Over the past year or so I’ve been racing a decent amount of indoor carpet offroad at my local track and it’s been great! I often analogize it to racing 1/12 scale with jumps because it is a very precise form of offroad racing yet offers the awesomeness of timing the triple and traversing the rumble strip. All this offroad-like action without having to clean your car or shower immediately after leaving the track has been sweet, but there were some adaptations necessary along the way.
The almost unlimited traction granted on carpet offroad courses makes it very difficult to keep your nose on the ground in the 2wd class forcing me to shelve my Associated B4 in exchange for a Losi 22 that offered mid-motor build options. So here is where we get to the dirt part; with my B4 collecting dust and me finding it difficult to escape to the track, I remembered that I have an electric dirt track just minutes from the office so a quick setup change and my B4 is ready to get dirty again! But, while I was playing on carpet I quickly learned that ball diffs and huge-traction don’t mix and the quickest way around the course was with an oil-tuned gear diff…. so, the question now is, will a gear diff work on a dirt track? I love the low maintenance and consistency offered with a gear diff but I also like to win so performance will be the deciding factor with this question. As of now I have my gear diff loaded up with 2,000 weight oil and I’m off to the races this week. I’ll post again shortly letting everyone know if gears are the new king or if balls still rule the dirty world of offroad racing!
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