Tag Archives: truck

Radio Control, RC Trucks

Wednesday Night Short Course Racing – Another win!

Leave a comment

Ah.. it’s good to win. 🙂

SC10 Factory Team - in pit at BRCR
So, it’s still in Novice class, but it was not an easy win. There was one competitor (also named Dave) that was really giving me a run for my money, in fact he was just ahead of me when his truck broke on lap 5. He had qualified just ahead of me in the first two rounds, but not by much!

So.. here are the results… in all their ugly glory. It was a hard fought race, and I crashed many times, many more times that I should have. But I was victorious none the less. One more Novice win and they’ll kick me up to the big-boys. Which, I’m not that worried about since I raced them heads-up on Monday and came in 3rd. 🙂 

                             Bremerton R/C Raceway
Novice A Main                                                 Round# 3, Race# 2
9:16:02 PM  02/09/2011
________________________Driver___Car#____Laps____RaceTime____Fast Lap___Behind_
              Demartini, David    #3      17     8:03.504     24.370           
                      A, Steve    #5      16     8:11.161     27.822           
                      O, Johny    #2      15     8:20.383     28.348           
                       F, Jeff    #7      14     8:24.719     25.223           
                    T, Garrett    #1      13     8:06.876     24.525           
                       R, Dave    #6       5     1:58.614     25.758

Unfortunately, this will likely be the last race for this truck’s body. There are now parts of it missing, and one crack that extends from the front wheel well all the way into the windshield. She’s just about dead, Jim. I did keep it together by drilling 6 holes along the crack and using zip-ties to keep it from breaking completely in half. It looks pretty rough. The paint touch-up I did this morning is really of no consequence now. I already have a new body ready to go, but I’ve come up with a brand new concept I want to debut for this Saturdays race (it will be my first Saturday night race with the big crowds). But first I need to get some vinyl graphics cut for the truck, and even before that, I need to design them!

This hobby is not cheap (but not that expensive in the grand scheme), but it’s good clean fun, lots of great people to meet and talk too. I’ve even run across a number of people racing R/C that I used to race with when I was running my Porsches with Bremerton Sports Car Club. Some people are just gear-heads, and I’m one of them.

Radio Control

Re-Bodied the SC10 R/C truck.

Leave a comment

The old Mod-class SC10's body shell.
With a few days off, I finally got around to working on a new body for my SC-10 R/C truck. I bought the truck used back in November, and the body on it was trashed. Tires had worn through the paint in the tops of the fenders, every corner was ripped and flapping around, and it was about as visually exciting as a Keanue Reeves movie.

There were a number of options available for the truck from both the OEM (Team Associated) and aftermarket supplies. Prices ranged from $30-$50. There are likely differences I’ll never be aware of, but for me, I decided the $30 OEM body (a Ford) was just fine for me.

Now, the tricky part of working on these things, is the bodies are made of Lexan. Lexan, is a flexible, tough but a rather ‘oily’ feeling plastic, so you need a good paint. One that will adhere to the material, and is formulated with a lot of flex agent in it. These bodies take a beating!

$12 for two cans of spray paint and a couple of hours in the garage, and I was underway. The kit comes with masks for the windows, which were easy apply. This makes the production of a decent looking shell (body) a lot easier. It’s also supplied with a few of the standard Team Associated body decals. There are no sponsor decals in the kit I purchased.

One thing some readers might not be aware of, is that they shells (bodies) are painted on the insider, not the outside. This has a variety of benefits:

  • Durability – these things crash, A LOT and paint on the outside of the bodywork would not last long. The decals are very thick vinyl, and they still show the wear of normal abuse
  • Aesthetics – which is akin to the durability already mentioned, however, when one paints these shells, one can be, well, I’ll just say that one can be less than meticulous in your painting, and yet the appearance is always bright, shiny and smooth (at least until you send the thing sliding down the track on it’s roof, which you will do).
  • Others – there may be others, but at this late hour, I’m unable to consider them

Now, not only do you paint these on the inside, which requires some planning. You can’t simply paint over a mistake, it’s there, on ‘top’ of the paint, for all to see. You can’t just ‘re-paint’ over a mistake. So, plan wisely, paint the darkest colors first, then go to the lightest. Often it’s best to finish up with a white ‘backing’ color.

After the pain is applied, next you’ll need to get out another special tool, Lexan compatible scissors, to cut the vacuum formed shell to it’s final shape. Cutting out the wheel openings, wings (if it’s equipped with such), number boards, etc. It take a little time to get one of these things from this:

Standard unpainted SC10 body.

To this:

SC10 body painted and trimmed.

And finally this:

Final result. Custom painted SC10 Championship body, ready for action.

From start to finish, it took about 36 hours (wall clock) to complete. Effort required, about 3 hours for masking, painting and trimming. And, a lot of waiting while it cured.

I’m pretty happy with the final result, and the old used SC10 looks right at home with it’s brand new stable mates, an Associated T4.1 Truck and an Associated SC10 Short Course (Makita RockStar):

Unfortunately, in the first lap running full-power with the Mod SC10, I blew up the roller-ball limited slip differential. But, that’s an article for another day:

One broke truck.