The Backyard – Planning a Reactor Build

Greetings all and Happy Friday!

With the announcement and release of the JConcepts Reactor, I’ve found myself going back and forth… and then back again… on what exactly I want to do with mine.

When I first learned about the Reactor, I had a pretty straightforward plan. I was going to build it as a standard Retro monster truck racer—Clod Buster-sized, 10.75” wheelbase, old iron body, the whole deal.

I had even settled on a body: the JConcepts Aerostar. The plan was to build it as the “Rotten Apple Express.”

Simple enough, right?

Well… that was before JConcepts announced that the Reactor would be available in two versions—a traditional short wheelbase and a 13″ long wheelbase option.

That’s when things started to spiral a bit.

On top of that, I started digging deeper into the technical details and hearing some early driver impressions. And it became pretty clear: this truck is NOT a Clod. It may share some visual DNA, but there’s a lot of slick engineering going on here.

I talked about this in a previous Backyard, but the Reactor really seems to capture the vibe of early 1990’s BIGFOOT #4—specifically that transitional period where teams were taking older, leaf spring trucks and updating them to better compete with the newer, purpose-built race trucks.

You had that mix of old and new: traditional frames and suspension layouts paired with more advanced shocks and lighter bodies. Not quite Stage II, not quite Stage III… kind of a “Stage 2.5” era.

And BIGFOOT wasn’t alone in that. A lot of teams in the early ‘90s were experimenting like this. You’d see these hybrid trucks lining up against full-blown race rigs, trying to bridge that performance gap.

That’s where my thinking shifted.

Instead of building a straight-up Retro racer, I’m now planning to lean into that “in-between” era.

The current plan is to go with the long wheelbase Reactor and top it with a Chevy Snoop Nose body. That gives it a bit more of that early ‘90s hybrid race truck look, which I think fits what this chassis is trying to be.

The cool part is that it keeps my options open.

If I want to run it in a Retro class, I can drop in a pair of 27-turn motors, detach the sway bars and be good to go. But if I feel like turning the wick up a bit, I can throw in a set of 17-turn motors and run it in a Sport Modified class against more modern-style trucks.

From everything I’ve seen and heard so far, the Reactor should be more than capable of handling that kind of power, which opens up a lot of possibilities.

So… I think I finally have a plan.

Of course, now that I’ve reached that point, there’s one small problem—I waited too long and missed the first batch of kits. That’s what indecision will do to you.

I’m hoping to get in on the second round when they become available.

And once I do, you can bet there will be a full build write-up coming.

That’s it for me this week—until next time, keep it on all four’s!