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Losing grip – Return to rear geometry
Today I’ll continue my endeavour to explain rear geometry, an enterprise that is quite the challenger, but the effort luckily rewards me with one geometric discovery after the other. Ha! Hands up if you saw what I just did? Two missing, true, but since they are verbs rather than nouns, I consider myself excused. But I digress. It happens. Well, as [...]
- 9/30/2020
- 2:35 pm
- Loosing Grip
RC Drifting - By: Martin
Losing grip – Parallell A-arms? I think not.
Today I am going straight to the topic: why are upper and lower A-arms never parallell? Previously, I have written about how camber gain when the car squats, depending on upper arm angle and upper arm length. The short story is that a short upper arm means more camber gain with squat (acceleration), a long upper arm less. More upper [...]
- 9/28/2020
- 1:04 pm
- Loosing Grip
RC Drifting - By: Martin
Losing grip – On competitions
G’day mates! Long time no write, I apologize, yet hope that you have missed my column a lot. If so, why don’t you drop me an email at martin at bigsquidrc dot com, and let me know what’s on in that part of your brain that’s dedicated to RC? Regarding the tardiness of this column, all I have to say is [...]
Losing grip – Bodies teased by MST
G’day fellow drifters and RC enthusiasts! In my last column, I just couldn’t refrain from commenting on MST’s latest high-end premium chassis, the FMX 2.0 LCG KMW, today I just can’t refrain from commenting on what their latest teaser. I just saw it, and while I usually don’t get particularly excited by excited by pre-production pics like these, now I [...]
- 9/2/2020
- 11:32 am
- Loosing Grip
RC Drifting - By: Martin
Losing grip – Blinded by the bling
”The battery holder is in plastic”. While this statement is pretty far from the official description of this chassis, it is a very apt way of summarazing the design of MST’s FMX 2.0 LCG KMW. I have tried not to, but it really is impossible to refrain from commenting on a chassis that forces you to squint when you look [...]
- 8/31/2020
- 12:58 pm
- Loosing Grip
RC Drifting - By: Martin
Losing grip – Being rational on rotational inertia
In the never ending pursuit of speed, Control and precision, lightweight front axles entered the game a little while ago. The theory is that shaving off (rotational) weight improves acceleration – the wheels spin easier, which in turns improves handling. A lot of you readers will be familiar with the 1:2 ratio: shaving a pound from the tires is the [...]
Losing grip – Lucky Americans
Yo! G’day mate! What’s up bro’! Hej! How do you do, Sir? If you’re preferred greeting is along the lines of “Yo!”, rather than “Hej!”, you’re probably American, and when it comes to RC, you’re lucky. Do you realize just how lucky you Americans are, when it comes to RC? Probably not, so let me tell you. As per routine, [...]
Losing grip – YD-2 Beast Mode
The most exciting release from any of the big drift manufacturers the past few weeks has been a magnetic body mount from MST. In other words: things are pretty quiet. But it has to be said that MST’s body mount set looks quite nice, way simpler than the ones I have, and simple tends to be good. Still, not overly [...]
- 8/10/2020
- 5:05 pm
- Loosing Grip
RC Drifting - By: Martin
Losing Grip – Hall of Fame: Teppei Makimoto
Last week I promised to show you some amazing builds, and true to my word, I will. Earlier, I have featured works by Vivian Grobler and Thirdie Lopez, today I make the first installment of Losing Grip’s official Hall of Fame. How to go about finding great builders? Well, easy, it is 2020 and we have Facebook. I asked a [...]
- 7/30/2020
- 2:01 pm
- Loosing Grip
RC Drifting - By: Martin
Losing grip – On convicts and commitment
I have had the good fortune of spending eighteen months of my career in a position where I was flying around in a helicopter as my main mode of transportion. Some 250 return trips and rougly one hundred thousand miles flown, meant that I got to listen to pilot’s chatter quite a bit. See, I was sitting in the back, [...]
- 7/23/2020
- 5:48 pm
- Loosing Grip
RC Boats
RC Drifting - By: Martin
Losing grip – on liquid mask
One thing (at least) you got to give Doug – the Monster Truck guy – and that is that he is very, very productive. That dude is producing solid axle monster trucks at an incredible rate! Clod this, clod that, all of them really good looking and most of them green. I wish I could spit out drifters at just [...]
- 7/18/2020
- 11:15 pm
- Loosing Grip
RC Drifting - By: Martin
Losing grip – RC and utilitarianism
”Utilitarianism” is not a tongue-twister first and foremost, but a book published by the British philosopher John Stuart Mill in 1863. It is one of the most influential philosophical works of the nineteenth century, and is still frequently quoted. Sometimes in even places as random as columns on RC drifting, something I am positively certain Mr Mills never would have [...]
Losing grip – Gone sailing
Is it reasonable to expect that the writer of a drift column called “Losing grip” will never stray from the intended course? Of course not. Travelling in one direction, but with the nose occasionally pointing in another is the very essence of drifting, isn’t it? I hope Brian will forgive me this transgression, but considering that he so far has [...]
- 7/6/2020
- 10:47 am
- Loosing Grip
RC Boats
RC Drifting - By: Martin
Losing Grip – Gone cheesy
Did you watch the video Traxxas released for Father’s Day, almost two weeks ago? This one. On Father’s Day, as it were. I usually watch every Traxxas video as soon as I see them anounced on BigSquid, but not this one. The title was just a tad too cheesy for me: ”Dad & Daughter TRX-4 Hill Climb”. Too obvious. Dad [...]
- 6/29/2020
- 1:19 pm
- Loosing Grip
RC Drifting - By: Martin
Losing grip – Sakura D5S
Would you believe it? 3Racing has announced a new kit, and today exactly one year has passed since the very first Losing Grip column! I will let you decide which one of the two events is the most significant. In a way, I am leaning towards the first one because the D4 is a legend, but then on the other [...]
- 6/19/2020
- 6:15 pm
- Loosing Grip
RC Drifting - By: Martin
