A MOMENT WITH MIKE: Failing into Winter

0 Nov. 6, 2018, 11:52 a.m.

Main Photo: A MOMENT WITH MIKE: Failing into Winter

By Mike Garrison
LiveRC.com

A Moment with Mike is a weekly opinion column where LiveRC’s Mike Garrison gives his take on hot-button issues, general topics, and conversations within the RC industry. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of LiveRC.

While it may technically be autumn, the temperatures here in the mid-west are feeling more and more like winter every day. For most of us, winter time here means the end for outdoor 1/8-scale racing and the beginning for indoor 1/10-scale racing. This weekend I am attending the JConcepts Winter Invitational and Indoor Shootout at Fastlane Raceway, which will be my first major 1/10-scale race of the “winter” season. In my last-minute efforts to put together a new 2wd buggy, convert my 4wd buggy back from a carpet to dirt setup, paint new bodies, glue tires, locate transponders, cycle batteries, re-wire my cars, change motors, and overall prepare for the weekend – I have had my fair share of “fails” this week.

A few of my fails already this week include:

Not changing my charge settings from 4S to 2S and exploding my favorite battery.
Dropping my brand-new body with wet paint in a spider web full of bugs.
Gluing a complete set of tires to my wife’s kitchen table.
Overtightening and stripping the threads on my motor screws.
Folding over and sticking a brand-new chassis protector to itself while trying to put it on.
Completely re-wiring my car only to find out the wires are too short.
Not latching the lid to my screw box before throwing it back in my bag.
And the list goes on...

These are just a FEW of my fails this week so far, and I’m sure there are more to come as I hastily prepare myself for 1/10-scale season.

Quite honestly, I was feeling down on myself and my fails this week. I went frantically searching YouTube for how to remove CA glue from a kitchen table before my wife got home, and while I did not find a way to remove the glue before she arrived home (yet another fail), I did stumble across the video below.

Just in case you are having the same start to your weekend and/or winter racing season as I am, I thought I'd take the time today to share it for your viewing pleasure. Something about watching these R/C car fails makes me feel just a little bit better about mine. After all, nothing makes a mistake or fail better than having a good laugh about it...especially if its not your own.