Stephen Bess’s Blog
It’s A Matter of Perspective
Speed and handling fascinate me, especially as they relate to RC vehicles. Speed is, as everyone who’s ever driven an RC car knows, what every person asks about when seeing an RC car for the first time. “How fast does it go?” My usual response: it’s fast. To the uninitiated, any hobby quality RC car [...]
Are You Club Racing Again?
We had an incredible turnout last night at my local club race track, Hot Rod Hobbies here in Southern California, that made me pause and think….is club racing back for the summer? In recent months, club racing seems to have tapered off a bit. Maybe it’s a seasonal thing. Maybe it was the holidays or [...]
It’s Time To Build The Tamiya Bruiser
It’s time–I’m starting the Bruiser build, and I plan to document it in photos and video as I go. I’m already aware that others on the world wide interwebz have their own builds of this truck going. Save your snippy comments for Kevin Hetmanski’s weekly RC Show performance. I plan to offer some different building [...]
Vintage Cars — What’s Old Is New Again
I like to believe I’m not old, but I’m no spring chicken either. In my 30′s, I’m squarely in middle of the RC demographic of guys with too much time and just enough expendable income on their hands. I’m proud to be an RC guy and I profess it regularly. Having been in RC for [...]
Racing Season Is Upon Us!
Can you believe it? 2012 is here, and with February comes the kickoff for the summer racing season. No, not lawnmower racing (but really, how cool is that photo?!). While much of the country is still under snow and cold conditions, the Dirt Nitro Challenge will signal the year’s first major race next weekend in [...]
Pro Driver Merry Go Round
It’s that time of year again! Professional RC racers are swapping teams, signing new contracts, dumping old sponsors and picking up new ones. For some of you, this makes for an exciting game of pro driver roulette. What I find interesting is the number of drivers who leave teams only to wish they had never [...]
Top 10 Excuses To Get RC For Christmas
Every Christmas season, we search for reasons to convince our significant other that RC equipment makes a great gift. Who wants socks and button-up shirts when you could get a 4.5-turn brushless motor or fifteen sets of rubber tires? Here are the top 10 reasons why we like to ask for RC gifts at Christmas [...]
Tire Sauce: The Canary In The Coal Mine
I’ve read plenty of discussion lately about tire sauce/additives in off-road racing. The question seems to be, is tire additive a good or a bad thing for off-road racing? The answer, in my opinion, is simple: it’s a terrible idea. From my viewpoint, tire additive is like the canary in the RC coal mine. A [...]
Speed Is Never Cheap
The Traxxas X0-1 has set off an avalanche of comments on the social media sites. We’ve posted multiple videos, interviews and behind the scenes clips of this car, and I’m surprised with the reactions this car is getting. Rarely have I seen such a polarizing vehicle release. RC’ers seem to fall into one of two [...]
Kyosho’s Cody King & Mystery Driver Testing MP9s
We dropped by Hot Rod Hobbies yesterday for the “Tuesday Night Nationals” and ran into current IFMAR World Champion Cody King testing his Kyosho Inferno MP9 WC (that “WC” stands for world-champion, btw) with his pit-man and dad Paul King. With the JBRL Nitro Series Finals coming up in only a few weeks, Cody was [...]
Let There Be Light!!!
It’s not as though we have no lighting options. So why on Earth do so many RC racers sit at the track, at night, in near-complete darkness? Is it the anti-socials who simply don’t want to be seen? Is it the conspiracy theorists who believe a competitor will steal a top secret tuning tip? [...]
Cheaters Never Win
The cynics among you have read the title of this blog and already thought, “not true, cheaters win all the time.” Well hold your horses there, turbo. I’m not talking about cheaters in the sense you’re likely thinking of them. I’m talking about the people who attempt to cheat the odds out of the hard [...]
Hey Racers, Try Bashing For Fun
Yes, the featured image for this blog is Mario Kart, and yes that is a real RC car–one I would rather play with 99 times out of 100 compared to a race-only on-road car that would require hours and hours of set up. Why? Because all of those set up hours would be spent smiling, [...]
Behind The Scenes w/A Big Truck
Recently, I visited Milestone RC Raceway just outside of Ontario, California for an all-day photo shoot with RC’s “biggest” new release, the Losi 5ive-T. Although we can’t release all of the coverage for this vehicle just yet, I wanted to show you a photo I took on my cell camera. This is one of our [...]
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