WHERE’S WALDO: The crater of creativity

ADVERTISEMENT | ADVERTISE WITH US

By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com 

Last month, Paul Manning of Bedford, Indiana posted photos of a custom RB6.6 body to the “Kyosho Off Road Army” Facebook group, which has over 1,500 members, where it stirred up some conversation. Manning, a CNC machinist and programmer by trade, sent me a link last week to see what I thought. His message struck my curiosity:

“Hey Aaron! Really enjoy your articles on LiveRC. Coming from racing in the early 90s, when did we stop creating things and modifying our toy cars? We used to make shock towers and cut up chassis and do all kinds of things. Now it's taboo.”

This is far from the first time I’ve received a note about this topic, but until now I hadn’t been moved to write about it. I checked out the photos in the link he gave me, and my first reaction was that of horror — at first glance, this thing looked hideous:

This looked like the kind of handiwork now reserved for backyard bashers, but Manning is not at all a basher; by all accounts, he and his teenaged-son Jett are very successful at local and regional off-road races. My initial panic was tempered by a caption that — even after looking at this thing dozens of times — still makes me laugh.

“I call it, Valencia.
Behold, the future.
You saw it here first.”

I responded by saying:

“I think racers stopped creating things and modifying their cars when engineers armed with computers and machines started doing a consistently better job. It's a much different world compared to back when the RC10 chassis was still hand-formed.”

Even after replying I kept looking at the body over and over, sharing it with a handful of RC racers with whom I talk regularly - and the more that I looked at it, the less I hated it. In fact, after a few dozen glances, I started to like it.

The conversation on the Facebook group lured me back to the page over and over. Some of the comments were remarkably entertaining:

“Ummmmm why?”

“It makes me sad”

“It's somehow horrible and beautiful at the same time I like it”

“I can't tell if I love it or hate it”

“It's like your pug, so ugly that it's cute.”

And some people really liked it:

“That looks cool as hell”

“Interesting idea, Paul, look forward to hearing if you notice anything. I just got used to cab forward….”

“That is too Cool”

“I like it”

“WOAH! LOL”

“I'm into it. It's not pretty, but it's got some sweet vintage flavour.”

The candid and playful manner in which Manning responded to each of the comments are what sold me on the idea and sparked my idea to write this column. It was clear that Manning wasn’t taking himself, or his creation, too seriously — which I found refreshing in today’s “everyone-wants-to-be-pro” RC racing environment.

“BECAUSE WHISKEY THAT'S WHY! I mean.....rear downforce.”

“See, he gets it. It's low. It's streamlined. Minimalistic. Lightweight.”

“You love it. Break the mold.”

“It's the future. Embrace it. Make love to it. Eat it up with sriracha sauce.”

Within the comments, Manning explained where the idea came from:

“Well, I quit racing in 1995 and got back in 2 years ago. I thought the cab forward bodies looked silly because they look nothing like a REAL buggy but can understand the functionality of it for high bite tracks. This is merely an exercise in the other end of the spectrum. Could a pro driver feel the difference? Maybe. Could I feel the difference? I'll find out Saturday but I doubt I will. The time sheet will tell.”

And the results?

“The exercise went well. I was no faster or slower. I couldn't tell the difference. It just looked different.”

I’ve long maintained that much of the perceived “performance” difference of today’s wild Lexan-sculpting designs have more to do with how the driver’s eyes interpret the car’s behavior than any sort of aerodynamic advantage, especially on tighter tracks and in stock-class racing — which isn’t at all to minimize the measurable effects on lap times, whether placebo or not.

And I think that placebo effect is precisely the answer to Paul’s original question. The game has changed now, and so have the ways that RC enthusiasts derive appreciation from the hobby.

Racers from 20-30 years understood that trimming, reaming, sanding and shimming parts on a new kit was necessary to make them work properly out of the box. On race days, they kept themselves busy in the pit area by cutting comms and using an always-on soldering iron to cycle a half-dozen battery packs through charging stations, last-minute “peaking” voltage blasts, light bulbs, discharge trays, and even dead-shorting leads. That’s perhaps why it didn’t seem abnormal for someone to cut two chassis apart to make one longer piece, or trim a new shock tower out of a sheet of fiberglass. It wasn’t uncommon for racers to cut, trim and splice tread patterns together to make a new tire, or piece together components from similar vehicles to make a geometry change. When “old school” racers talk about how racing used to be “back in the day,” either in the pit area or on social media, these are the kinds of changes are inevitably brought up.
 When JConcepts team driver Tyler Keel couldn't get his hands on any 4WD front Double Dees at
Indy RC World a couple of weeks ago, he cut down a pair of rear Hybrids - and the locals were mystified.

This was possible mostly because the cars, and tracks, were forgiving enough that racers could get away with it. You could make a big change on your car that made it demonstrably worse and still get around the track competitively. Even ten years ago, you might see two people (even sponsored teammates) with the same vehicle running wildly different shock packages: one with the front shocks far stiffer than the rear, while the other’s was more balanced at both ends.

You just don’t see that much anymore. Kits go together like LEGO sets, fitting perfectly together with tight tolerances but working smoothly out of the box. Racers typically build their cars according to a setup sheet from one of the manufacturer’s star drivers and don’t stray too far (or if they do, they sometimes tune themselves out of the ballpark). There are many aftermarket manufacturers - many of which were created by racers of the previous generation who hand-modified their own vehicles - that package car-modifying options as bolt-on pieces that elicit the change you’re looking for, or at least the change you think will make you faster. Sure, there are a handful of racers still out there trying new things, but they're often those helping some manufacturer build what's coming next rather than hobbyists doing it because it's fun.

While today’s drivers don’t have to worry about cutting comms, they do have to navigate a narrower window of setup adjustments and driving styles in order to stay competitive. The action in the pit area is now less about creating or tuning your way into the winner's circle, but preparing and rebuilding better than the competitor sitting next to you. As the cars have become more sophisticated, and the speeds of all racing classes have risen across the board, there’s less wiggle room for trying something new - and the potential advantages might not outweigh the critical eyes or one’s peers (or the ever-deprecating environment of social media). And despite access to better tools for decorating one’s Lexan bodies than ever before, these days it’s less frowned upon to run an all-white or fluorescent yellow shell with custom stickers than to try one’s hand at rattle-canning a basic scheme when you’re waiting for the professional painter to ship back your latest lids.

All of the changes to the ways that drivers race, shop, and communicate with one another may have yielded a net positive for the industry as a whole, though we’ve certainly lost a small part of what the hobby used to be - both in regards to how hobbyists enjoy RC racing, as well as how they attempt to stand out from the pack when they're not on the track.