THE Cub Report- 01.23.2012- Version: What Goes Up, Must Come Down
If you were lucky enough to attend the LA Supercross Saturday night you were treated to one heck of an EPIC 450 main event with Chad Reed lay’n down the smack on Dungey/Villopotto/Stewart. Reedy was on fire for the win, Dungey put in solid laps to finish second, RV2 crashed early but blasted through the pack to fourth, and Bubba has now crashed in all 3 main events of the 2012 season (but did end up 3rd on the podium).
Unfortunately… if you were at LA you also would have seen two of the sports finest riders get seriously injured (and some inappropriate behavior by Feld to keep the audience “pumped up” while the two downed riders were being carted off the track after the race was red flagged). On the first lap of the 450 main Ryan Morais and Trey Canard had a burly accident over the first triple, the worst I’ve ever seen at a Supercross. Ryan suffered fractures to his C1, C2, C6, C7, T1, jaw and ribs. Trey fractured his T10 and T12 and is said to be having surgery on Thursday. Both are reported to have feeling and movement in their extremities, but give’em a prayer if you can, they can use it. Injuries to those guys (and thousands of others each year) in full scale racing should also serve as a remind to all of us that we are indeed just racing toy cars and there is Never an instance to flip out on the drivers stand for ANY reason. If guys that put their lives on the line every time the gate drops can maintain their composure through rough days at the track, guys that have virtually nothing on the line should be all smiles and kittens, no matter how many times the local hack us out.
On a different note…
I heard Jeff’s 0/10 score on his RedCat review ignited some real “intense talk” on some of the message boards. Hey, that’s what the net is for, everybody expressing their opinion, good, bad, smart, dumb, or straight-up ugly. I haven’t read any of the threads dedicated to his review, heck, I have yet to read his review, LOL, all I know is what I heard about his testing around the office- the truck broke ALL THE FREAK’N time. Jeff would drive it, it would break, he’d wait for parts, then drive it a few more minutes and it would break again, and the ugly cycle would continue. I kept riding Jeff’s a$$ to post the review weeks ago after it broke the first few times, but Jeff insisted on giving it more time hoping the early breakage was just flukes (unfortunately they were not). Craig tested a couple RedCats that didn’t break a lot, but the unit Jeff performed like it was molded out of glass. BSRC doesn’t get paid a penny extra if a product is awesome or if it sucks, we are just here to report what happens when we drive’em, love it for hate it, that’s how it works around here.
Speaking of reviews… I hear this weeks Tuesday review is a recent Losi release, and that Brian, “Wrench” Bill and “3D” Bill absolutely, positively, gave it one of the most severe tests (read- unnecessary beatings) in the history of BSRC. Humm…. that should be fun to read, I am looking forward to that one myself. 🙂
I am not a fan of unboxing videos, most are simply way too long (read- BORING) and I just don’t have the time to waste. Brian isn’t a big fan of unboxing vids either, so that’s why we normally just do pics- you can view’em in a few seconds and get on with your day. Well… somebody (read- me!) came up with a wacky idea for an unboxing vid for the new Duratrax DXR8-E electric 8th scale “race” buggy. Look for it on Tues or Weds, LOL, it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.
In product news….
Remember KO Propo? Ya, the company that used to put out popular high end transmitters? The KO name dipped out of the spotlight for a couple years, but they are back with an all new high end transmitter called the EX-1 K.I.Y. featuring a modular “customize it yourself” system. You can set the wheel high or low, you can adjust the angle of the display, there are both right and left hand versions, and you can even elect to use a stick for steering instead of a wheel. The styling is definitely for the Borg crowd, but I dig how it looks much better than their older EX-10 Eurus (which is looking quite dated now days). It’s sweet seeing some new competition for the uber transmitter crown, which at this point means going up against the Futaba 4PKS and Spektrum DX3R Pro. Also good to see I don’t have to attach my cell phone to it to use the uber features.
Speaking of cell phones on transmitters… Traxxas began shipping their XO-1 “supercar” to hobby shops last week. We’ll probably get ours sometime around October, that’s how much pull we have over at Traxxas, LOL. Does Traxxas just hate us that much, or do they know all we are going to do is jump it off the roof of the nearest 3 story building? Humm… I wonder… 🙂
Novak released info on some new rotors for their brushless motors that use Samarium Cobalt magnets instead of Neodymium. The Cobalt magnets can take higher temps than Neo, good news for you guys that like gearing your motors to the moon. If you are a basher the scoop is this- they are less prone to be damaged by heat, but aren’t quite as strong as the Neo units that typically come in brushless motors. If you are constantly overheating your motor and ruining your magnet/rotor, you’ll want to look into the new Novak rotors.
The good guys (and gals!) over at Pro Line announced Square Fuzzy tires are coming back with a vengeance ! Oh the sweet memories of races gone by where Square Fuzzies were absolutely glued to the track, can’t wait to lay my hands on some of the new ones.
Yes, that’s it for this week! Support your hobby, local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots!
YOUR Cub Reporter
