THE Cub Report- Shoot It Out

Hello to one and all, welcome to another Cub Report. Last week was a huge one here at BigSquidRC as our 1.9″ RTR scale crawler shootout finally went live. Needless to say, reaction across the web was rather epic.

Ya, ya, I’ve been forwarded the threads and various email chains, our shootout brought out a lot of emotion in people, which was awesome. There was lots of love, and even more Hate, but at the end of the day, I was stoked how it turned out. Nope, there were no “payoffs”, there was no bullying, there was no fake or made up numbers, which is probably disappointing news to some, but it’s just how we operate around here.

I did find it interesting the number of “OMG, I can’t believe Happy Flower crawler company finished 4th in the XYZ category! That’s impossible, I have one and it is the best there is!”. Ya know, that’s pretty much exactly what we thought too when we initially tested most of those shootout trucks. Each one kept on impressing, making it over obstacles that we never thought a RTR could get over. That’s exactly the reason for our shootout. Only, and I can’t stress that enough, ONLY when you get all 6 together, bone stock, and test them in identical conditions, can you really tell the small differences in performance.

Also, like in all our other shootouts, one of the first thing people go after is the categories. Ya know, we have literally spent years on those categories, I can assure you, they are very carefully selected. Did we really need features? You are kidding me right, features sell a LOT of cars. Did we need speed? Not if all we were doing was crawling, but we were doing trail driving too, a place where I can assure you a couple extra MPH can make all the difference between making it over a hill, and tumbling back down to the bottom. Looks? Of course! A lot of trucks are bought strictly on looks. Like mentioned on a couple of different forums/FB groups, we have tossed around a “Aftermarket Upgrade” category for a while, it was not used in the scaler shootout because most wheels, tires, bodies, and bumpers are fairly interchangeable on crawlers. Basically, if every truck in the shootout didn’t already have hundreds of wheel/tire/body/bumper options on the aftermarket, that category would have been in the shootout.

All in all, the shootout has produced some pretty crazy site traffic, even more than we expected, which is awesome not just for us, but all the manufacturers too. After all, at the end of the day, a good shootout is about exposure for all the brands included, lucky for us, we had six outstanding trucks to argue the finer points over. As a consumer you guys are truly lucky people, you could blindly pick any of the trucks from the shootout and end up with an outstanding rig, there was a time in rc when that definitely would NOT have been the case.

In other news…

We have talked about doing our annual “Bash Vehicle of the Year” award a bit differently this year. For 2017 we are most likely going to be posting a top 5, with fifth going up one day, fourth the next, until the winner is posted. Last week we held a four hour meeting going over our top 5 picks from ’17, we are still arguing over the order of the top 5. We have had years where only one truck really stood out, 2017 is NOT that kind of year. You’ve got trucks like the Traxxas 8S X-Maxx that is pretty much the epitome of what an uber high-end bash machine should be. You’ve got the Pro-Line PRO-MT 4×4 which just might be the best bash oriented vehicle produced, ever. You’ve got the ’18 edition of the ARRMA Talion, which, thanks to numerous small revisions is incredibly durable while being insanely quick. Then there is the Dromida FPV Monster Truck. I don’t think our review has gone live yet, but the little Dromida is quite a game changer with its easy to use (and affordable) full FPV system that comes stock. Then there’s the Losi Desert Buggy XL-E which is straight up a full on bashing BEAST. And… I could go on and on. So many great vehicles, so little room at the top.

OK folks, I’ve drug this on long enough, that’s all I have in me this week. Until next Monday, please try and support your local hobby shops and bash spots when ya can.

YOUR Cub Reporter