THE Cub Report – Conspiracy of One

Well hello there rc fans, welcome to this week’s Cub Report. Truthfully, I don’t remember how long the CR has been around, perhaps one of you super fans can look it up, but for a whole bunch of years THE Cub Report has been kick’n off your week with rc talk, rumors, and outright smack talk. Btw, bonus points to you if you’ve been reading since the CR went live on Friday’s.

I can not write the CR this week without touching on the Feld Monster Energy Supercross finale in Las Vegas over the weekend. I’ve been saying that the 17′ SX season has been one of the best of all time and I think Saturday night helped cement it as the best, or at the very least, top 3. Starting off the season K-Roc had the title all wrapped up. Then he got busted up and Dungey had it locked. Then ET3 went on a roll and he absolutely had the title in hand. Then… Tomac had a serious case of brain fade leaving it all up for grabs in Vegas Saturday night. Tomac did everything he could do to win the title, but ultimately it was The Diesel who took home the crown. Ryan Dungey simply has better race craft and has perfected the science of what it takes to bring home the number 1 plate for a series. Props to Dungey for doing what he does, props to Tomac for keeping it interesting, and props to Feld & Monster Energy for making it all happen.

And… that was just the 450 class. The 250s were just as exciting, if not more so. Zach Osborne put in a ride that will be talked about for decades to come as he took home the win in the east coast 250 class. After picking himself up off the ground in the first corner, “Ozzy” Osbourne pushed his Husky 250 to the very outer limits of speed to finally reel in Joey “Hooters” Savatgy with two turns to go in the race. Ozzy put Joey into the dirt and rode away to take his first major title. It was the ride of a lifetime, the type of ride that every mini-rider dreams about being able to pull off when they get older. In closing, SX was epic this year, let the outdoors begin! Redbud!!!

Ya know, there is a great reason that Chevy is involved in NASCAR, and Ferrari in F1, and KTM in Supercross. If you are living in a different dimension than us, it is quite simply $$$. For example, the outstanding season that Supercross had will actually sell bikes. The SX season has a lot of people talking, and watching, and generally it just got former and current riders fired up, some of which will be heading out to their local dealer with checkbook in hand to buy a new bike.

Unfortunately rc racing at this point is so old and flawed that it simply doesn’t really help to sell cars anymore. I’ve talked to numerous makers and shakers that have nearly given up on the entire rc racing segment. Those people probably would have given up by now because of the economics of it, but have not thanks simply to them personally not wanting to see rc car racing die off completely.

As I see it, there are two massive, glaring issues with rc racing. The first is personality. What’s that? Do you think everyone piled into the stadium in Vegas to see Kawasaki vs KTM? No, people showed up to watch Tomac vs Dungey. They came to see Chad Reed bust out some fast laps, they came to see the guys in the 250 East vs West shootout. While our industry does a solid job of promoting race cars, it does a poor job of promoting their paid factory racers. For a Joe Blow to care about rc racing, he has to care about the actual racers. After all, racing is just as much soap opera as it is racing, and it’s the soap opera part that makes people really care. Given proper marketing, the Joe Blows will care enough to head down to their LHS and cut a check to drive the same thing that their favorite racer is winning with on Sunday.

The second issue is truly a debacle, the lack of a top notch professional series. Does NASCAR have a series? Does F1? What about Supercross? Yes, yes, and YES! A race series is great at drawing Average Joes deeper into the sport. It gets people to check out the racing news on a weekly, daily, or even hourly basis, all without the need of having to cut Facebook some ridiculously sized checks. To get people to buy race cars, they simply have to care, and a series is fantastic at doing that.

So here I sit, still in awe of what went down in Sam Boyd Stadium over the weekend, biting at the bit to check out some new motorcycles. I also sit here torqued off at how the people behind rc racing never change a thing, no matter how bad turnouts get or how low sales plummet.

To get to the stars, you have to actually reach for them first…

So there it is folks, yet another Cub Report is finished. As I like to always say, get out and support your local hobby shops and bash spots when ya can.

YOUR Cub Reporter