THE Cub Report, 03.18.2012, Version- Take Off Your Pants and Jacket

You, well you might not give a dern about AMA Supercross or Formula 1 racing, but I follow both with a passion. F1 is the most elite form of racing on the planet, hence the reason why I follow it, and Supercross, well I grew up on 2 wheels, racing motocross pretty much every weekend for 25 years. This past weekend marked the season opener for F1 from Australia, and Feld had cut the big check for the Indy round of Supercross to air live on Speed, so I was in hog heaven over the weekend. F1 and Supercross may be at the extreme ends of the racing spectrum, but for my personal viewing pleasure it can Not be any better to have both racing on the same weekend. Oh and Brian, I’m not the only rc’er who’s koo koo for coco puffs for F1 and Supercross, I see comments on both of these forms of racing from nearly rc’er on my Facebook page.

Speaking of my Facebook page… one of my “friends” on Facebook posted a nice rant on the short course truck class being considered the “basher class” at local tracks. If you don’t visit your local track very often, here’s what the rant stemmed from. When the Slash first became popular it brought a lot of new blood into the sport, including new blood to every local track from coast to coast. Many local tracks kept this newly formed “short course truck” class bone stock, using it as a “spec” class of sorts, allowing only the use of the included brushed Traxxas motor, stock tires, stock electronics, etc. Most of these local tracks also allowed rougher driving in this upstart class. Because the Slash wasn’t open wheeled, you could actually lean on another guys truck without instantly causing you both to crash.

Hotshot local “fast guys” wayyyy back in 2008 didn’t look kindly on the newly formed short course truck class, in fact they wanted nothing to do with it, dare I say they even straight up hated the class. For starters the only SCT available at the time was the Traxxas Slash, and in any hotshot local racers opinion, only noobs and red-necks raced anything bearing the Traxxas logo. Their second beef was the new SCT class was a “spec” class, because you were forced to run mainly stock equipment they felt it was beneath them and all their uber batteries and motors. Lastly, how dare anyone even think about bumping/crashing/hacking one of the local fast guys while he’s on his “TQ” run (according them, each of their runs is a TQ run, even in practice or the main).

Fast forward to 2012 and guess what? Local hardcore racer types still hate short course classes and they like to use the term “basher classes” to describe them, using the word “basher” as if it means something negative. I guess to the racer crowd “basher” would have a negative meaning, unfortunately for them that isn’t the case for the vast majority of hobbyists, or for people that actually work in the industry.

If you actually put food on your table by working in the hobby the word basher means “cash money”, which of course is an awesome thing. “Bashers” are 90% of hobbyists, they are the people that keep your LHS doors open, their distributors open, and they make sure the guys at the manufactures continue getting paychecks.

If you are an actual basher the word basher means “fun”. In bashing there is no pressure, there is no need to cut tenths off a lap-time, getting hacked is a plus not a negative, you don’t have to stay up all night gluing tires, there are no $120 entry fees to pay for, and there are no jackasses up on a drivers stand yelling obscenities, all there is is fun.

My point is… some poser-factory-shoe-wanna-be types may attempt to use the term “basher class” in a negative way, but by doing so they only prove how clueless about the hobby they are. Those types have no idea how small rc racing is in the grand scheme of things, no idea what product really keeps the hobby running, no idea what’s actually good for the hobby, and no idea how much fun they are missing out on just to be a medium size fish in an awfully small pond. Maybe someday they’ll get a clue and figure out that the “basher class” actually means “the fun class”, till then they deserve to miss out on the fun.

That’s it for this week ya bunch of hooligans, support your LHS, tracks and local bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter