Losing grip – YD-2SX III
A couple of grand things has happened this week, Brian has setup an official BigSquid email for me, so should you want it, you can write to me at martin at bigsquidrc dot com. Also, my wife read one of my columns, for the first time ever. She got hooked by the quote by Shakespeare and couldn’t help but continuing reading. Thirdly, my wife actually drove one of my cars a Little, and realised it actually was quite fun! If we continue in this pace, I’ll have her hooked within a decade.
Getting my wife hooked on drifters would probably be detrimental to my economy in general, but beneficial to my monthly hobby allotment. Were that the case, I could go get myself things like the newly released Yokomo YD-2SX III. Yes, that’s a third letter “I”, and that letter gives you a curved steering slide rack, a front bulkhead that is fully loaded with aluminum parts, and a graphite main chassis and upper deck. I’ve been waiting for that upper deck, it has been standard on MST for a long time. As far as I can tell, they have taken things that previously were available only as option parts, and packed them into a kit. Also available in red and purple. Yokomo style. Convenient, if not revolutionary. Forgive me if I don’t get overly excited. That’s why it doesn’t count as the fourth grand thing of the week. A YD-3SX definitively would.
But nonetheless: it’s hi-tech, it’s shiny, it’s available in purple – what more could a I ever want? At 550 dollars, it is not cheap, but a good deal. Were I to buy a new drift chassis today – and I would if I could raise the money – this is what I would get. I prefer the body roll you get with the higher motor mount of the SX, compared to the more speed-oriented rear motor version RX. The only gripe would be the slide rack steering. While this does give more neutral steering characteristics (and probably less slop than my current setup), it is probably not as resistant to abuse as a conventional system. I drift mostly on asphalt, and I imagine that a grain of dirt in the rack could cause some trouble. Can’t have it all, sadly.
Of much less significance than this new kit, is that one of the front wheel hubs on my MST RMX is broken. No perpetrator has been prosecuted yet, but I suspect one of my children dropped it on the floor. Very unfortunate. With shipping times for spare parts being ridiculous, and my real job getting ever busier, I don’t think I’ll see it up and running in months. So, should you be reading this and have a couple of Yd-2SX III’s laying around (I’m looking at you, rcmart), feel free to send one this way. If not, I’ll just stick with my Yokomo. I can’t drive two cars at the same time anyway, and I am stronger than my children, so I can steal the transmitter from them at anytime.
A short one this week, but life’s a bit busy presently. Now please go ahead and read another column, or write me a couple of lines and let me know how your drifting is going. martin at bigsquidrc dot com.
Stay safe!
PS. I almost forgot. Brian forwarded a question regarding the Simpsons wrap of Thirdie’s GT, that was featured in this column. This was a one-off custom job, part stickers, part hand painted details (the heads at the rear). Hence there’s nowhere those stickers can be bought, but Thirdie of Skunkworks Customs might be able to do a second car like it just for you.
