Thanks for the feedback everyone!
I've placed an order for some Kydex from
McMaster-Carr, I've been meaning to shape some custom parts anyway since investing in
TBR bumpers for most of my off-road cars anyway.
@Mariob62, having read your posts about parts breaking with "light contact" has me in disbelief. I used to race a pair of
$99 RTR Exceed DriftKing's at my local club for 2 years before I moved up to TC6.0's. While I did experience an occasional break here and there with my Drift King's, I've never seen any break due to "light contact", it was because my car slammed into the wall at high speeds in excess of 20mph, In contrast, my pair of TC6's have proven to be significantly more durable, but they've seen their share of breaks too, there is no such thing as bullet proof plastic.
One tends to lose credibility in my eyes when they claim "light contact" broke their car. It's purely a speculative statement which doesn't provide any qualitative feedback as to what specifically caused the break... was the break caused due to poor quality or due to driver error? Pictures of broken parts also help provide clues to help designers remedy any potential flaws. What impresses me the most is how HoBao(OFNA) has since re-formulated more flexible plastic and shipped replacement parts free of charge to early adopters. That to me is the definition of a company who stands behind their product, and presents the type of company I would be willing to invest my hobby $$$ into
While I am not a HoBao(OFNA) sponsored driver, it's worth noting that I also race several of their Hyper 10 series cars and have been impressed with their quality of plastic with those designs already. I must admit that HoBao is not the "most durable" design on the track, but a consistent driver shouldn't have durability issues if they know how to follow a proper line. My Hyper's do a pretty decent job keeping up with the Losi's and the Tekno's in 4WD SC, and on rare occassion, one of my Hyper's actually take a local win.
You could probably find a more durable design to race, but chances are you will likely sacrifice performance. The hottest platform I see at the tracks in my area are XRay T4's, and they are probably the most delicate car too, some T4 drivers rarely go a full race day without at least 1 break... ouch!