Who is into monster truck racing?

[MadAnt]

Hello yall! 

The solid axle monster truck racing scene seems to be going pretty from what I can gather, I know a few people are interested, but no such clubs seem to exist in northern New Jersey or close areas. If anyone here is interested, drop a message, it would great to organize something.

Also, yes, I do know of RCMTCNY. They should take NY out of their name.

[Mad Ax]

I'm sure @87lc2 was big into solid axle racing, although I haven't seen him around for a while.

It's something I've always wanted to try, but having seen how close and competitive it gets on Youtube vids, I think I might get outclassed really quickly with my ropey old custom builds 

[Mouc-RC]

Mad Ax is fully right:
 

 

[JimBear]

Here is part I (there is a video in there showing some of the racing):

[Saito2]

It looks like great fun. Retro (or this cool Lunch Box class) is probably the only class I'd stand a chance in. I don't use Lipo and any 4-link truck is instantly put in sport or pro mod which looks a little too competitive for my old Bennett and ESP based trucks. Not that I'll ever see an old school dirt off road track again (unless I build one myself) but I have a strange itch to see Clod based trucks bombing around on something like that too.

[MadAnt]

I've been working on some rules for the stage 2 retro and stage 3 modern trucks, the local hobby store owner does have some interest but to get anything going we need insterest from other people. This might take some time, but I think other people want to run stuff that don't fit the traditional rules and theme, like trucks with independent suspension. I might try to work on a set of rules for those trucks. Maybe I'll call it the "RUN WHAT YOU BROUGHT" class or something, but the issue is still finding people who are interested.

[MetalMilitia]

Hey @MadAnt.  We do have racing in NJ.  We have not had an outdoor event yet, but they should be starting up in June.  Jersey RC Racing Promotions on Facebook is the folks who put the races on.  The racing will be happening in Jobstown, NJ.  Let me know if you have any questions!

[MadAnt]

41 minutes ago, MetalMilitia said:

Hey @MadAnt.  We do have racing in NJ.  We have not had an outdoor event yet, but they should be starting up in June.  Jersey RC Racing Promotions on Facebook is the folks who put the races on.  The racing will be happening in Jobstown, NJ.  Let me know if you have any questions!

I would love to go, but that is way too far away for me and the few other people near my area who have shown some interest. That is why we are trying to get things going in northern NJ. I have the Rules for racing and freestyle all written, but I'm still making changes to simplify things to attract a good audience. The local hobby store owner(sorry I won't give out names right now, it's for privacy reasons) has been doing some testing on his track, and it seems more thought needs to go into the track layout, especially for freestyle due to the low ceiling, so that means smaller jumps. 

There are some people interested, but it seems the rules need to be different than the traditional rules due to people with non solid axle independent suspension trucks not wanting to be alienated. The good news is, those with independent suspension trucks can participate in Freestyle, we would regulate the batteries and tires for all trucks, so it should be fine for the casuals. The bad news is we can't mix them into racing and keep everything balanced. So possibly a separate class needs to be made, but that might be good thing if that can hook people in. 

Sorry for all the text, lol. But I think this whole thing might take months to get started. If your club has rule sets or advice on how to get these things going, I would appreciate it, because I think it would be huge fun.

[MetalMilitia]

We generally use "Trigger King style" rules.  I'll post them below.  Best way to get started is to get something scheduled and get the word out.  We've had pretty good turnouts over the years

[MadAnt]

On 5/28/2025 at 12:33 PM, MetalMilitia said:

We generally use "Trigger King style" rules.  I'll post them below.  Best way to get started is to get something scheduled and get the word out.  We've had pretty good turnouts over the years

Sweet!

Anyway, I've been talking to some people that have been showing some interest, but the problem is that there are two kinds of racers, race snobs and casuals. If I add a "casual" class for off the shelf trucks that just need a few simple changes to compete, that would attract a friendlier crowd of people in theory. I think we might take the "mini golf" approach for track design, which would make the laps longer, but more fun with obstacles and whatnot. It will be kind of like that 2wd/tuff truck class, but with two lanes. I'm not a racer, but that sounds like fun to me. Also, I probably won't be racing myself until things get going good for a bit and making sure everything can ran smoothly. 

[MetalMilitia]

Yeah, it's a slippery slope.  We try to shudder the gatekeeping as much as possible.  Sport-mod used to be the "off-the-shelf" class, where you could buy an SMT10, change the motor and be good to go.  Unfortunately, that's turned into a crazy class too with dual-motor super modified LMTs, Axial based trucks, and Clods.  People love the 2wd class though.  Always a bunch of guys running that.  I imagine you could make a 4WD independent suspension class to help the newbies out as well.

[MadAnt]

5 hours ago, MetalMilitia said:

Yeah, it's a slippery slope.  We try to shudder the gatekeeping as much as possible.  Sport-mod used to be the "off-the-shelf" class, where you could buy an SMT10, change the motor and be good to go.  Unfortunately, that's turned into a crazy class too with dual-motor super modified LMTs, Axial based trucks, and Clods.  People love the 2wd class though.  Always a bunch of guys running that.  I imagine you could make a 4WD independent suspension class to help the newbies out as well.

If I add the Casual class which would give us a total of three race classes, that should give something for everybody to enjoy. To simplify things, I have modified the rules to combine sport and pro classes into one class called "Stage 3 and Modern" which should be easy to regulate as long as we make the track the equalizer for the trucks. Time is limited, so I will need to figure out how to squeeze three race classes plus a freestyle in.

I might see if I can do "Casual" and "Freestyle" one day and "Stage 2 Retro" and "Stage 3 and Modern" on another day, or some sort of combination. This is really starting to look like some work, and I'm not even racing until I can get things rolling for a bit.

[MetalMilitia]

We don't even do Freestyle.  It takes a long time and is hard to judge without people getting upset.

[MadAnt]

1 hour ago, MetalMilitia said:

We don't even do Freestyle.  It takes a long time and is hard to judge without people getting upset.

Oof! People get upset over Freestyle!? I have designed the Freestyle rules for the casuals. Almost any 10th scale monster truck is allowed because I just want people to have fun. For the judging three random people will be chosen and will be given sheets of numbers 1-10 to pick from when scoring. The maximum score a driver can get is 30, they have 90 seconds to impress the judges as much as possible.

If someone gets upset over something that is has relaxed rules and that everyone else is enjoying, then they can pound sand and go do something else.😂