I got my first RC10 in 1986 and upgraded it with all the go fast goodies and raced back then. It was a good car. A little over a year ago a friend of mine gave me an RC10 team car that he didn't want. I immediately thought back to the fun days of racing and decided that I was going to race the RC10 against the new guys. How much could car geometry itself have changed? It seemed like the new advantage was power and electronics. I set the car up and installed a new brushless system to bring it up to date. I was anxious to get out on a track but the old tracks I raced on were loose loamy dirt. These new tracks were large hard packed near blue groove level clay.
I couldn't make it a lap without breaking something. I landed off of a large modern jump and had 3 of the 4 shocks explode on me on impact. I bent the nose up at one point. I couldn't keep the car together. I rethought things and decided to do all of the old reliability/durability mods. Captured rod ends, Lunsford turnbuckles, RPM arms, etc. I upgraded to 2.2 wheels and tires. The car is now near bullet proof which is a plus. It just isn't forgiving though. If it gets a little out of shape on the track, it's over. The newer cars are so much more stable on these fast modern tracks. I suspect the old car would shine against these new cars on the older tracks but it just doesn't work well on our hard packed clay over here. It isn't competitive. Not by a long shot.
I thought that I could mod it to be. I swapped to the RC10T nose and installed the longer RPM world's front arms. I also used the longer RPM world's rear arms. The longer arms allowed a lower roll center which was more high speed stability. No dice. It just isn't enough. The wheelbase on the car is a bit too short. I spent more money on the old car in an attempt to make it competitive than I would have on just buying a new modern car. It was a fun attempt though. It's fun to drive but forget about racing it. Maybe in a stock class but here all we have is open class and it can't cut it.
My JRX-Pro is far more competitive on the modern tracks than the RC10 is. It still isn't up to the new cars but it's easier to drive and more forgiving than the RC10. My CR2 makes them both look stupid. It is so much faster and easier to drive. Even on our tracks. Vintage is fun and where I spend most of my time but I'm not trying to race them against new cars. I didn't think there could be that much difference between them but there is. At least there is on our tracks.
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