THE Cub Report, 09.05.2010- Version Rest In Peace Shoya Tomizawa

I don’t know how many of you rc guys follow Moto GP, but they lost a great rider, and a wonderful human being, yesterday during the San Marino Grand Prix in Shoya Tomizawa. In real full scale racing, you put your life on the line every time you swing a leg over, my heart is filled with great sadness that Shoya is no longer showing us his great skill on this Earth.

Ya, sucks starting out a Cub Report on a downer, but life is full of ups and downs, and the bad news about Shoya is the heaviest thing on my mind right now.

But, there is some good bike news from last week. Most people know Team Associated has long time ties with the American Honda motocross team. Last week, Honda held a press introduction for the 2011 CRF450R at MC’s ranch in SoCal and Associated was there in force with some very trick short course trucks for the moto mags to drive around. Props to the big AE for their cross marketing.

Also in rc news- this one does not go down as fiction, nor wishful thinking or rumor. Sooner rather than later you will be running a liquid cooled brushless motor in your rc car. They’ve done it for years in rc boats, expect to see legit liquid cooling systems for the rc surface crowd introduced at the iHobby expo in October. Brushless motors have done wonders for the electric side of the hobby, liquid cooling them will open all new doors to power and reliability. They say water and electronics do not mix, but in this case they are a match made in heaven. I for one am truly looking forward to not having to worry about overheating my brushless motors.

On a different note…

I have a son getting ready to turn “racing age”, his birthday is next weekend and he’s turning 6. Every dad wants his son to do what he is most interested in, and my son is pretty stoked about anything with wheels. So I got to thinking, do I want to help “encourage” him to race motorcycles? How about carts? Or how about rc? Well I’ve raced all three, and been lucky enough to see what’s at the “end of the rainbow” in two of those forms of racing through friends. Motocross requires years of physical training, years of riding, a decent chunk of cash, various injuries and the potential for loss of limb and/or life. If you make it to the top of the motocross heap, you’ve spent your time in various hospitals with injuries, but are looking at a 7 (or 8) figure income to ease your pain. Rc requires countless hours of wrenching and at the track, thankfully there is zero time in the hospital, but if you are lucky enough to get to the very top of the rc heap the financial rewards aren’t quite so bank busting. There are a whole lot of guys that never get a dime for making the A-main at a ROAR national. The top 3 racers in rc, arguably Drake, Tebo and Cavalieri, make more than all the rest combined. Now if rc racing was “all about fun”, the lack of money wouldn’t really matter much, but even the smallest sh!t-kicker weekly race has turned into a miniature national, at least in attitude. Truth be told, I’m ashamed of the rc hobby as I don’t feel I can take my son to even a local race without him being verbally attacked by some over zealous sh!t-kicker racer. I’ll think I’d rather see him race motocross and do all the worrying and hospital visits over the moral deformation my son would suffer for just being a kid at a local rc track.

That’s it for this week….

YOUR Cub Reporter