THE Cub Report, Version – Squid Defined

Hello to everyone out in rc land, welcome to this week’s Cub Report. I am finally recovering from all the excitement around A1 where The Suit K-Roc took the win in dominating fashion, backing up that he can wear whatever he wants to press conferences. The Dunge put in a solid ride, Marvin was hot on his heels, and El Hombre also put in a solid 20 minutes plus 1 lap. If you are into moto, there is nothing like the excitement generated at A1 with all the guys on their new rides, loads of new apparel, and typically a shake-up in who is truly fast. San Diego goes off this Saturday night, it starts at 9 pm central time, if you are up, try to catch it and see how the mx/sx biz is doing.

During an intermission while we were watching A1, Iron Mikeee, who is a long time BSRC reviewer, asked me about the origins of our website’s name, BigSquidRC. If you didn’t know, the name originates from when Brian was a kid in school. Brian and some of his friends would call each other squids. They used it as a term of endearment, sorta like how myself and my classmates used the word “geek”. When I saw someone in the hallway in high school that I was a friend with, I would call them a geek. And not geek meaning “really into computers”, or geek as in “sideshow freak”, but geek as in “Yo bro what’s up”. That’s kinda how Brian and his friends used the word squid.

Now some people think of the word squid as an animal that lives in the sea. Because I was always into motocross, I grew up with the word meaning “dork” or “nerd”. In my world all the cool guys raced with JT or Fox gear, all the squids were sporting Ocelot. Squids out on the mx track also tended to overshoot corners, panic rev all the way around the track, and ride with a style that was right out of Roger De Coster’s first season on the Grand Prix circuit.

Fast forward to my first day with BigSquidRC… so I started working for a company who’s name essentially meant “big dork” to me. Big dork rc, really? That’s when I found out that not everyone on the planet related the word squid to dork. Still, I had a hard time wrapping my head around working for a website with such a name.

Fast forward a couple more years and I finally learned my lesson on what the name BigSquidRC really meant, to me at least. Because I come from a racing background, it took me a long while to finally see what was up in the basher market. All my life the dinosaur media and even the on-line sites were all about racing. Before BigSquidRC, there just weren’t any big places on the web that were pushing products for bashers. For the most part, if you were basher, you were “less” of a hobbyist than someone who raced. If you bashed, you were out of your mind, you didn’t know what you were missing down at the local track. When people would talk about bashers or bashing, even from people inside the industry, they were shunned. Bashers were the black sheep of the rc industry.

But then in 2004, here we came with our website, shouting at the top of our lungs that it isn’t shameful to bash. Finally there was a voice for all those hobbyists that couldn’t care less about racing, all they wanted to do was have fun with their buddies in the backyard. Finally there was a voice to tell the masses that indeed they far outnumbered the racing crowd, and to tell them that we are all just playing with toy cars so we shouldn’t be taking anything too seriously.

So after all these years of learning/working/being around bashers, I have a whole new definition for BigSquidRC. I see the name more as a term that says “We are the proud backyard bashers who have been shunned for far too long!”. Finally it has become acceptable to bash and finally bashers can get real bashing news, not a daily feed of racing being pushed down their throats.

So there it is for this week. Thanks for reading and as always get out and support your local hobby shops and bash spots when ya can.

YOUR Cub Reporter