Tommy R's Yokomo DRB RWD Drifter

[Tommy R]

Some shots from the last couple get togethers...

[SwampDawg]

Saweeeeet

Caution!! R/C is highly addictive!!

[Tommy R]

For anyone in the area who may be interested, RC Garage in Houston is hosting a comp this coming Sunday. I'll be there!

[Tommy R]

We had an amazing time at the comp at RC Garage yesterday! The turnout was a little low because of the short notice, but we had a great time and an awesome group.




We had two competitions. First was a D1 style battle. We each qualified solo to get our place in the bracket. This was WAY more nerve-wracking than any of us expected! Everyone watching, total silence... Pretty crazy! But somehow I managed to be the top qualifier, which was awesome and totally a surprise! What was even more surprising is the fact that I ended up winning! And as a result, I got to select a D-Like body from the extensive inventory RC Garage has! SWEET!!

Here we area on the starting grid for the last round of battles.


Afterward, we had a team tandem. Two cars would need to drift as closely as possible in order to win first place. To keep things reasonably fair, we drew numbers from a hat to determine who our partner would be. As luck had it, I selected my buddy, Paul. We ended up doing pretty well and won the team tandem event, too! Now we got to select paint and I took home some SpazStix for my newly acquired D-Like Toyota Mark II JZX90 shell.

Hopefully, I'll have some more pics and videos to share after they're posted.

[Tommy R]

Some video of our local club from the other night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFMBA17B0MI

[STANG KILLA SS]

love the RX body. only thing i would have done different would be non pop up headlights with black buckets.

[Tommy R]

Originally Posted by STANG KILLA SS

love the RX body. only thing i would have done different would be non pop up headlights with black buckets.

That would've been my preference, as well, actually. But it was going to be more work than I wanted to do and this was supposed to be a simple body with little time investment. Yeah, right....

[STANG KILLA SS]

haha yeah right is right!

[Tommy R]

Got some updates since my last post...

First of all, the DRB is still doing great! The only issue I was having was keeping up with some of the faster cars at RC Garage in Houston. I tried the two common tires used (MST Silver and Topline Alphas) and while I could keep up okay, I was having to alter my line and angle to keep up. Not good. I'd already added 1* of toe in in the rear and while it helped, it wasn't enough. Stan at RCG suggested I try less toe out up front. I run quite a bit of toe out to get my Ackerman right and to prevent crabbing, but Stan hasn't steered (ha!) me wrong yet so I gave it a try. Wow! BIG difference and my speed increased dramatically! I really couldn't believe such a subtle toe change could result in that much more speed, but it did.

Now I'm able to keep up with anyone. And for tandeming, I'd prefer to be a bit faster and have to modulate my speed than to be too slow and have to constantly play catch up!

The other thing I've been working on is my JZX90 body I won at the August comp. I decided to do something I'd never done before and I went with a wild D1 style build, complete with wild graphics and such. My buddy, Tyler, has a vinyl plotter and cut out all the vinyl you see here. If anyone is interested in some custom work, let me know and I can put y'all in touch.

I also built a light kit for it. Blue LEDS in the lower fog light area for a little splash of color, white LEDS for headlights behind yellow painted lenses, and red LEDs in the rear behind dark tinted lenses. The car is 95% done, but I plan on adding some decals to the hood, as well.








And I'd been looking into a second drift chassis build and was pretty much planning on a Yokomo YD2+......until a friend made me a great deal on an RC Art Jager with MST front lowers and Wrap Up Next suspension bits. It's in need of knuckles, tie rods, electronics, etc., but it's a very solid platform and will give me a chassis with a rear motor bias to try out. I also picked up a set of Yokomo big bore dampers for it (not pictured yet). I'll start a build thread for it soon, but here's a quick pic.


Lastly, I painted my Corolla wagon months ago when our local club decided it would use the grey livery for our team colors at comps. Well, most of the guys are now finally getting their shells painted up and we have some more comps coming up so it was time to reinstall the wagon. This time, however, I'm running the new Scale Dynamics Watanabe wheels. Love 'em... Stanced, yo!!

[Tommy R]

A buddy of ours has a shop for his 1:1 drift team and he invited us out to set up a track and have some fun. Had a great time at SlideLife last night!

[Tommy R]

So a week ago a Texas track (Drift America RC or DARC) had their one year matsuri event. They put down a new layout and invited everyone for a weekend full of sideways fun. 5 of our local group made the trip and we met up with tons of other Texas drivers, as well as drivers from Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, Illinois, and I'm sure other states were also represented. It was an amazing time and we can't wait to get everyone together again!

Here's some random pics from the weekend....











And here's some action shots I was lucky to be a part of:

[Tommy R]

Here's some (mostly) solo shots folks took from the weekend...













This one looks like I was sitting still, but it was in full slide!

[Tommy R]

Here's a video one of our guys put together. The beginning is pretty dark, but it gets brighter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvnWS4KyXko&t=262s

[bmuzz1]

Great build Tommy, looks like a lot of fun!

[MattyJ603]

This stuff is my favorite RC. Great info and pics!
I would like to see the Jager build.