THE Cub Report, Version- Imbeciles For Making Atrocious Racing
Hello you bashers, hola members of the rc industry, yes, it’s time for this week’s Cub Report. So many tasty things to talk about this week, where shall I start…
How about those IFMAR Worlds in Japan? Wow, what a long event, it finally got over late last week, surely to the rejoice of the American drivers. Sure, the Americans did great in 2wd, but their utter lack of experience on the AstroTurf came back to bite them during 4wd. We did manage to get two Yanks into the A of 4wd, TLR’s Mayfield (who finished 5th and seriously needs to take a chill pill) and JT (finished 10th) for Kyosho, but when a touring car guy that rarely races off-road smokes the best in the world, that has to tell you something. I hope this year’s Worlds are written off as a huge mistake, it cost the teams a metric s*&t-ton of money to attend (and for one-off works parts), the Turf was a bogus surface, and even the sanctioning body itself had a number of questionable calls. Yo seriously, until the manufacturers speak up and say “Hey, we aren’t cool with what’s going on here and aren’t going to attend anymore!” nothing is going to change. Btw, count me in for ditching the whole current style “World Championship” and doing a MX Des Nations type event once a year. Make it short (like 3 days TOPS), make it meaningful to average hobbyists (race stuff they actually run, like 8th scale buggies and SCTs), and let’er rip.
We put up a post last week about counterfeit Castle motors that are popping up on the net and it seemed to get a lot of people’s attention. Castle certainly isn’t the only company that has been knocked off in this industry, just one of the latest. I’ve had long discussions for years with industry insiders about the douche-bags overseas that copy products then attempt to sell them as being the real thing, but there are no easy answers for stopping the products from being made. All I know is it hurts the good old Americans here trying to put food on their tables, and hurts consumers when the counterfeit products don’t perform well and there is no way to get them fixed when they blow up. Once again, as I’ve said many times, our industry needs a strong trade counsel to work together to help minimize the effects of all the counterfeit product that is hitting the market. Counterfeit product will only become more prevalent until someone steps in to do something about it. How many dollars in sales have to be lost, and more importantly, how many consumers have to be ripped off before our industry starts working together?
By now you have to have seen the new Wasteland series trucks from Dromida. The Dromida 18th scalers have sold like hotcakes since their inception, I can’t wait to see how the Wasteland trucks do. Combining rc with foam rockets is an interesting way to go, will consumers cut the check? We’ll see.
Speaking of cutting the check, now is the time for all you guys that have cried for years about wanting a realistic solid rear axle off-road truck to break out your money. Axial announced their Yeti based Trophy Truck last week, which is yet another very cool release from those guys. It has the scale realism that everybody wants, now it’s time for all those guys that said they wanted one so bad to put one in their rc garage. Oh and… the teasing for that the Trophy Truck was quite unique. Maybe they just wanted to feel out the market to see how much of an interest there is for new age motorcycle, or maybe they were just wanting to create more buzz, but either way, once again Axial did a great job of building up a lot of attention before a new release.
Yes, of course I could go on and on… but I am ending it here. Have a fantastic week and support your local hobby shops and bash spots when ya can.
YOUR Cub Reporter
