Chris, RC Driver is a great magazine and you should be proud to be able to say you have worked there since issue 2. I remember the first issue clearly as it was so different from the other magazines.
I hope I have answered your questions to your satisfaction. We are a good company, we are small, and all the Caster customers we have know what we stand for, etc.... and obviously what we are trying to do. Is there a better way of doing it? Maybe. Has anyone done it the way we are? No idea. I think we are on the right track and I think a lot of people are either offended or pleasantly surprised that I am so brutally honest about everything and that I want customers to talk to me and help us make our products better. I just got of the phone with the owner of holeshothobbies and he has been with us since about day one. I have all the respect in the world for this guy and I love it that I can bounce ideas off of him and he is big enough that people ask him questions about Caster.
We just had a discussion that there is a new "team member" who is complaining about another new "team member" who is in the same area and feels that their skill levels are vastly different and he feels insulted. The problem with that is how it is looked at and of course, people do not tend to look at the big picture like I do. I replied that the second guy might have lied to us then and I am awaiting his response. Basically, there is not any easy way to check if someone truly won or placed 3rd at a given race unless it is big enough to be posted somewhere like sgrid or neobuggy, etc...
There are 2 issues here. I do not know WHO we sponsored other than what they listed as a resume, but we find out fairly quickly. Now looking at it from my perspective, and this wasn't intentionally done by the way (WAITING FOR MORE FACTS) but the reality of the situation is that unless these guys do not get along, it is perfect for us. We have a good racer out there proving what the car can do in regards to racing and we have a guy that might or might not hit the wall and crash once per lap. BOTH of these traits are valuable because now we can see the durability factor and see problems that we might not ever see with the good driver, but might be commonplace for joe consumer and be able to address it. Maybe with the help of the good team driver, the other one might get better, maybe just running the Caster will make him better, who knows, but I want feedback and I want solutions so we can make a better product in the end. Now if the guy with less experience goes into the hobbystore all the time and he happens to be friendly there or if he posts a lot on the internet compared to the good racer, who at that point is more valuable? I personally think both are equal.
Which brings us to the next topic of the K8-T. We have suddenly seen a new problem with the truggy diffs failing. We know that they are particular and need to be shimmed correctly. Some people read the forums and did what we recommended, some did not. We are asking what the person did, when they failed, etc...
As a result, we are trying to put buggy diffs in front and in back to see if it is the gear design or if it is something else. This brings us to the hypothesis of....Is the clutchbell hitting the chassis upon landing from big jumps? It is possible that the chassis plate flexes a little and if the clutchbell hits the chassis and puts a load on the clutchbell, then obviously it transfers down to the weakest link. At least we are on it and trying to solve it after a week. Who else does that? Who else cares? I know for a fact that other manufacturers have had diff problems and knuckle problems, etc....and it is inevitable that there will be problems with buggies and truggies just because of what they are and what they do.
Best part of it is that we are going to have a new truggy within 6 months so it is irrelevant, BUT, we think it is important enough to try to solve it for our current customers and the next generation customers that will buy these ones from a friend or off ebay...