Monster Truck Madness – Preparing to Race

Greetings everyone and Happy Thursday!

This picture above of my messy workspace is that of someone preparing to race monster trucks for the first time in 2024 this upcoming weekend!

The Trigger King R/C season kicks off this Sunday in Waterloo, IL, and I’ve got 5 trucks (almost) ready to go. My LMT’s are being run as they were last year- no real changes other than checking bolts and the usual pre-race stuff. If you check out the Monster Truck Madness category on the site, you can read various articles I’ve written about them and the rest of my solid axle fleet.

The trucks that are getting the most work are my two “Sport Modified” class Axial based shaft driven trucks. Our Sport Mod class limits racers to a maximum of two 17t brushed motors. MOA (Clod), shaft drive- all of that is legal as long as you have no more than two motors.

Axial based trucks have typically used a single brushed motor in the past. A lot of them use the AX10/SMT10 transmission, which is set up for a lone motor. Folks that I race with have experimented with dual motor conversions over the years, but last year EVERYONE started doing it to the point where my single mill trucks were at a big disadvantage.

As of the writing of this, I’ve finished the dual motor conversion on both my trucks. I’ll make a standalone how-to post in the near future on how to do this, but wow is it a noticeable thing when you complete the mod.

The top end of the truck doesn’t change really, as you are still limited by the overall gearing/motor rpm as you would be if there was one. Getting up to said top speed is a MUCH quicker process, though. There’s a lot of torque and power on the bottom end!

I still have a lone Retro Clod racer for this year. All I did to it over the off-season was upgrade the servos and tighten nuts/bolts. I am excited to add another one to my fleet later this year, though! Once JConcepts restocks the Regulator chassis, I plan to build a ground up retro racer that utilizes Shapeways parts and some brass goodies.

I plan to bring my Mini-LMT to the race, but we aren’t racing them. At least not this year! It’ll be fun to see how the mini handles a larger monster truck racing course. Up to this point all of my experience with mine has been bashing it around the house.

Alright folks, that’s it for me this week. If you’re interested in racing with us this weekend (or any weekend), feel free to shoot me an e-mail for a track address (Doug@bigsquidrc dot com)- it’s on private land so the address isn’t publicly posted.

Until next time, keep it on all 4’s!