Monster Truck Madness – Monster Mailbag (and Pulling!)

Greetings everyone and Happy Thursday! I received a couple questions via e-mail last week (doug@bigsquidrc.com) that made for good mailbag fodder, so let’s get to ’em.

Hello I’m interested in getting into the pulling truck thing been in RC since the 80s have over 35 Plus vehicles would like to build one from scratch but not sure what chassis to use redcat gen 10 or a Losi drag truck or CENb450. I just don’t know it’s a new avenue for me but it seems pretty cool I’m kind of partial to the two-wheel drive really long pickups maybe you can help me as to what to use or maybe a chassis to buy and then go from there any input would be appreciated thank you.
– Hobie F.

Hey Hobie. Thanks for the e-mail.

R/C Pulling is a lot of fun. I’ve not taken part in it for a couple years as I stepped up from 1/10 to roughly 1/4 scale with garden tractors, but it’s looking like I’m about to get involved in r/c pulling again this winter.

I think you are making the right call of going with a 2WD. They are a ton of fun to drive as they will carry the front end in the air as you go down the track.

Given you have a lot of r/c vehicles and experience in the hobby, I’d recommend jumping right in with a “real” pulling setup versus modifying a scaler or something like an SCT drag truck as I think you’ll have more fun with the build and end result.

Sutton Motorsports & Machine makes some of the best stuff out there. This is the new JAWS 2WD chassis, which was designed to be in similar construction to the 1:1 2WD’s. This chassis bolts up a Redcat Racing Everest 10 or Axial Racing AXIC3488 axle. Hitch is adjustable from 2″-4″. Wheelbase is a fixed 16″ and uses Tamiya front spindles. There are multiple places to hang and stack weights between the 2 weight bars and 3 chassis trays. These are pics of the chassis, including one with a body sitting on it-

If you want some different kind of 2WD fun you could also go with an RH Designs Mini Rod. These are getting very popular in r/c pulling and I’m hoping to build one myself this winter!

Hope that helps!

We are starting a monster truck racing group in Oregon. We like Trigger king’s rules and the youtube videos have been great for ideas. Could you answer a few questions for us? It looks like your jumps are 36″ wide. Is that correct? Your lighting system has red and green lights. The green lights are self explanatory, but  what do you use the red lights for? Do you have any words of advice for use as we try to get a group started?
Glen M.

Hey Glen, thanks for the e-mail. I’ll answer your questions first and then give some advice.

The jumps are indeed 36″ wide. We tried using skinnier jumps in the past to be more scale appropriate, but in practice they wound up being difficult and everyone kept missing ramps. 36″ has been the sweet spot.

We use a very simple starting system of a green/red bulb fixture hooked to a switch to start our races. We have a designated starter that flips the switch and it’s not hooked up to timing. We’ve messed with timing systems before, but with monster truck racing it’s very limiting on track designs as laser traps have to be in a spot that monster trucks only pass through once, and not in the air. We use stopwatches to time qualifying and while it’s not precise, it does a good enough job of separating fast trucks from slower ones. As for the red light, I think you just see us flipping the green back to red during the videos as I know I do this quickly when I work the light, as otherwise I forget and the light will still be green when other trucks pull up to the line!

As for advice, the best I can give is try and start with one type of class so as to have the maximum amount of trucks possible, and go lax on the rules up front as well. Once you have a dedicated group of folks running with you, you can then agree on some rules to tighten things up a bit. Monster truck racing is fun and hopefully it catches on with your gang!

Thanks for the e-mails! If you have a question, shoot an e-mail to me at Doug@bigsquidrc.com.

Until next time, keep it on all 4’s!