The Backyard – Art of the Thrash

Hello everyone and Happy 4th of July to those of you readers in the States!

The topic this week- the thrash. What is a thrash? Many racers will know! This is when you suffer breakage during a round/heat and face a time deadline (usually the next round) to have the vehicle repaired and back on track. Usually this involves some kind of Tazmanian Devil-like tornado of tools, parts, and sometimes other people (if you need help)!

I had two good thrashing experiences in the last couple weeks. The first was at BIGFOOT Open House. During my qualifying pass with my Losi LMT, upon impact from the final jump I bent and stripped a trailing arm rod end. Being that I was running the computer for the event and announcing, this created a real issue as I didn’t have much time to make even minor repairs like that. That’s where my friends all jumped in. The moment I set the truck down, a friend had a new rod end on the table for me (thanks Jeremy!) and another buddy already had their tools out. The repair was made in NASCAR pit-stop speed.

The other thrash happened a couple nights ago. I’m a garden tractor puller and have a modified 1965 International Cub Cadet (I wrote about it here). My transmission locked up after a pass down the track early in the evening, and I was slated to pull again closer to the end of the night. My buddies all sprang into action and we had it tore down and put back together after 90 minutes of craziness, and I was able to make my pass later that night with no issues.

My favorite thrash story is from the early 2000’s, back when I raced a Traxxas E-maxx in the loooong defunct “Monster Truck” class (it would eventually morph into truggy). In one of the heat races I mistimed a jump and went off-course, nailing a piece of rebar that was holding up track fencing. It snapped a bulkhead. If you never worked on a Maxx truck back in the day, this was bad news. It was buried deep in the truck! A buddy and I went HAM, tore the whole front of the truck apart and got it back together just in time for the main, which I was able to win! The win felt great, but doing so after the truck was in pieces mere minutes before the running of the race made it extra sweet!

Got any great thrash stories? Share ’em! doug at bigsquidrc.com. If I get some good ones, I’ll share ’em!

Alright folks, I’m outta here. Be safe out there! Until next time, keep it on all 4’s!