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Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! As I sit here in the middle of building my JConcepts Reactor (more on that over in the revived Monster Truck Madness series – article 1 goes live within a couple days), it got me thinking about something I’ve noticed over the years. When it comes to this hobby, I can be a bit of [...]
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! First things first—my JConcepts Reactor has arrived, and I’m already well into the build. I’ll be diving deep into that in a series of upcoming posts, breaking down the build process, setup decisions, and everything that comes with it. But for now, just know that progress is underway… and I’ve got some diffs waiting for [...]
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! Well, it finally happened—I’ve got a 13” wheelbase JConcepts Reactor on the way. After a couple weeks of going back and forth (and missing the first batch thanks to a bit too much indecision), I was able to get in on the next round. So now the real fun begins. As you might expect, once it [...]
Greetings all and Happy Friday! With the announcement and release of the JConcepts Reactor, I’ve found myself going back and forth… and then back again… on what exactly I want to do with mine. When I first learned about the Reactor, I had a pretty straightforward plan. I was going to build it as a standard Retro monster truck racer—Clod Buster-sized, 10.75” [...]
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! You know, as I sit here trying to figure out what JConcepts Reactor I want to build (short or long wheelbase?)—and then going down the rabbit hole of what body, what tires, what direction I want to take it (more on that in a future write-up once I actually decide)—it got me thinking about [...]
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! I spent most of this week traveling, which meant a little more downtime than usual—and as is often the case, that turned into a bit of “talking R/C” with friends of mine online. In doing so, a longtime racer friend of mine FINALLY said he wanted to buy a scale crawler. This is someone that [...]
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! There’s been a steady stream of retro releases in the r/c world over the last few years, and for good reason. Nostalgia sells, and a lot of us enjoy revisiting the platforms we grew up with—whether that’s through re-releases, throwback liveries, or modern takes on classic designs. And overall, I think that’s a great thing [...]
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! Every so often in this hobby, someone will pop into a comment section or forum thread and ask a question that seems perfectly reasonable on the surface: “Why are they still making that?” It usually comes up when talking about platforms like the Tamiya Clod Buster, the Lunch Box, the Traxxas Stampede, or a handful of [...]
Hello all and Happy Friday! Welcome to The Backyard! Here’s a question I’ve been asking myself lately: why is it that I just can’t seem to get into R/C boats? Because the weird thing is, I actually like boats. Quite a bit, really. Just maybe not in the way the R/C boat market typically leans. For starters, I’ve always had a soft spot [...]
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! Earlier this week, a little corner of the r/c internet went dark — and for a brief moment, many of us thought it was gone for good. RCCrawler.com’s forums went offline, and initial word from the site admins suggested that was all she wrote. Years of posts, build threads, tech advice, and hobby history… potentially [...]
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! I’ve come to accept something about myself over the years — when it comes to power systems, I’m generally a pretty conservative guy. I don’t automatically go for the biggest/highest KV motor that my vehicle can safely handle. I’m not usually chasing the highest cell count an ESC can tolerate. Most of my trucks are [...]
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! The recently updated Traxxas Stampede is actually what got me thinking about this week’s topic. Traxxas quietly refreshed the truck with proper chevron monster truck tires — and not just any chevrons, but ones that actually look like scaled-down versions of full-size monster truck rubber. Tall sidewalls. Aggressive V-pattern tread. Proper proportions. It finally [...]
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! Settle in, all ye monster truck faithful, because this week I want to spend some time talking about one of the most interesting announcements we’ve seen in a while — the newly revealed JConcepts Reactor Retro Stage II Monster Truck. After years of releasing aftermarket accessories for the solid-axle r/c monster truck world, the folks [...]
Greetings all, and Happy Friday! Welcome to The Backyard. The Nuremberg International Toy Fair is officially in the books, and as always, it brought a flood of new R/C announcements with it. There were plenty of on-road cars, off-road racers, and competition-focused machines unveiled over the past week — and while all of that is cool, longtime readers know I’m a [...]
Greetings all, and Happy Friday! As winter weather is about to wallop a good portion of the U.S., I find myself hunkered down in the workshop, coffee in hand, doing what many of us do this time of year: scouring the internet for release news ahead of the Nuremberg International Toy Fair, which opens next week. One of the first big pieces [...]
