ASK Cubby, Version- It’s Thursday & Here Are Your Letters

“IFMAR

Hey Cubby,

Just read your report on the IFMAR race. You rant makes sense to me. I follow the race on other sites, and look at the pics. It’s very interesting. I found a video interview of the owner for J concepts (you can delete the name of company if you want). I use their products and like them. However, in the interview he spoke of making a new low slung body for the prototype B5M with “laydown” transmission, and said that they made a body specially for Mayfield’s TLR prototype car and had it painted and flown in to Japan for the race. Wow! I want to know where I can get a “laydown” transmission for my B5M as i do not have a 3D printer or a machine shop, and molding equipment. None of these cars are available to the public, nor will they ever be unless most of the tracks in the USA start to convert over to turf (not happening any time soon). Kyosho brought 4 different cars with them for Tebo to see which is the fastest. No offense to Tebo, he’s great racer, but are there any production cars there?

In closing, I thought the biggest race in the world of RC is supposed to be what is available now to the hobbyist. I want to buy what the pro’s race and win with, but i can’t. I guess it makes sense to design custom parts for a race once every two years depending on the track surface. Once again, you hit the nail on the head!

I got to go try and make my own “laydown” transmission now, or fly to Japan to swift through the trash at the end of the race to see if any of “those” parts ended up there.

Steve”

Cubby- Yo, how now Steve, thanks for the email and be sure to shoot me your snail mail for the hook-up on a BSRC sticker pack.

And I hear ya Steve on all the works parts being used at the worlds. Hey, I dig esoteric parts as much as the next guy, just not when used in rc car racing’s premier event. Absolutely, every piece used to win the IFMAR Worlds should be readily available to general consumers, but that is certainly not the case this year. The whole turf thing is asinine, it is a ridiculous surface to hold the Worlds on (WTF, gonna use fly paper 2 years from now???), and it forces many of the teams to come up with a bunch of crazy parts for essentially one race. That makes it even more expensive for the teams, then after the winners have been crowned, none of that marketing trickles down to an average consumer. Lose/lose is not an optimal set-up for what should be a fantastic marketing opportunity for our hobby.

“ARRMA Kraton

Have you heard of any future aftermarket support for the Arrma Kraton? I have really enjoyed my Kraton and am disappointed that no company has supported this vehicle. I believe that there would be a market for it… As it did win the Big Squid RC March Bash-Ness contest. Personally, I have not been able to find anything online about this topic and thought you might have heard something in your circles. Thanks!

John K.”

Cubby- Ya know John, with as many Kratons and Talions as there are out in the world, you would think someone like STRC, Boom Racing, etc, would have jumped on that bandwagon and made some bling parts, but that isn’t the case (yet). Xtreme Racing has done carbon fiber towers for the Talion, but other than that, I haven’t heard of any other hop-up parts. People who are proud owners of a new truck love to hop them up and hop-up parts are generally very high profit items for a company, you’d think somebody out there would be wanting to cash in on the success of the ARRMA line. Heck, I’d like to see Hobbico use their Duratrax brand to do aftermarket/accessory parts for ARRMA, Axial, etc, but then, that is just a dream of mine. Thankfully for you The Kraton is pretty dialed out of the box. Put on some uber Pro-Line wheels & tires and that truck is ready for just about anything.

So there ya have it, yet another edition of ASK Cubby. Hit me up at thecubreportrc at gmail dot com. I’ll read your letters/questions/rants and the very best will get published on our front page. If your letter makes the big show you’ll get a free sticker packs (provided you send me your snail mail) and once a month a “Letter of the Month” winner will get dialed with a free BSRC t-shirt.

YOUR Cub Reporter