Drift Itch – Has RC Drift become a fashion show?

I know, I know, you’re probably scoffing at the title and just peeking in to see what meaningless babble I have for this week. To be honest I have not been babbling much at all. I had my wisdom teeth out recently and it is no joke. A week long Oxycodone bender with a lot of couch time playing video games sums it up hazily. I finished MadMax on the PS4 but I have to play it again because I don’t remember any of it. I hope I enjoy it the second time around. I guess that means I get double the value?

“Value” Thats the segue I picked and I’m holding on to it for dear life. How much “Value” are we getting out of our hard earned dollars for some of these modern drift chassis. It seems that if you aren’t running a super trick custom built billet aluminum rig these days….well you’re just not hard core; or that is the perception. Now I know you can dump a couple of hundred dollars into scaling out that FT86 shell with Rocket Bunny body kit and that can be spendy, but it isn’t really any comparison to what some of these chassis manufacturers are asking for a kit.

Companies like MST and Overdose can command 6-700 dollars for a slider alone. These kind of prices make top level 10th scale race cars look like toy grade RC cars in the cost category. It’s borderline insanity when you sit back and think about it; or is it genius? They have us on the hook and they know it. We just ache to have the trickest looking car in the crew. Sure they offer plastic versions that are more affordable but who wants that? Not when all this tasty custom goodness is there for the taking  buying. I don’t think anyone questions the quality you’re getting when you plunk down the cheddar for one of these, but do we all need one? I look at drift groups on FaceBook and it’s almost like every person out there is driving the most tricked out top of the line stuff there is. Maybe these guys are just the ones showing off their stuff,  and as someone who has dropped a good amount of cash on a chassis in the past I can certainly identify with the desire. But I have to ask myself about the precedent it sets with new comers to the hobby.

So picture if you will you will the drift new comer shows up to the track or meet or whatever with his brand new HPI sprint 2. He sets up his pit area and then begins to walk around looking at everyone else’s stuff. He sees plenty of bling, custom built rigs, crazy anodized aluminum and carbon. None of this resembles his new car at all. Does this wet his appetite to think “man i’m going to have one like this someday!” Or is he discouraged and wonder why he even showed up.  What he probably thinks is you guys are crazy for spending this much coin on a toy drift car – But I digress.

It’s your passion folks and exploit it to its fullest, but we as a community of drifters should foster the idea that you don’t need this stuff to have a good time. I’ve been on my soap box called Drift Itch for a while evangelizing for the good of the drift movement. That is because I want to see this segment grow. I want every major city to have a drift venue and I want every RC manufacturer to be tripping over themselves to put out products for drift enthusiasts to gobble up. That means continually bringing new people in to see just how cool RC Drift really is! I think we are on the right track, I just don’t want to lose sight of that fact that we are here to drift and have a good time, not try and impress everyone with our disposable income.

So what do you guys think? Post up your thoughts on our FaceBook page or just share some pics of your not totally blinged out drift rigs. I want to see the blue collar working drifter who is running take offs from his buddies rig, or who converted their retired tourer to worship in the church of drift. Those dirty, rode hard, high milage pure drift for the sake of drift rigs that get driven, not admired.

Thanks for hanging out with me guys, catch you on the next one.

-Evol

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