ASK Cub Reporter, 04.05.2012, You Write The Questions, I Grudgingly Respond

Dominus Wins!?
Are you guys as amazed as I am (as well as everyone I know) that the Dominus, a truck that you simply can’t bash with, won the bashing bracket? That truck is such a piece of shit! Sure it’s cheap, but at $200 it can’t even drive up a jump. Is bashing considered driving around slowly in a circle on gravel?
Sweet.
It would have been nice to see the Revo or the 5T in the finals. But I am pretty shocked by this result.
Just curious what you guys really think.
Thanks for running a crazy bracket!
Adam H.

Cubby– Hola amigo, what be up?

Am I amazed that the Dominus just won our March Bashness Tournament? Absolutely. Helion is a relatively new company that is only sold through HobbyTown USA franchises, how are they supposed to compete with the all the big names? In theory they should have had no shot at taking on the “Big Boys” and kick’n their butts, but thats precisely what they did. Helion not only wanted the win badly, mounting an effective campaign to get the word out to vote for the Dominus, but they’ve sold a LOT of those trucks in the last 6 months to people that read BigSquid. If you want to know how the Dominus won, that’s how I see it.

Is it really bashing to drive slow circles on gravel? Is it any fun to drive over rocks at less than 1 mph like the crawling guys do?

To you and me the experienced hobbyist, yes, absolutely, the Dominus is painfully slow, but I don’t see that as a critical problem.Why? Because… if you are a mainstream noob the power is perfect to learn with, if you are an long time rc’er you are gonna be slap’n in your own brushless system and would rather not pay up front for one you’ll never use.

While the Dominus making it past the first round of March Bashness was a huge surprise to me (let alone winning the whole thing), I think there was a far bigger surprise from March Bashness 2012- the fact that no HPI or Traxxas products made it into the final four. Both are huge rc companies, both put out good product, so why didn’t they make the final 4? Was it because their basher trucks are older platforms? Did they not sufficiently spread the word to vote? Are average Joe Blow bashers simply growing tired of them? Who knows for sure, but I can assure you the results of our March Bashness have been closely studied by nearly every marketing guy in the industry. I can also assure you that Helion went from being some relatively unknown company to a player that the big boys are keeping closer tabs on.

And one stolen from Brian’s email box…

Battery Shout Out
Hey Brian,
Just read the results of the battery shoot out. Great work but why did you choose a Nano-tech 30c against a Gens Ace 45c? I see that Nano-tech have a 65c. Wouldn’t it have been a fairer comparision pairing this one against the rest? Particularily considering that the Venom was supposed to be a 70c? an the Orion a 90c? I can understand if your answer is “well Gens Ace dont make a 65c”. Well thats fine, but then rather pit Turnigys best against Gens Ace’s best. If it happens to be a 65c vs a 45c then thats too bad so sad.

Hopefully you’ll understand my questioning the veracity of this test and I prefer to ask you in a private email rather than venting through a forum to give you an opportunity to reply.
Best Regards,
Toby

Cubby– Well hello there Toby, thanks for the email. I am posting your question here in ASK Cubby because we have received a bunch of “why didn’t you test this or that pack” emails since our last shootout, yours is a prime example.

Why did we choose the Turnigy Nano 30C and not their 65C? The simple answer is- we didn’t chose any of the packs except the Traxxas which we bought (they wouldn’t send us one). Anyways… we asked all the battery companies to shoot us their best 2S 5800 and we tested what we received.

Why did Turnigy send us their 30C Nano pack? I haven’t asked them so I do not know, nor will I speculate on the matter. What I will say is that I think people put far too much credence into the “C” ratings printed on the labels. It is rare for the highest “C” rated pack (or the most expensive, or the largest capacity) to win one of our shootouts. Having a higher “C” rating does not instantly mean it will fair better in one of our shootouts because we use so many different factors to determine an overall winner. If I was a battery manufacture sending out a pack for a BigSquid shootout I’d look at the entire product line and pick the one that best fit the BigSquid test criteria, not simply the one with the highest “C” rating or price point.

That’s it for this week ya bunch of brosteppers, shoot me your questions, answers, requests, and lightly used Harry Winston watches to Cubby at BigSquidRC dot com!

YOUR Cub Reporter