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By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com
Americans love their trucks. From ranchers and farmers in rural areas whose pickups are a member of the workforce, to the 17-year-old kid in the lifted base model F-150 who cut me off on the freeway this morning without using his turn signal, trucks are as much an icon of the United States as beef filler hot dogs and a self-destructive sport named after a part of the body that rarely contacts the ball itself.
Even with the market stacked against such a trend (such as manufacturers based in countries where trucks don’t exist making kits for one country only), the RC scene in this country has followed a similar pattern. From the shelves of toy stores to the birth of the Ready-To-Run and even a short-lived ROAR National Championship, RC monster trucks have always had their appeal, and the racetrack was no different. It didn’t take long after the introduction of race-ready 2WD buggies like the RC10 for RC enthusiasts in the States to turn them into vehicles that at least loosely resembled trucks. With few parts differentiating them from their internationally-recognized buggy counterparts, the class of RC car known as the “stadium truck” blew up despite the cartoonishly square footprint and incredibly out-of-scale tires sticking inches outside of the fenders.
To be fair, the creation of what the racing side of our hobby has loosely defined as a “truck” probably deserves more credit than any invention before 2.4 GHz radios in helping to establish a reasonably healthy foundation for RC racing in the U.S. Not only does racing a truck appeal to many Americans, but long before the days of glass-smooth clay tracks where slick tires are the norm, trucks were easier to drive quickly around rough and rutted courses. The additional traction, ground clearance, and durability afforded by the big balloons at all four corners was an even bigger advantage in the backyard.
The number of parts shared between stadium trucks and the 2WD buggies on which they are built has shrunk over the decades, but for many years the similarities between the two platforms helped spur RC racers into picking up a second vehicle in order to maximize track time during a visit to their local racing facility. The tires may be completely different, but with the majority of the chassis, drivetrain, and even suspension parts crossing over it’s easy for racers to stock spares and keep both vehicles in good shape. It didn’t hurt that 4WD buggies were a huge pain to maintain, and broke under a stern stare of discontent in the pit area.
Even though its the de facto support class everywhere else in the world, 4WD buggies only recently approached stadium truck in terms of being a viably stress-free second discipline. Now that every major 2WD buggy manufacturer offers a modern, relatively durable, and easy-to-maintain 4WD buggy platform, the concept of comfortably racing both 2WD and 4WD buggy at a club race, let alone a large event, is now feasible.
The stadium truck class was well on its way to joining the dodo bird less than a decade ago. No new platforms had been released in years, body designs went from slightly strange to utterly bizarre, and entries slipped. ROAR killed off the 1/10-scale nitro stadium truck class (along with Monster Truck) from the Nationals schedule after slipping turnouts hit rock bottom in 2007, with just one heat of trucks showing up to that year’s race in Phoenix, AZ.
That was right about the time that electric off-road racing was saved by short course trucks (with help from brushless motors and LiPo batteries), which might have salvaged the concept of “truck” racing - but introduced a whole new set of problems.
Short course trucks blew up because the RC scene was looking for something new, but it didn’t take too long for the luster to wear off - especially among hardcore racers who couldn’t reconcile sacrificing a little bit of cornering performance for a shred of scale realism. With full-tendered fans split between 2WD and new 4x4 trucks, and a faction trying to revive stadium truck racing, the average club race or special event may be pressured to offer as many as five different truck classes.
Stock racing has been under fire a lot over the last couple of years for “watering down” racing, but this weekend’s ROAR Electric Off-Road Nationals is proof that the fat that needs to be trimmed is in the truck divisions. Here’s the entry count for the race:
2015 ROAR Nationals entries:
TRUCK
Total: 84 entries
BUGGY
Total: 138 entries
GRAND TOTAL: 222 entries
All four truck classes added together drew just 60% of the entries as three buggy divisions. The ratio was even more lopsided last year, when the buggy classes blew up since it was the qualifying race for the 2015 Worlds:
2014 ROAR Nationals entries:
TRUCK
Total: 90 entries
BUGGY
Total: 192 entries
GRAND TOTAL: 282 entries
New kits, especially from major manufacturers, often boost entry counts for any division, but despite Associated (T5M and SC5M), Kyosho (RT6 and SC6), and TLR (22T 2.0 and 22SCT 2.0), these classes have been teetering into irrelevancy for years.
And it’s not like the classes are actually allowing a different group of people to enjoy the event - there isn’t a single driver in any of the four truck classes this weekend that didn’t also enter a buggy division. Instead, the short course and stadium truck classes not only continue to cannibalize each other, but they extend long days at the track and add fluff to the program. Do the same drivers really need to compete against each other with three or four different types of vehicles? And where’s the honor in “finishing 9th at the national championships” if you’re two laps off the pace of the winner?
By cutting the truck classes from this year’s ROAR Nationals, the program could be shortened by nine or ten heats per round - which, if each heat takes an average of eight minutes by the time warm-up laps are completed, turn marshals are located, and drivers finish their final laps, adds up to a whopping 464 minutes - nearly eight hours over the course of the weekend.
If we eliminated trucks from most major weekend races, the class lineup of an electric off-road race turns from this:
To this:
Not only would the electric off-road scene benefit significantly, but if ROAR dropped the Truck classes from the 1/8-scale off-road national races, they could combine nitro and electric 1/8-scale buggy at one event.
For racers and race promoters alike, this should be a no-brainer. When fewer classes are offered, you’ll get deeper talent pools in each. You could shorten the overall length of the race (and this weekend’s Nationals could lose an entire day), which makes the event cheaper for tracks to host and racers to attend. Racers will spend a greater amount of the time they’re at the track actually driving.
If managed correctly, the transition of eliminating truck classes from off-road RC races would not only bring the U.S. in line with the rest of the world, but it could lead to more efficient races that offer greater value for racers and greater return for tracks. It’s time to pull the plug.
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