These two idiots interviewed me for their dumb podcast. I think if you want to understand me better you should listen to it here.
I felt like I had to go on there and deal with all the bullshit they put out there.
THEQuagraine
THE JQ World Tour – Travelling THE World #rcgypsy Style
Category Archives: Thoughts on Work
Who Gets Canned 1st? – POLL
With the economy as bad as it is, companies are saving on budgets, and that made for the most interesting silly season yet. While some drivers are performing and making positive steps forward, like Maifield and Ongaro for example, others are struggling, or may be victims of the environment. Collateral damage to downsized budgets and changes in strategy. Let’s take a look at a few possible drivers that may be looking for new rides shortly, I’ll let you decide. I made it a poll!
Cody quickly checks to see if he has been fired, between rounds.
1. Cody King – HB Racing
Cody is a World Champion, and a great talent. However, he has one drawback, lack of work ethic, and it seems like the new HB owners have realised this. Cody did not attend the Neo Race, probably because he needs to get his shit together before HB spend any money on him. Will he get it together, or will he get canned?
2. Ryan Cavalieri – AE
Ryan was just put on probation for a month by AE, and with Rivkin moving through the ranks, and being sent all over the World for racing, are AE trying to replace Cav with Riv? Will he stay or will he get placed on permanent probation?
What Drake would look like if he had a chin.
3. Adam Drake – Mugen
Adam once had a happy life at TLR. Then TLR hired Maifield. TLR realised that Maifield was winning and Adam wasn’t. TLR canned Adam. Now Adam was happy at Mugen, and hired Maifield. Maifield is winning everything, and Adam isn’t. Will Adam get canned again?
“What do you mean you won’t pay me?”
4. Dakotah Phend – TLR
Phend is Phast, but TLR have been downsizing, heavily. Will they still pay a top guy in 2018?
And the lord said: “It was merely a racing incident” – Quarinthians 3:77
5. Jared Tebo – Kyosho
Tebo is a legend, but even legends can’t survive on no money. Will Kyosho follow Tamiya and not pay top drivers? The rumours have been circulating for years.
Ty’s reaction when he heard Xray would run Pillow balls through out 2020.
6. Ty Tessmann – Xray
If you were sceptical about Tessmann’s frustration at the Xray 8th scale program, you need not wonder anymore. Because only frustration, desperation, and a complete plummeting self confidence can push someone to cause a Try Traction Scandal. My opinion is, that there are 3 possible outcomes. A: Ty works on setup, adjusts his driving style, like Tiger Woods re-worked his swing, and gets back to his winning ways. B: Xray make a new go back to a c-hub front end (they have the parts, it’s easy) in order to please Ty. C:anned.
Max demonstrating how to respect kind, caring and supportive people.
8. Max Mört
This cocky bastard is just about to start beating his boss. And that’s never a good thing. One great race could be all it takes!
Vote below, and please share.
Vote here.
To Win At Any Cost – Try Traction
Spy photo of the new Pro-Concept Diamond Suburb, Hole Bars, Diamond Fighter, Crime Bars.
Just in case no one reads the whole thing, let’s just put this out there:
Ty Tessmann is ProLine’s poster child, and he ran JConcepts Diamond Bars in the NeoBuggy nitro main. Why is this big news? For a few reasons, but if you want to know them, you have to read on.
After transitioning from racer to designer and owner, well sort of, I do all those things at the same time, I have had the opportunity to look at things wearing all those hats. At the end of the day, we go racing to win. I have written a lot about the mental approach to racing, how to practice, and test, and just about racing in general. I realise that all the drivers at the top, go to the race looking to win, and anything else is a failure. The question everyone has to answer for themselves, is where to draw the line, do you cheat, or do you put personal relationships, and your integrity on the line in order to do so, or do you play by the book, and simply do your best with what you have?
This post isn’t really about cheating, but rather about this mentality that drivers have:
- I am getting beat, my equipment is holding me back, I need to have different car/tyres/engine/other, or else I can’t win.
- I am getting beat, obviously these other guys beating me are cheating.
The number one reason for team drivers to leave JQRacing has been, “It doesn’t suit my style”, which is code speak for, “I think your car isn’t very good, it’s holding me back, I will do much better with another car”. Without exception, these situations have resulted in no noticeable improvement in results, and in the best cases, worse results. The reason for this is, that after a certain level of product quality, the difference isn’t the product, it’s what you do with it. Let me make this absolutely clear:
Almost without exception, the difference between winning and not winning is how well you can maximise the performance of the products you have. Everything works together, and changing one thing throws off the balance. Looking for shortcuts is not the way to move forward.
So now we have a high profile case of mental meltdown, in the form of Ty Tessmann resorting to running a different brand tyre, because he was convinced that ProLine tyres were holding him back. This is an understandable reaction, but one that should be thwarted by the surrounding team, not encouraged. Let’s look at some facts:
- It didn’t help that he ran JC. 20-20 vision I know, but these things don’t work out. Really.
- On the other hand, what if he won? How do you hide that?
- Boots finished 2nd with ProLine tyres.
- If you are going to run something else, why would you not run AKA’s that were arguably the best tyres at the event?
- If you are going to run something different, why on earth would you sneak new tyres on after the race, at least go all the way and have a set of used PLs ready.
I had no idea of this until I went to check the tyre wear after the main, and Ty’s tyres looked brand new. I know Ty is a smooth driver, but this was ridiculous. I immediately put my CSI hat on, and began investigating. I found out that Maifield handed Gord the JC tyres in the pits. They were glued up in the DXR tent, before the main. Photos were avoided before the main, and they were immediately switched out after the main. This is obviously not an awesome look for the righteous Tessmann family. However, the pressure to win can corrupt the best of us, specially if the pressure is coming from you chassis manufacturer (pure speculation, based on past events). My point is, the Tessmann family are good people, this isn’t a personal attack on them, rather a highlighting of a way of thinking that racers employ, regardless of level, that is in my opinion flawed.
What makes it worse is the fact that ProLine has cracked down on team drivers using other brand tyres at other than control tyre events, actually going as far as posting about this on their Facebook group, and cutting a driver(s) off the team that have been caught doing so.
Will Tessmann be cut? I highly doubt it.
Will he ever do this again? I highly doubt it.
Not with this blog around.
Leaked footage of Gord at ProLine post NEO de-brief.
Our team of investigators uncovered this final piece of ‘telling’ evidence in the Try Traction Scandal.
An Opportunity Is All You Need
I look at Fajar staring at me, and I remember that we got this life, and that’s it. Everyone starts at a different place, but we all deserve a chance. Be a good person and you will become surrounded by good people. It’s just how the world works. I have been given a lot of opportunities by a lot of good people, and you can be sure that I have made the most of them. I am extremely grateful for all the support I have received, and I hope the favours get returned over the years, and that I can pay it forward to others too.
I have been working very hard over the past few years, and at a point lost 99% of all available hope. Now things are looking much better, and all signs point to great things ahead. Motivation and dedication level up to 100% again! Remember that behind almost every overnight success, there’s years and years of thankless hard work.
If there is one thing I have learned in life, it’s that everything starts with you. Your own attitude and your own decisions determine everything about your life. There are no excuses. It’s easy for me to say, posting blogs from my privileged position, but I have met people who have gone through true hardships, and they prove this theory to be true, time and time again!
You know all those things you have always wanted to do? You should go do them.
On another note, I re-discovered pickled beetroot today. Man it’s good!
We Talkin’ About PRACTICE!
A very good article about a lot of the things that I keep writing about on here!
How to make your kid good at anything, according to a world expert on peak performance
Flame Out Clarification
I’m not joking. I really would like to understand what happens, and why a pipe or a tank can break, causing the motor to flame out on full throttle.
- This is not a REDS issue, I had the same thing happen with my THE Engine, and with OS.
- This is not a Sidewinder issue, I have had it happen with different fuel.
- This is not a JQ fuel tank issue, I have had the same thing happen with different tanks.
- I run a P3 plug.
- This has nothing to do with any simple issue, like tune, plug, clutch, air leak, other similar.
Every time this has happened with a pipe, it just happens suddenly, change the pipe, and everything is fine. With a fueltank, I have had it happen with a brand new tank, as well as with a used one that one day goes bad.
The motor can either run fine first, and then just flame out on throttle after a few minutes. Or it can also just flame out on throttle as you are warming it up. In some cases it will flame out while warming it up, and then it will actually run once warm.
So it seems like it has to do with pressure fluctuations, but what is happening, and how? Let’s figure this out.
Your Choice – Pick One!
A: THECar BLACK Edition is a very good car.
B: JQ is a very good driver.
Pick one, because one has to be true.
What Motivates Haters – Other Than Me.
How sad does your life have to be, in order for you to truly be happy at someone else’s misfortune? There are people I don’t like, and sure, I’ll snicker at their failures, and I’ll secretly hope they aren’t successful, but do I really care? No I don’t. It doesn’t make me happy to see someone struggle, or fail, I won’t post about it or write something shitty to them. You know what I do to people I don’t like? I ignore them, because I don’t want to waste my time.
I honestly don’t get it. Look at the comments section on youtube, look at comments on fb, what is wrong with people? I really don’t understand where all this energy and motivation to actually post hate comes from. Some of you may think, but JQ, you hate on your blog all the time. No I don’t, I write humorous blog posts about all kinds of stuff, and a lot of different people, but I don’t celebrate people’s short comings or failures to put them down, because that isn’t funny. I take a grain of truth, and make it funny by blowing it up, I write about a real issue, I take a person or situation and attempt to reel them back to reality. I have never written something to the effect of: “It was awesome to see this person fail because he is a fucking idiot. It made my day. I hope his mum gets cancer too.”. That’s not funny.
My point is:
If your happiness is dependent on others, or dependent on other people’s misfortune, then you my friend have a problem!
R&D 2.0 – Making Invisible Stuff Visible
In the BLACK Edition release information I wrote about “Invisible Speed”. I call faster acceleration, and corner speed invisible speed because as a driver you are doing the same thing, and the car may actually feel the same, or very close to the same, yet it is faster. It’s faster because the car and the tyres are working better, and producing faster lap times with the same input. I haven’t been too concerned with “invisible speed” until this year, because of the obvious and evident issues needing to be solved with THECar.
Up to a year or so ago, the objective was to solve issues, unbalanced handling, aggressive initial steering, not enough after that, landing, on power handling, response and how forgiving the car was, etc. Then I felt like we reached a point where THECar was bloody good! It was not a question of geometry anymore, it was other stuff.
One was the order of priority of setup options, what is more important to have a lot of caster, and work around that, to have a short rear arm for speed, and work around that, or make the car turn with a long rear arm, etc. I needed to figure out the right order to prioritise my setup.
The second thing is all the small stuff. Sway bar location, diff height and driveshaft angles, the small things, which are hard to quantify in actual effect and to understand. Those are the things I have been focusing on, and putting all that together makes a big difference. This is the reason the BLACK Edition doesn’t look very different, from it’s predecessor. It’s many of the right small changes that add up, and make a huge improvement in handling.
Silver State
Silver State is here. Been a busy day! Got the van ready, all packed up, headed over to the Degani Inn. Ready to head out in the morning. A lot of work that had to be finished too, so not a very entertaining blog tonight. Sorry! It happens.
THEQuagraine 