Ex-pro racer; current Associate Editor and Slash King, in no particular order.
PRE-RACE EXCITEMENT Jul 06, 2009 - 11:23 AM
The 2009 version of the Hot Rod Shootout starts in a few days, which is our local big race at nearby Hot Rod Hobbies that regularly draws hundreds of racers from all around the U.S. I’ve attended every Hot Rod Shootout since 2002, and I still get excited for the crowd, the high-grip blue groove, and even watching the techniques that everyone will use for coping with the 100+ degree weather. The butterflies in my stomach got me thinking…
What about RC racing gives us the jitters? I’ve seen club racers nearly rattle themselves out of their own shoes, and even witnessed pro racers develop the trembles when a big race is on the line. I’ve been racing for over a decade now, and I’ll readily admit that I tense up and run through a list of “what if?” scenarios when I’m leading a main event. What if I crash on the next jump? What if I get tangled with that next lapped car? What if my wheel nut comes loose, or I pop a ballcup? What if that turn marshal isn’t paying attention? What if the extra large Mountain Dew I drank to wash down my spicy thai food finally digests? Will I bolt to the port-a-potty, or try to finish the race?! What if a meteor crashes into the ground and takes out my car?!?!
Okay, I got a little carried away. But seriously, why do we get so darn nervous?
EPIC FAILURE CAN BE ENTERTAINING Jun 26, 2009 - 10:48 AM
Admit it. You’ve had a “hey ya’ll, watch this!” moment that resulted in utter destruction of your RC car, possibly other property, and almost certainly your pride. We all do it. Photo Guy Jason has broken several cars after photo shoots. Old Man Charles breaks, burns, shorts out, blows up, and otherwise destroys stuff all the time. Art Guy John brought a JATO back in pieces after a weekend of playing in a not-empty-enough parking lot. Big League Stephen has had his share of track-time fatalities. And I’ve been teased mercilessly for the number of cars I’ve broken while trying to go too fast, too high, or too far (it’s a pretty substantial number).
On the bright side, crashing catastrophically with an RC car generally doesn’t lead to personal injury, something that other forms of motor sport can’t say. In fact, many RC enthusiasts are also involved in a more dangerous activity like motocross, mountain biking, or full-size auto racing and use RC as a means to spend down time between races or recovering from injury.
So the next time you smack a curb, have a laugh. It could be much worse!
HOW DID YOU MANAGE THAT? Jun 15, 2009 - 03:12 PM
How did you manage that?
Today’s radar testing session served as the inspiration for my blog, and not because anything bad happened (though that’s not to say nothing ever goes wrong…)
Internet message forums are littered with threads of RC’ers complaining about engines blowing up and rods breaking despite not being abused (according to the poster). These threads are usually accompanied by a picture of the victim attached, a rod stretched and ripped apart from the crank while still attached to the piston, now with a broken crown from the rod smashing against it. Poor, defenseless (and now useless) chunk of aluminum.
During our radar testing, we tune the engines for maximum performance, run them flat-out on a smooth, flat stretch of asphalt, and allow the engine to rev out until the car or truck stops gaining speed. This usually requires holding the trigger wide-flying-open for several seconds, more than enough for the car to become but a tiny speck in the distance. And I’ve broken one rod in over a year and a half, on an engine that was mistakenly, and yet humorously, sent out for its final blast-to-top-speed in a hysterically lean condition.
Which begs the question: how are these people managing to break engine rods? What happened to tuning conservatively and erring on the side of caution? I have never, ever seen a track (European off-road super speedways included) where you’re wide open for as long as we are when radar testing, and running an off-road car on dirt should provide adequate load on the engine to prevent it from death-revving.
The RC world has seen a big push in recent years, with several of our industry’s biggest manufacturers branching out to other forms of full-size motorsports in order to advertise their products and demonstrate the capability of our RC cars to the yet-uninformed audience. HPI has long attended full-size drift and racing events, including the Monster Jam shows around southern California, and they recently teamed up with Kyosho America and Tamiya America to organize the RC Motorsports Experience at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.
One of the most prolific promotional opportunities RC has experienced, however, is through Traxxas’ and Team sparkles’s involvement with short course off-road racing. While Team sparkles is the official RC car of the Lucas Oil Off-Road championship series, it is Traxxas that has gone big-time with TORC, or THE Traxxas Off-Road Championship. Shown above is a picture of Traxxas owner Mike Jenkins launching into low-orbit in his full-size racer.
More eyes on RC equals more new blood!
CAUTION: PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY May 22, 2009 - 03:38 PM
For a RC hobbyist, there are few experiences as frustratingly humbling as taking a step back to look at the car you just spent the last 8 hours piecing together to find some silly, rather foolish mistake you made while sparkles something simple, like installing the camber links in different holes on each side of the car. Of course, this is only magnified when it’s a friend (or co-worker…) that points out the mistake. Trying to knock out a kit build in one sitting is like cramming for a college final exam the night before the test; the longer you sit in that one spot, the more likely that the pages you’re reading will blend together, and commonly used words will lose their meanings after mundane repetition. Shims and bushings start to form crop circles on your pit towel, the difference between button-head and countersunk screws escape the mind, turnbuckles become Chinese finger traps that exist only to confuse and frustrate, shock and diff oil end up spilled everywhere, and if you manage to snap a wrench tip while tightening something…
About 2/3 of the way through building a car, it’s easy to understand why RTRs are so popular. However, completing a kit will always feel like a rewarding experience, as you watch a pile of parts and hardware become an accelerating, jumping, and turning machine.
AARON
