might not have heard of it, it’s a new brushless monster truck from Thunder Tiger that comes with extra sic suspension.

We posted information from the European press release a few months ago on the E-MTA and since then we have asked the Thunder Tiger guys if it would ever make it to the states. So far the info says no, so Sujal, if you really want a E-MTA (which will instantly make you the coolest guy at any bash spot in America) you will have to buy it from over-seas. And yo sorry, I’ve got zero leads for ya on tracking one down. I can only suggest that Google is your friend. Good luck and shoot us pics when/if you get one in your hands. Till then, we’ll keep bugging the TT people about importing them stateside.

This next one is a big long for the front page, so I’ll get it started here.. but you’ll need to hit the ‘READ MORE’ button for the rest and the answer..

Can we give up on RC racing EVER going mainstream?

I was REALLY bored the other night and read some old Cub reports. A consistent theme of those reports were your ideas to get RC racing mainstream such as DC shoes or Red Bull sponsorship. It got me thinking and below are my 10 reasons (in no order) RC racing will not go mainstream:

1. Size. Racing small several thousand dollar 8 lb vehicles on tracks not much larger than a studio apt compared to multi-million dollar race efforts in full size vehicles on full size tracks. Same reason 1/8th racing is more popular than 1/24th.

2. Injury risk. It’s sad but true that anticipation of crashes is a top attraction at racing events. RC racing – one of the racers goes down due to trigger finger cramping (the nefarious relative of arm pump)?

3. Crazy factor. In most forms of racing people watch and say “Wow, what they do is crazy.” RC racing doesn’t have that.

4. Drama. Racer 1 is switching from Kyosho to Mugen and is coming off 2 finger surgeries and on top of that he has a new pit mat and his wife thinks he’s wasting his life. Where’s the intrigue?

5. Lifestyle. Most forms of racing promote a high energy high risk lifestyle. What is the RC racing lifestyle? Does Red Bull show a buggy attempting a triple with the driver white knuckling the controller and the crowd of 50 grimacing as everyone knows a crash could break a $7 a-arm?

6. Exclusivity. People want to see out of the ordinary i.e. Bugatti, Ferrari, etc. F1, nascar, motocross are outside the realms of everyday living so purpose built machines are rare. Is an RC racer’s vehicle more powerful than a rtr savage flux or more technically advanced than an off the shelf x-ray? Seemingly, mass availability would create mass appeal but who wants to see a Toyota Camry racing series?

7. Envy. Do I wish I had the skills of Schumacher, James Stewart & Chris Borich? Yep. Do I wish I had the skills of the top RC racers? Not really-I’m happy bashing with my own abilities.

8. Manufacturer support. RC racing is never getting off the ground without support from major manufacturers. Traxxas promotes their products, not by supporting RC racing, but by sponsoring other forms of racing (forms of racing which involve the above points).

9. Video game factor. Racer is stationary the entire race with only their fingers slightly moving. Who wants a close up of a racer’s hands triggering a car or an explanation of the subtleties of moving a foam wheel ½ an inch?

10. Boring. In his 2/11/13 report, Cubby sums it up “Watching rc cars go around a 30 second laptime track is about as much fun as watching paint dry for most muggles…”

RC racing is great fun FOR THE DRIVERS and beneficial to development but does not have mass market appeal. Poor management by ROAR and IFMAR is secondary because RC racing lacks items 1-8 partially or entirely. The only glimmer of hope RC racing has of going mainstream is the fact ESPN televises bowling.

Before I’m accused of RC blasphemy know that I’ve been in the sport about a year, love it & spent too much (per my wife) on vehicles and parts. BSRC is the best rc site on the web I’ve found so keep up the good work.

Sincerely,
Jerry H

Cubby- Yo hey Jerry, thanks for the email and don’t forget to shoot Brian your snail mail for some free stickers.

While I try to not let my decades in the hobby skew my views, that is clearly impossible, as it is for every other long-timer in the hobby. Long time hobbyists have been programmed a certain way since the 80′s that rc should be “this way” and only “this way”, therefore, when rc racing clearly isn’t gaining any ground on the general populous, long time hobbyists can not fathom a major change. People such as yourself who have only been in the hobby for a year have a much more clear overall view of rc racing because you haven’t been pre-programmed. Jerry, you can look at F1, bowling, and rc racing and actually see how they stack up. Unfortunately most of the guys that make and shape rc racing have been in the hobby for decades, and thus lost that magical outside perspective sometime in the mid-80s.

But… even with my amount of pre-programming I can clearly see this- Traxxas has taken hobby grade rc’s to the mainstream, yet rc racing is still some red headed step-child that can’t draw spectators if you paid them.

Jerry, I will totally agree with you that rc racing has a lot of strikes against it, but IMO it does have a chance of being much more popular, even to the point of being on the lower end of “mainstream”. Here’s why- big mainstream racing like NASCAR, Supercross, and F1 aren’t so much about the cars or talent level or even the racing, as they are about the personalities of the racers and their marketing machines.

Let’s say there are 50k fans sitting at the Dallas Supercross this weekend. A quarter of them actually ride and can truly appreciate what the riders are doing. The rest are there for the “soap opera”. They are there to watch the Millsaps Cinderella story unfold, they are there to see if Reed parks Bubba going into the whoops, and they are simply there to see some good close racing. If there are 200k people in the stands at Daytona for the NASCAR opener they are there 1. for the soap opera of their favorite driver, and 2. to witness the “history” of the event. The NASCAR marketing machine has burnt it into the minds of NASCAR fans that each and every Daytona is the end of the world and they simply must be there or face spontaneous combustion.

Rc has plenty of good tight racing (albeit extremely hard to film and follow) and it has plenty of “personalities” to build soap operas around. If the proper marketing machine was there, Ryan Cavalieri, Elliott Boots, Cody King and Dakotah Phend would be household names worth making the time to watch race on Speed every Saturday. But… it would take cubic dollars to get their names out there and buy up the airtime for the racing. These are cubic dollars that simply aren’t there unless some deep pockets like a Red Bull, GoPro, Pepsi, or a Traxxas (GASP!) were secured as a title sponsor.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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

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

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

Enough trade show news…

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

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

On a different note…

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

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

And moving on…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lastly…

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

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

YOUR Cub Reporter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Hit the Keep reading to see the rest so Brian does not yell at me for taking the whole front page.)

If the wire in the Trinity motor is indeed legal in size, the blame falls squarely on ROAR for this debacle. On-line, multiple sources have now posted photo’s of them measuring the size of the Trinity wire (including ROAR). Some of the pictures show the wire to be too large, other pics show it to be well within spec. Personally, I haven’t measured it, nor do I trust any of the pictures posted (including ROAR’s). This is something that needs to be measured by an impartial third party, an independent lab, not by anyone who has something to gain by its ultimate legality.

Personally, I think WireGate only goes to more fully illustrate the debacle that the “stock” class has morphed into, and how ROAR was clueless, and still is clueless, on the effects of brushless motor technology on rc racing.

The “stock 17.5″ class is a debacle because it has not been a “starter/noobie/novice” class for years (like for well over a decade). What the 17.5 class today is- a class where you can be a tenth place driver but can buy wins by being the guy that always runs the latest and greatest to have a performance advantage. When I visit my local track 60% of the guys in stock class have been racing since the 90′s, and 95% have been racing stock for more than 2 seasons. When I go to big events, I see former ROAR and IFMAR champions running the freak’n “stock” and “super stock” classes!!! The stock/noob class should be a class where NEW RACERS can get their feet wet in rc racing without having to spend big bucks or face seasoned racers (or IFMAR world champs).

ROAR was blindsided by brushless technology. Brushless motor technology is a great thing- it offers more power than you can ever use, with longer runtimes, with very little maintenance. Those are its upsides, and those attributes should have been capitalized on when ROAR made BL rules, instead, ROAR attempted to make brushless rules fit the old brushed formula. That was a recipe for disaster, and as we’ve seen, that’s exactly what has happened. There never should have been any form of “stock” or “super-stock” brushless class, it should simply have been brushless, with simple rules to keep costs down.

There was a golden chance at the beginning of the brushless era to correct all the issues of stock racing, to turn back time and return “stock” back to the noob friendly class. Rules could have been written to push all the seasoned racers into running “brushless” powered classes, and rules written that would make stock a class that a seasoned racer would never want to enter. An example of this would have been to demote stock motors from their former highly tuned 27 turn 24 degree brushed motors, to simple sealed/spec brushed motors (like a stock Traxxas Slash motor). Sealed brushed motors have very soft power (perfect for noobs), and being sealed allow very limited tuning options, also very noob friendly (and hotshot local racer repellent). But ROAR didn’t jump on that chance, instead they had to force brushless technology into the old brushed mold, creating a nightmare scenario that will continue to be a problem until radical changes are made.

What is healthy for rc racing? Scale looks are healthy. Having successful kids classes around the country is healthy. A strong noob class is healthy for the long term success of rc racing. Proper rules, fairly enforced, is good for the rc racing hobby. The rc racing scene, right now anyways, is set up to pacify long time hardcore local racers, at the expense of the long term health of the sport, and the people making the rules are making it worse. You see radical changes all the time in NASCAR, you see them all the time in F1, huge changes for rc are long, long overdue….

That’s it for this week guys, as always, support your local hobby shops and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Biggest news coming up this week? Easy- BigSquidRC’s 2wd Monster Truck Shootout! Stampede vs Granite vs Ruckus in a battle to the death (literally). Check it out on our front page tomorrow!

Formula 1 takes 5 weeks off for a “summer break” each year, thankfully they were finally back in action from Belgium over the weekend. For you basher guys that may have never seen how chaotic the start of a typical rc race is you can view the start of the Belgium F1 GP to see the full scale equivalent. When will Johnny Fat learn you can’t win the race in the first corner, but you sure can lose it (as well as ruin several other drivers races)? Words to live by for all you noob rc racers…

Being the curious type that I am, I tossed this question around the office “Who is the number 1 American off-road rc racer thus far in 2012?” Needless to say I got a lot of blank stares, but I guess Brian has heard of Adam Drake before as he was his answer. So ya, the guys around the office were of no help. After all they are typical hard-core basher types and really couldn’t care less who wins in the rc scene. So I then proceeded to fire off emails to my industry amigo’s to get their input. I shot off 5 emails and guess what? I got 5 different answers. Big help those guys are, but really it goes to show that the current “system” does not do a very good job of determining a numero uno.

So who would I vote for as the number 1 American driver of 2012? First, I’d look at the 2012 ROAR 8th scale nitro nats. Ty Tessmann dominated both classes (buggy and truggy) at that event so you’d think that would put him on top for sure, but unfortunately he’s not even in the running. Why? Because he’s Canadian. So who was top American? Easy, Mid-West Horizon/Losi phenom Dakotah Phend. Phend finished second in both buggy and truggy, if I was seeking the number 1 American nitro off-roader he would be the guy.

But, and there is always a but, while nitro is still hot with the race crowd it is virtually dead with the bulk of hobbyists. Because of that fact I’d start looking at results from the 2012 ROAR Electric Off-Road “Super-Duper-National”. I could look simply at who won the most classes, and that would be Thunder Tiger/Associated driver Ryan Cavalieri. Cavalieri won all three mod UFO classes as well as 2wd Mod SCT, you could basically say he pwn’d the entire event. But… general hobbyists could care less about the UFO classes now days, so lets say we toss them out, leaving him with just the win in 2wd Mod SCT.

So lets look at the most prestigious class at the ROAR “Super-Uber-National”. Just what class would that be? In the old days that would have been 4wd Mod UFO buggy, but like I just mentioned we are tossing UFO classes. So… that would leave 4wd Mod SCT and 8th scale E-buggy as candidates. The Canadian Tessmann won 8th scale E-buggy, and it is a UFO class anyways, so we are tossing it. That leaves us with 4wd Mod SCT as being the most prestigious class. And the winner of 4wd Mod SCT at the “Super-Intergalatic-Nats”? That would be Thunder Tiger/Associated driver Ryan Maifield.

So… does that make Ryan Maifield America’s best rc racer for 2012? Maybe, but unfortunately we will never find out. Our rc racing system does anything BUT determine who is actually the number 1 guy. Is it really asking too much to ask our sanctioning body to give us a single winner? Racers would respect one winner more, Joe Blow consumers could more easily wrap their heads around one winner, and the guys cutting the big checks to market a true National Champ would open up their wallets a whole lot quicker. Just say’n…

Oh… so who is my pick for “Number 1 American off-road rc racer for 2012″? My vote goes to Cavalieri, then Maifield, then Phend. I sure wish I could see those 3 guys compete in a national championship series to really determine a winner… but I don’t see that EVER happening, instead we are left to wonder and bench race about it. Yay.

That’s it for this week, have a Happy and Safe Labor Day, and as always, support your local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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