THE Cub Report, Version- Uhn Tiss Uhn Tiss Uhn Tiss
Hello everyone, you’ve found this week’s Cub Report, where the insiders go to get their water cooler fodder and consumers come to get their rage material.
Probably just like you, we’ve got another busy going on around the lavishly plush BSRC offices. Myself, Brian, T-Money and Hawaiian Chris are in Lincoln Nebraska starting on Tuesday for the HobbyTown USA national convention. With there being no iHobby this year (Facepalm at how that show went down the drain) the HobbyTown convention could possibly be the most important surface show in the USA this year. Most of the “big” names will be there showing off loads of cool new products and we’ve even got a special surprise planned for the Pro-Line crew (Brian’s phone rings in 3… 2…. 1….). As the HobbyTown show is industry only, we’ll be posting what we are allowed to post (and drooling over the stuff that we can’t). Expect lots of quad news from the show with a couple of surface kickers.
Our own Adam The Intern is also on the road this week headed to AxialFest out in California. Adam is gnar-core into the scale/crawling scene and will post up all the scoops and action from Axialfest next week. The scale/trail/crawl scene continues to do well at hobby shops and those style of events really suit the “just wanna have fun out in mother nature” rc crowd. I am actually amazed that the trail/crawl genre has stayed around like it has, but I think the majority of its success can be aimed squarely at the hardcore crew at Axial who live the lifestyle and keep pushing just how fun that type of rc’ing can be (AxialFest is a great example).
The Orion dDrive 2-N-1 brushless system is setting the internet on fire. Some people love it (read- bashers who don’t know how to solder and the scaler crowd that is looking to save room), while other (racers and more tech oriented drivers) are going into full on meltdowns. I see it this way- at the very least it helps put Orion on the basher map.
Orion has concentrated their efforts at the high-end racing crowd forever, so much so that the typical basher that I meet out in the field doesn’t even know they exist. The dDrive is getting so much play on the web that suddenly people who never knew Orion even existed are lining up to get one. And while I hope that they sell a bunch, so many that Orion is shocked at the buying power of the basher crowd, I am not a fan of integrating a bunch of electronics into one shell. “Hobby Grade” means something, it means the ability to get replacement or upgrade parts, even individual pieces of electronics. I am not a fan of having to replace a motor when just the ESC has gone out, but the writing is on the wall, many consumers don’t want to take the time to learn how to solder and would jump at the chance to buy an affordable motor/esc combo that is completely plug and play.
Also in product news… Tamiya announced a Volkswagen Amarok on their CC01 chassis last week. Ya know, product announcements like that make my brain want to explode. The Tamiya V-Dub is a sharp looking vehicle that unfortunately sits on a horribly dated and under-tech’ed platform. Ya, I know it’s aimed at noobs, but what noob wants his trick looking body sitting on top of a pile-of-garbage platform? And that’s for the very few noobs that are actually willing to lift a wrench to assemble a kit, most will simply skip it all together and buy a RTR. Hey, I gotta applaud Tamiya for continuing to put out kits aimed at noobs, but I know damn well they aren’t going to sell (not here in the States anyways).
That’s it for this week, look for our HobbyTown coverage to start on Wednesday and for Adam’s Axialfest coverage next week. Oh and, don’t forget to support your local hobby shops and bash spots when ya can!
YOUR Cub Reporter
