I have no problem being referred to, or even referring to myself as a car geek. It’s a title I wear with pride. I recently discovered just how big a car geek I am by attending the annual RCX show held at the LA County Fairgrounds in Pomona California. Billed as the wildest radio controlled expo in the world I brushed up on my scale knowledge and headed to the show.
This is supposed to be the biggest show on the West Coast, which made us think it was going to be huge. Perhaps we are jaded from shows like SEMA and CES for full-scale cars, but we found this rather disappointing. SEMA takes a week to fully explore; RCX took about two hours, not counting the flying demos and some racing.
The first hall was dedicated to radio controlled flight. Planes, helicopters, gliders and aircraft that defied categorization lined four short aisle ways that all led to the exhibition area in the back of the building. A basketball court sized area fenced in for experienced flyers to demo models from different manufacturers. For the twenty minutes we stared in anticipation of horrendous mid-air RC collision, the collection of cargo panted and photo-vest-sporting pilots flew mostly models that looked as if they had raided the Toys R Us down the street. A few micro-planes were briefly flown, but nothing new that hadn’t been seen for months before this event.
The highlight of the flight hall was finding absolutely enormous brushless motors. Nitro planes have dominated large-scale model flight since its inception, but brushless technology is making it possible to fly up to 60LB models on electric power. We examined one brushless motor that is capable of roughly 12hp at 9000RPM. While we don’t have a plane that requires that kind of power, we think it might be fun to build an electric scooter.
Brushless motors dominated the second hall as well. Dedicated to radio controlled cars, the hall was filled with approximately half of the big names in the industry and had several tracks where racing and demos took place. It seems the big trend this year in RC cars is rock crawling. Every manufacturer had some sort of rock crawling vehicle with extreme suspension articulation and amazingly low gearing. While I can appreciate the work that goes into designing the suspension I just can’t seem to get excited about driving an RC truck over Styrofoam rocks. I think there is a reason that eighty percent of the enthusiasts surrounding the rock crawling areas were drinking flat, fair ground beer at 11am.
The on-road scene appears to have all but died, at least that’s what this show would lead me to believe. Most of the manufacturers on hand showed some form of on road car, but nothing new or groundbreaking. Touring cars have died; pan cars are ridiculously expensive for the simplicity of their design and there doesn’t seem to be a new trend to draw people to the asphalt. I found myself walking from booth to booth continually hoping to see a spark or tarmac hope, but in the end, nothing.
Offroad seems to have a few new directions. First are electric stadium trucks. Monster trucks were all the rage for a long time, but like most trends in RC, they started out as a fairly pure idea and have now evolved into an insanely expensive endeavor that looks little like the monster trucks of a few years ago. Buggies are still popular, but it appears the aforementioned brushless motors are trying to take the place of all other power trains including 1/8th scale gas. Between brushless technology and LiPo batteries, burning fuel doesn’t seem to make much sense anymore. I would like to see manufacturers start building some larger scale electric touring cars. I love the Kyosho GT cars, but to be honest, I am not sure I want to mess with nitro. Those cars equipped with a brushless motor and a big LiPo pack would likely yield the same performance with nitro with the downsides.
Perhaps the most interesting cars of the weekend were the 1/5th scale sedans and formula cars. I hadn’t really kept up with the technology on these things over the years. Hydraulic four wheel disc brakes, cantilever double wishbone suspension, dual speed transmissions, these things are high-tech. It sounds like you can get into one of these things for a few grand, but I can’t imagine what some of the racing machines are worth. I would wager that an enthusiast could probably build an actual full-scale racecar for a similar investment.
While this may not have been the best event I have ever been to, it certainly wasn’t the worst either. I was expecting something much larger; really everything I saw here can be seen at a decent hobby shop. We can blame the economy and dwindling discretionary budgets if that makes you feel better. Regardless, the show was still interesting. I guess it is sometimes more about the environment. Fair food, other RC geeks and the smell of nitro exhaust in the air, not a bad way to spend a day.
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