Tacoma RC Raceway - Gold Cup

The RB6... the game changer.

There were TWO things missing from the RB5 that would of made it the single best car you could buy. One, was that it was very hard to tune the car to feel aggressive. Some tracks, and against some drivers, you need a car that can turn in really sharp. The RB5 was TOO easy to drive. Even when I maxed out the car's edginess, it still wasn't as aggressive as lets say, a B4 can be. And two, with the short chassis anyway, it wasn't all that stable. It was easily the shortest of the buggies out. The RB6 however, is the most aggressive and most stable buggy I have ever seen... it has everything the RB5 didn't, and with abundance.

The Gold Cup

This weekend was the first big race in the Northwest for the RB6. Out of the massive sea of B4.1s (it was hosted at Team AE driver Scott Brown's track, TRCR) and Losi 22s, we had 5 or 6 RB6s in attendance... This was also my first time driving the car. I hadn't even broken in the diff, when I got there on day #1 for practice.

Right off the bat, I could tell the car was an animal. It has more steering then you are ever going to need in an buggy with the kit setup, and it handles the bumps and jumps like nothing else on the market. It took me a couple packs to really get used to how aggressive the buggy is, coming from the RB5 WC. I think a lot of it has to do with the aluminum chassis, and the new forward weight bias of the buggy (that's what it feels like, I haven't actually measured it yet).

There is a steep level of competition at the North West Gold Cup. Day 2 was all qualifying, taking the combination of your best 2 quals out of 4 for placement. Day 3, were main events. Tripple A mains all around, taking points, best 2 of 3 from your mains. I had a blisteringly fast qualifier in one of my three, good enough to put me TQ in 17.5 buggy. Mike Shirk had just a good of a run, tying me for TQ, and he ended up bumping me into #2 on the tie breaker. Former roar national champ John Sterling qualed behind me in 3rd, which I knew would be trouble for me. He didn't have good qualifiers in his first 3, but was easily the fastest on the grid... so I knew I would end up fighting for 3rd place overall.

The mains went very well, and I ended up tying 3rd place in A main points, but losing the tie-breaker, and ended up finishing 4th. A blast of a race.

Setup changes:

Before the mains even started, I had the K drivers running white springs with 37.5 in the front, and gold springs in the rear with 30. I ran the middle hole on the rear arms, and outer hole on the front arms. To me, just by looking at how the car is laid out, it appears the car has a static weight shift to the front (iv not measured it, somebody correct me if im wrong), so I started with the whites/golds to try and help calm the car down. With this combo, the car still turns on a absolute dime, but is just subdued enough to allow you to push the car just a bit harder.

The only other major change I made to the car, was I changed out the rear lower shock ends. I took the long ends off, and ran mediums. I felt the car had WAY too much rear droop out of the box, making the car a tad too wild off throttle. The reduced droop planted the car quite a bit, and it felt more balanced in the corners.

(EDIT: oh yeah.. I am also running none of the optional 3 side screws, on the side chassis pods)

Other than playing with my front camber links a little bit, that was all I did to the car, and it was AMAZING on the track... It performs best in the high speed sections of the track. In our fast sweeper at the straight exit, the RB6 was eating every other car alive.

In short, I think this car is the absolute best of all the chassis out. It's durable like the 22, it turns on a dime like the B4, and it's stable and planted like the RB5. It's only downside, is it's cost. But with what we spend in gas and tires.. .what's an extra $100 for the kit? Nothing... totally worth it, and it's totally gorgeous.