In all my years of running RC cars you would think that my driving abilities would improve! In fact, the only thing that I have been really consistent at, and seemed to have perfected as an art form, is breaking things. More things get smashed in my world than faces in Mortal Combat!

If the world was a giant, flat, smooth piece of asphalt, I would still manage to launch my car and tumble it into smithereens! I just have this natural ability to screw things up, like a reverse "Midas Touch" (and I ain't talking mufflers, baby!). Everything I touch turns to poop. Maybe it is a lack of depth perception, or hand-eye coordination, or just really bad luck, but I just keep breaking things! True, I run my cars hard, and often not in the best conditions, so I'm not completely surprised. But I hate being in the pits, working on my cars when I could be out there driving them! Pass me the duct tape!

My friends love the modeling aspect of RC cars, and their cars all have beautiful paint jobs, realistic detailing, and clean assembly. Me, I could care, I just want to drive! My car could look like a loaf of bread, as long as it is working and beating the competition! My buds were so miffed that my crappy-looking cars kept giving them such a hard time that they all bought me new lexan bodies for my birthday. They insisted that I clean up my act and paint my cars decent. So I worked hard to clean up my act and make my cars look cool. That lasted about, hmm, one day! I try to do fancy paint jobs and keep things neat and tidy, but when you are the "destructo-driver" like me, it just doesn't last long. On wrong move and Cackola! My paint chips, pieces break, things fly off, and in the heat of things I just zip-tie and tape everything back together! Screw modeling, get me back out on the track!

For some reason, my street car seems to take more of a beating than my off road stuff. It gets nasty dirty, fully trashed, and totally beat. The last time out, I even broke the dang thing in half! It was bound to happen. The poor beast has a history of abuse out on the street where I live, and twice I ran it into the water-filled gutter! Nothing is more "wack" than a wet, stir-crazy RC car just driving in circles! Hey kids, here's a tip: RC cars and water don't mix! Just call me Mr. Submarine captain, blub, blub! Luckily everything dried out o.k., and I took it to a new track nearby. It was my first time on a professional RC Car course and I was stoked. The car handled great, without pebbles, parking blocks, sand, small children, and the dreaded water-hazards to torment it! I was so excited about finally getting to open it up and go full speed on the long back straight-away that I didn't notice that they had changed the course! The back stretch had been cut in half, with hair-pin turns in the middle. Ka-pow! Houston, we have lift-off! I didn't even get around the track once and I managed to put my car into orbit, dismantling most of it in the process! Sheesh. If there wasn't a hobby-shop on the premises, I would have been out for the day. I felt like a total moron until some other guys did the same thing! As it was, I somehow managed to break my car in half (the T-bar snapped) before the day was through! I'm guessing my continued love-affair with that back wall didn't help. Result: Wallet empty, street car out. On to off road...

I have managed to keep my off-road buggy pretty fresh, despite my history of destruction. My first car, a Tamiya Baja Bug from way back, had a rather violent demise when it met up with my parent's mail box at high speed. I was driving up and down the sidewalk when...Vrooooom....>>Slam!<< It was a few inches shorter after that, and I never really found all of the pieces! In an effort to keep my RC-10 strictly off-road, (and away from mail-boxes!) I built a big track in my back yard. Landscaping is for ninnies! Grass is for golf-courses! Bring me dirt!! I still kept ripping the wheels off and breaking stuff until I removed the really hard things from the course (Hey Kids, Lesson Two: Bricks make lousy turn markers!). Things stayed expensive (and kept my local hobby shop happy!) until I started to run the course backwards. This prevented a bad launch off of the big stadium jump from ejecting the cars straight into the house! Before the change this "launch of death" claimed many a victim, culminating with my buddies Traxxas truck making an impressive dent in the house some three feet up! Ouch. He broke entirely that day and racing resumed only because I happened to have the "loaner buggy" ready to go. That's right, I now have an entire spare car. My momma didn't raise no dummy! I'm not going to sit out and just twiddle my thumbs when I invariably break down! Move over, dude, I'm a racin'!

Between my main car and loaner buggy I was keeping things pretty much together, having a great time in my backyard. Then one day I stumbled upon the ultimate in RC car torture: an empty swimming pool! Yes, I drained the pool and now engage in all sorts of 1/10 scale torture! It is RAD, but one mistake and your car does an impressive concrete high-dive! Time and your heart stop as your car flies through space, ten feet straight down with a sickening crunch and slide! Average run time: two minutes, then I break something, but I don't care! I want ten cars to trash in the pool! Gimme a lotto ticket, I wanna be rich! "Another car, James. I seem to have broken this one...". I just dig the pool thing too much to give it up. I get pumped watching the car get air like Tony Magnussen! The bummer is I seem to lack huge funds for RC cars, and tragically, predictably, I broke everything I own in "Pandora's Pool"! I even broke my friends buggy that he left at my house by accident! "Oops! Heh, heh. Well, shock-tower mounts are really over-rated! It looks cool lowered like that! No, really, dude." The final score: Me: 0. World of RC Car Destruction: 4.

Well, I'm outta here. I gotta go do some "modeling" and go support my local hobby shop! Gonna put his kids though college, I swear. Ugh, I hate the modeling part. I just have no patience. I know, I'll just zip-tie this back, slap that down, screw this thing-a-magig tight and tape that up! Yep, ready to rock! Stand back, bra, got to go out and drive! You ain't havin' fun unless your breaking somethin'! Out.