Meatball Racing

Radio Control Blog

  • Cars
    • Electric On-Road
    • Electric Off-Road
  • Flight
    • Fixed Wing
    • Rotor
    • Rockets
  • About
  • Tracks
  • Shop
  • Cart
You are here: Home / Cars / SC Rally Testing

SC Rally Testing

April 8, 2019 by justin 2 Comments

To test out my “Spec SC Rally2” class idea, I bought a HobbyKing / BSR Racing body. This thing looks and fits great on my 2wd Slash:

To pre-empt any bashing that would take place during the first track session, I removed most of the scale details:

  • Windshield wipers
  • Antennae
  • Side-view mirrors

I left the scoop on since it’s low-profile, and also the wing since it might actually help on jumps.

Despite these efforts to keep the body in usable condition, I found out very quickly that the shell itself is not very durable.

First Laps

It did well on its first time out:

The S1 compound tires gripped nicely. I didn’t even add traction compound. My gut tells me that if there was a big SC Rally scene, the more commonplace stock Traxxas rally tires would also do just fine with some traction additive.

Traction Roll & Wing Durability

Once the tires warmed up they had enough grip to (inevitably) traction roll the vehicle. The general shape of hatchback rally car bodies is good because odds are the car will land back on its wheels. On my first roll-over where I landed upside down, I got hit by another Slash and the wing exploded.

Thankfully it was my nephew who crunched it, so I can’t really harbor any remorse. 😭

Body Durability

Also, at one point I grazed the outside of the back straight and it almost completely tore off the front fender.

Needless to say the Basher/BSR 1/8 Rally Body is not up to the task of a full season of door-to-door racing. If I go all-in on this rig, I will instead get a thick (1.5 or 2mm) Deltaplastik lexan body.

Otherwise everything else performed nicely. Besides losing the wing and the fender, there was only a small nick along the body’s front edge, so the bumper did its job well. The tires gripped well. It drove and jumped predictably. It was great seeing a full-bodied rally car out on the track – mixing it up with other buggies and trucks like it was the Baja 1000.

More Power?

I got to trade transmitters with a fellow rally driver who had a 4WD Traxxas Rally. It had a brushless system on 3S power with insane speed. It was actually too fast for most of the course, but it made one jump very easy. It made me wish my brushed rally car had just a little more power to make the first jump in the turf series right in front of the drivers stand.

The brushless rally car could jump right onto the 2nd platform, making this obstacle more smooth and fun. But I wanted to stay true to the low-cost vision of a Spec Slash based rally car. One jump didn’t detract from the smile I had on the other 99% of the track.

Related

Filed Under: Cars, Electric Off-Road, Electric On-Road Tagged With: jump, rally, SCT, short course truck, Slash, Slash 4x4, Traxxas

Comments

  1. Ray Malinis says

    July 11, 2019 at 1:45 PM

    I’ve found Traxxas bodies to be much thicker than Proline bodies. With the drywall tape and shoe goo reinforcements its quite indestructible.

    Reply
    • justin says

      July 12, 2019 at 8:09 AM

      Yeah, my next rally body is a 2mm(!) Deltaplastik body that I’m currently working on painting. I’ll also reinforce it with tape. The body I used in that video was a cheapie from HobbyKing – it looked awesome but didn’t last long at all.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe via Email

Meatball Racing

Cars, kids, and crashing since 2006. Let's talk about having fun, and being inclusive not exclusive. They're just toy cars after all. More about Meatball Racing.

MMR Calendar

  • Wednesday Night On Road Racing April 5, 2023 at 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
  • Friday Night Off Road racing April 7, 2023 at 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
  • Wednesday Night On Road Racing April 12, 2023 at 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Thunder Road Calendar

  • Carpet Practice April 1, 2023 at 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM
  • Open Driving Rock Crawler and Slot Tracks April 1, 2023 at 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM
  • Carpet Off Road Racing! April 1, 2023 at 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Sponsors

Bangoood
Bangoood

Copyright © 2023 · Metro Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in