ASK Cubby- More Questions, More Of My Malarkey

“PRC QX-4

Hi There,

I read your newsletter every day and wonderd if you could do a review of the PRC QX-4 that seems to be made by FS Racing. I’d like this for my boys for Xmas for inside crawling… are there any alternatives?

Regards,
Marc”

Cubby- Yo Marc, aren’t you a lucky guy! I am proclaiming your email as “Letter Of The Month”. Shoot us your snail mail and shirt size for the hook-up.

Ummmmm…. so… a FS Racing QX-4? If memory serves me right (which is highly unlikely) I am gonna guess that is a budget crawler. We have never tried a single truck from FS Racing, perhaps they are a bigger player in your part of the world. Here in the USA, it is super rare to see a truck from them.

So, what I would recommend instead, would be one of these three trucks. If you are looking for a solid, yet affordable, crawler, I would look at the ECX Barrage. While its body isn’t as realistic as some, that is easily changed. What lies beneath is a solid crawling chassis that is ripe for upgrades. Also, I would look at the Carisma Coyote and the Redcat Everest Gen7. Both the Coyote and the Gen7 are solid crawlers for minimal bucks.

Have fun, crawl hard, and let us know what you ended up cutting the check on.

“Doomed

Hi Cubby, I read Bigsquidrc all the time. Thank you guys for all your hard work.

I used to have four hobby shops within 15 miles of my house, now there is just one. I also used to have 3 tracks within a 30 minute drive, now there are none. I am really scared that rc is going to die off completely. With what you know, and with your industry contacts, just how bad off are we?

Wilson S.”

Cubby- Well hey there Wild Willy, thanks for writing in. Or maybe not, what you wrote is very depressing, but I can’t argue with the numbers, I see the same thing where I live.

How bad off are we? That depends on who you talk to. There are still companies out there that are making money hand over fist. Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot more that aren’t. Then there are companies that are right on the edge of going away, or being sold off. For example, LRP is having a tough go of it at the moment. Being based in brushless should be a great thing, but when that is their biggest business here in the states, it simply isn’t enough. Overseas they sell a lot of cars, boats, etc, but to succeed today, you have to have a wide line-up, and you have to be extremely internet savvy. If you aren’t both of those things, life is gonna be rough right now.

For my own personal opinion, yes, things are down, but they are also relative. If you got into the hobby during the T-Maxx glory years, things will look minuscule to you. Back then a local hobby shop would sell 5 or 10 cars (OK, Traxxas T-Maxxs) a day, now they may only sell 5 or 10 cars a week. Back then tracks were popping up like Starbucks, now days they are dying off like Blockbusters. However, if we were to compare today’s numbers against those previous to the T-Maxx, our hobby would most likely still be higher as a whole.

I have said many time that “change is the only constant”, and I believe that is the case for rc right now. It is going to take a LOT of change, and not just change, but smart change, for our hobby to not get sold off and wither away like car audio or paintball (I always use those two as examples, I know). Companies have to get leaner, they have to have laser beam focus with their marketing, and they have to offer wide line-ups. Fifteen hundred spent on a print add that is likely to be seen by few real human eyeballs, could easily land a company with 4-5 solid banner ads on specific websites aimed at a particular genre of rc. It’s funny, but I was talking to a company owner the other day, an owner that always swore he would stay in print. Now that his business is about to go belly up, he has had a complete turnaround. Now he literally doesn’t have the 15 hundy for a print ad, and only now, since his back is up against the wall, is he realizing that all those print dollars could have had much more impact on the web. Only now is he realizing that he could have spent much less to have been seen by many more people on the web (and I’m not talking about BSRC here, I’m talking about pretty much any rc website).

Anywhos… the bad news isn’t over yet. Sounds like there is going to be a huge announcement in about a month that is going to shake the rc world. But I do believe that if the economy keeps improving, that rc will indeed spring back to life. Numbers sounds like they are slightly up across the board this year, maybe not enough to save some companies, but still up enough to show that there is light at the end of the tunnel. As an average hobbyist, feel free to keep posting loads of rc related stuff to your social media accounts, etc. Every little bit helps.

That’s it ya bunch of lunatics, that’s all I have for ya this week. Feel free to shoot me an email- thecubreportrc at gmail dot com is my addy.

YOUR Cub Reporter