Please Stand By

Friday! And I'm stoked. Setting up my Saturday morning tv is really the biggest part of my Friday, so I'll let you all in on the deets.

First up Dirt Nitro Challenge: RUN DNC!





This will be on the top of my list. I'm normally a buggy lover, but the truggies are beasts. The Truggies are HUGE! They may as well have small people in those things. The government should not be affraid of drones, because 1/8 Nitro Truggies will do way more damage.

As long as they don't need marshaling.

The DNC will be going off all weekend, and I'm stoked, but 1/10 offroad is where my heart is at, so I'll be  watching the Euro Winter Open Championships as well.


The Brits start their indoor off road in just 16 hours.


Which means I get to wake up and cruise over to the couch in my vinyl footed, button up one piece pjs tomorrow and sit down with a popcorn bowl of fruit loops to watch some sweet astro turf action while solving the puzzles on the back of the cereal box.





Expect some of the most passionate race commentary in the Queen's English if Nick Daman is within 20 meters of a microphone. Love this guy:

Nick Daman's passion for all tiny racers

They deliver solid coverage and you should check out rcracingtv.net if you need your fix.

I expect to be dressed in something "socially acceptable" by 2pm for some sunny day house work.

Or really, some pre-season rc wrenching which may include some rc car body paint huffing.

Jconcepts share a great fan vid of the entire creative process of painting and getting what I like to call a "Tamiya High" here:





And while my rc car painting is traditionally a one or two can "spray special," which end up looking Warhol with crayons on the  BMW m1.

Hope you all have a great Friday working and an even better Saturday chillin or racing. Here's a pro tip for doing secret work(assuming your employer doesnt mind you looking at a blank screen all day)






Party like it's friday!
-Tommy

#REALTALK

One thing I try and use RC for is to escape reality. I dive deep into the forums for the latest hack, tip and mod. Then crawl back out totally defeated after battling the nuances of metric vs standard and emulsion vs bladder. Battles I enjoy and try learn as much as I can while taking and giving keyboard punches.

This blog is mearly my way of regurgitating some of what I've over eaten while staring at a computer.

I did overstep my spamming on the forums and got modded pretty hard. Which is okay, because there are plenty of other outlets to wave my arms and yell "hey, look at my blog!"

One great alternative to the forum spamming is to tweet on twitter. So I'm on it.

Chirp. Chirp.




At the heart of any hobby is an opportunity to do something that does not matter in the big scheme of things, just a few hours with nothing but the track, the competition and my lack of skills to have some leisure time.

But every once in a while, at the time I most need t just sit down and rebuild my diff, point the tv antenna in the right direction and inevitably, real life creeps in.

And by real, I really just mean the Olympics. And by creep in, I mean my bunny rabbit ears pick them up without too much static.

Damn that looked hard.

And that was just silly.

Real world. Real problems.

It turns out the pastimes I enjoy the most like rc, skateboards and free speech are not things that will be tainted by the Olympics anytime soon.

Antennas are bliss. Not knowing what I'm missing on cable is cool with me. I assume cable is like youtube, but costs money and you have to wait for shows to be on.


At youtube, LiveRC is my ESPN, Scotty Ernst is my Madden and Tebo is my Tammy Faye. I'm the simple believer.

With real world creeping in, I've got to block it out with some sensible 1:1 car. That's when Chris Harris and drive come in.





Best black car ever?

Great to see Mclaren going green and taking on the Prius.

Speaking of green, here is a video of 1/8 Ebuggy battles from the 2013 Dirt Nitro Challenge at the Fear Farm in Pheonix




Awesome racing. The best part is that VRCPRO just released the layout for all weather racers like me

Currently VRC-Pro only offers nitro 1/8 buggies. Maybe someday us gamers can practice with the ebuggies.

Or better yet, maybe hybrid systems can work their way into the nitro cars for longer run times??

A dude can dream.

Have a great Thursday!

-Tommy

DIY Field of Dreams

The 2014 Dirt Nitro Challenge track has been unveiled.

Associated is bringing the recently French smoked prototype RC8 to battle in the hands of the Ryans.

Also, the full 2014 Montpellier GP is available on the youtubes.



Maybe it's the motocross type jumps or maybe it's the size and brutality of the track rutting, but dang, watching 1/8 scale offroad is rad.

It's hard to not be impressed by the production of a big event. Whether it's the attendance like we saw at Motorama, or the man hours that go into the maintenance to keep tracks professionally maintained like Chico this past worlds, the end justify the means.

Here's a clip of JoeyChristiensen building Chico for this past worlds:




I defiantly gotta hand it to the folks who provide, build and invite racers to participate. Each track ends up with it's own personality. Each owner get's their Kevin Costner track.

As proud as I am of keeping the lawn mowed and the leaves raked, I can't help but wonder if I could step it up in my backyard with a "track" of sorts.

Keeping it blue groove would be out of the question, so it may be a little time capsul of early 90's style loom, with a tad more air thrown in.

With all the parts available for RC10's these days, maybe even make it vintage specific? Silver can only?

Or I could take Kevin Burnett's lead and go big:





Damn! that rules. Little did Keven's wife know that rc car gift would turn into the nitro races keeping her from sleeping.

I'd love to go big. But, Let's face it, I might throw two rocks on the lawn for figure eights.

I'll keep dreaming of what I could do with 50x40 of flat lawn, but I tend to go off course if I wait to long. Then things get way out of hand.

Have a great hump day!

-Tommy

Last Chance Tuesday

You made it through Monday. All caught up at work and now today's the tough one. Yup, Tuesday.

Tuesday is the absolute LAST chance you have to shipping that "lightly used" rc8 you sold Friday after work on RCTech.net. Get it out today, before the buyer calls B.S. on your claim of "ready to ship" and the mods start asking questions.

With The Dirt Nitro Challenge coming up, my mind is all about 1/8 offroad.

Plenty of news to keep your eyes on. Yesterday, Neobuggy.net published their thoughts on the prototype RC8.  Other than noting the designer, Josh Alton, I skimmed over the words in the article to get to good stuff:  The pics.

RC8 proto: All thriller, no filler.

There were many fantastic battles to watch the last few years in eigth scale offroad. With plenty of youtube videos of the action, all I had to do was pick a color of anodizing and cheer my brains out for it as it goes 25+ feet in the air.

Here's a race that had me at the edge of my seat.

Sick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Although I don't see myself getting involved in the 1/8 offroad category anytime soon, I do love some Monday morning transmitting and yelling "Marshal!!!!!" in the office.

The Montpellier GP was this past weekend and Neobuggy had their cameras everywhere. Tons of tips in this interview with Bloomfield:

My vote for the cutest logoed company ever goes to Team Azarashi. 

Hello Kitty RC

They just released a limited edition body for the Kyosho RB6 called the Pholc. Which is a none cab forward body. Super cool to see the options. On a side note, I was really hoping Pholc is pronounced "Folk" because I'm immature and want to make a folk rock crawler joke. Like this:

Pholc Rock Crawler

Since I had plenty of time after work yesterday to peruse my local listings for that next no-strings craigslist thrill. And by no strings attached, I mean remote controlled.

And although, I don't normally put my life on the line, one ad in particular scared this freshly minted husband, the WidowMaker:

rc boat widowmaker - $250

I have a sweet rc Electric Boat. with a brushless motor Traxxas VXL 3 esc with Spektrum receiver all you need to do is sink to your remote its 22 inch long with a single water pick up. Any questions txt call or email xxx xxx xxxx


At first I thought this was merely a misplaced ad for a nautical hit man service, or "boat widow maker." 

So I threw it through the Gizoogle.net and the ad became crystal clear:

I gots a thugged-out dope rc Electric Boat. wit a funky-ass brushless motor Traxxas VXL 3 esc wit Spektrum receiver all you need ta do is sink ta yo' remote its 22 inch long wit a single gin n juice pick up fo' realz. Any thangs txt call or email xxx xxx xxxx


Well, then! You're damn right I'm ready to put it $250(or 80 bux and a well loved Ipod) on the line for this sweet  remote controlled  electric boat!  Though I'm not prepared to sink my remote in anything. Also, I have no idea why it has taken a husband from this earth, but who cares? That matte black 22 inches of killer is clearly a weapon of choice out on the high seas.

The original owner probably purchased it originally to one up his friend trying to sell the RC Surfer, perhaps the widow was the rc surfer's wife? Only the craiglist historians know for sure.

It can also be assumed that the previous owner of this sweet boat was most likely Dee Snider of Twisted Sister fame, before this offspring:






I seem to really gravitate to rc water sport lately. Maybe it's this winter weather, maybe it's my need to smell the ocean breeze again. 

Especially since breathing gas exaust isnt the only thing potentially damgerous when it comes to indoor motorsport:






Roll this dice, pay the price. 


Happy sailing, rocking and karting. This land lover is gonna stay in the pits, sidelines or on the driver's stand.

-Tommy

Bumpstart the Week

Happy "I made it to the internet" Monday.

Thanks for coming back. If you're new to OnTheTone, thanks for checking this blog out. It's hard to call it "my blog" because, really, it should be the Internet's. I'm just putting it out there to grow organically.

If you're new to OnTheTone and haven't seen the not so witty tie in of pictures, videos and misspelled words by blogs worldwide before, perhaps it is best you run this website through the Snoop Dogg filter for clarity.

Brought to my attention by coworkers that really don't want to bother reading through the rc terminology

That is probably the best way to get past all the RC car terms, acronyms and abbreviation. Gizoogle gets right to the point, in a language any child of the nineties should be able to understand. Because really, doesn't always come down to some of that ill shit anyways?

Again, from  the bottom of my heart and the Doggfather's,  hope everyone had a "Kool as fuck Valentinez dizzle everybody."


On a totally unrelated note, Congrats to Chad Due for winning 2wd Mod at Motorama. Especially since my brain won't allow a rear motor car to do anything these days. I couldnt even keyboard engineer it to launch a skate ramp.

But AE is prepared to make every blogger think twice about ye ole timey rear motor layout. REARMOTORNATION is sure to be some hashtag or something on instagram.

Red and yellow.  A number B5 Value meal with a side of winning

Recap and rm racing stoke here:





If you're into gigantic flying metric machines, Team Associated is testing the new RC8 in France.

Neobuggy caught up with AE drivers during a hard to understand, brief display of new plastic, at a French BBq:





AE and other rc companies keep it casual. Porsche, on the other hand, not so casual.

Other than the less than perfect "release video" the car looks good. Not that I'll be fly an RC8 around my local Portland, Oregon mud pit anytime soon. But it's refreshing to see cars that are appealing visually. And once again, this brings me to real race cars and how terrible some are looking this year.

Making "cab forward" look amazing

It's rarely a good idea to compare cars you sit in to cars you stand back and control with transmitters. Of course, unless you're like me and prefer playing a God:

It's bound to be a great week. Here's to racing. In all it's forms.

To mix it up, here's some virtual short course racing that folks may be interested in.
But warning, creepy voice over. Really, anyone other than Scotty Ernst is creepy to me. You may want to turn up the Crue in a new screen.







See ya tomorrow,
-Tommy

A Valentine. From Me to You

Happy Valentine's day everybody.

I won't bother getting into if today is simply a hallmark holiday or if there actually was a hunchback patron saint cupid on a church snyping lonesome folks or something. That argument just never gets anywhere.

But, since I'm a total romantic, I'm not against telling people that you love and respect them. And sometimes, we like society giving us the go ahead to be silly in public and send strange cards.

So, today's that day. And like any blogger worth their weight in cut-n-paste pictures, I've got advise.

Sure, I may be the last person anyone should be taking romance advise from(but I'm sure we can all agree an rc / love advice column in RC Car Action wouldn't  be the worst idea(You've got my email)) If I was to ignite some passion I would start the date with some schnazzy new clothes.


You could go all out, ala Masami and jumps suits, or you could simplify with a tee shirt.

If I had any photoshop skills, I'd make the suggestion of an addition under the "RC" to include your partner's name.

Now that I've spent the last week off track and not even mentioning the Winter nats, EOS, or the up coming cactus... Here's another off rc topic suggestion  for tonight's date night. That is of course, assuming your significant other is getting a little tired of youtube race recaps and hearing Scotty Ernst not whisper sweet nothings for six action packed minutes at a time.

First up. Go see something good!






That's gonna be fantastic. Lego fan or not.  And, I'm sure if I made some attempts, pulled some blog strings, I could talk Jang into going on a double date with me and my wife. Crazy, I know. But hang in there.

Choosing that perfect movie would be tough. The awkwardness of it all would require something short and to the point. Yet, keep the attention of it's viewers. Setting would be key.

Whether you've scored the perfect double date, romantic evening out waiting in line in the rain for an overpriced meal.

What better setting for Valentine's Day is there than Paris?

Here's my top pick for romance films.  Actually my top pick for any film. It requires headphones or full surround sound home theater because it is film, it is passion, it is drama, it is action, it is romance... C'était un Rendez-vous

Forget that everyone told you its the journey. It's can also be the destination, the finish line, the tap out, the top score.

The result can be just as awesome.

If your stuck in an office, at the track, or headed to the beach for a weekend getaway, have a great, totally normal, Friday, doing what ever you love to do.

-Tommy

Thursday, Bloody Thursday

Somehow, hump day totally passed me up and I almost didn't make it through Wednesday. But a co worker reminded me of the best medicine on the internet, Youtube.





That's what I needed.

If you made it through yesterday's grammar and spelling mash up I call yesterday's post, you may recall there's plenty of hustlin to be had on the internet.


The Bonafide Hustler and many like him are hawking the yard sale finds that we wish were down the street from us. What the B Hustler is pointing out is that goldpans and plenty of other rc goods are still worth money in the internet age. B Hustler may just be the next wave of frontiersmen, set forth to strike it rich, one yard sale at a time.

Gold pans still cashin in

Unfortunatly, some people just don't appreciate vintage rc cars. And this is probably how they end up in garage sales and sometimes in the basements of hustlers. A Goldpan might be the most baller shit out there to some, but the true beauty is in the eye of the fanboy.







Getting around the track fast is a major "goal" I have with rc cars, but that doesn't distract me from the simple fun of making things go. In fact, going faster usually leads to me breaking and not going anywhere for a while.

Jang, my self confessed rc guru has brought many unusual cars, helis and even legos to my attention. But beyound his rc reviews and lego builds, are some fascinating custom lego creations. It is the heart of problem solving and making something work. A world far from as well as, oh so close to roll centers, tire shore and c ratings. Here is one refreshing example of engineering that caught my eye:



I don't see myself getting into legos, at least, not until my kid is old enough not to eat them. Jang's and other tinkerer's abilities to "turn off the lap timer" and just learn, explore and experiment for a while may be some great advise that I sometimes forget.

But all that imagination is great for cross training back to real lief



Thanks for reading
-Tommy