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Issue 2, 2/20/2003
Nitro vs. Electric: The Great Debate, part 2
Right about now I'm feeling rather proud of myself. At the end of the last issue, I really left a lot of folks hanging! For weeks now, people have come up to me, asking, "Say, what's the big idea?" I give a completely transparent, innocent, puzzled look before they go on, "Why didn't you finish? Have you turned to the Dark Side now?" Alright already, stop harassing me! I'll tell you everything I know!
From the moment I laid eyes on photos of the prototype Kyosho "Monster-X," I knew there would soon be a new vehicle in my stable. I wasn't fazed one bit by the fact that it happened to be nitro-powered. Here we had a true monster truck, not a 4WD stadium truck with big wheels. This baby had solid axles feeding power through angled driveshafts from a central transfer case nuzzled between two vertical chassis plates. The tires were huge and the ground clearance high. This was the real deal. It could have been nuclear-powered for all I cared. I was gonna get me one of these.
In
June '02 I started working on MadForce.net.
In July the site opened. By the end of August I had received my factory-backordered
Mad Force Kit. Around the beginning of October I started working on it
and heck, by November I was actually racing it! Alright, so things didn't
go too fast in the beginning; I was too busy trying to keep up with emails
& posts from you URC knuckleheads. Nevertheless, I truly was impressed
by this truck. Everything about it was beefy, and aside from a few fixable
quirks, the design was solid. Oh, and did I mention that it's nitro-powered?
NITRO, BABY!!
YEEEAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Whatever.
You have to remember, I ran the Ultimate E-Maxx: Valkyrie with 20 cells and two 60,000 rpm brushless motors and tore apart axles like they didn't even exist, pulling wheelies on command that would flip the 15-pound truck on its lid and leave it skidding for six feet. I ran the lightweight Spyder on 12 cells with one of those same motors and out-accelerated 1/8th scale buggies at the local track. I knew the feeling of power, and while the Mad Force's .21 pull-start engine was quite peppy, especially mated to the truck's 3-speed automatic transmission, it didn't blow me away by any means.
I drove the truck a number of times on and off the track, but my enthusiasm waned. The thing was loud. There's a noise ordinance in my neighborhood (which I very much appreciate and respect) and I couldn't even turn the Mad Force on in my garage. Of course, turning it on had other detractions, such as how quickly it would dirty itself up. Oil & grime gets everywhere! I ruined a nice shirt! Even at the track, in work clothes, man, warming the engine up and tuning it on the bench was sometimes torture to the lungs & eyes.
In a short period of time, I got frustrated. I still loved the design of the truck and it excited me, but the nitro mess I could do without, and I could get more power out of my electrics anyhow. In what turned out to be a blessing in disguise, I broke up the front end one raceday and had to shelve the truck for months as I waited for backordered parts to come in. In the meantime, I slowly turned my attention back to my electrics, and started having good, quiet, clean, reliable, inexpensive fun once again.
My replacement parts have finally arrived, and in due time, I'll have the Mad Force back out on the track. The spark is gone, though. A minion of the Dark Side captured me by (mad) force and attempted to turn me, but it failed. I remain true to my roots. I am The JANG, and I'm an electric guy.