Should i try to race my Rustler offroad?

[Mule]

I have a rustler xl-5. I have big bore shocks all the way around, aluminum carriers and caster blocks. Steel u joints(?) where axles in rear come away from transmission. Also installed a 13.5 turn novak kinetic ballistic motor and esc combo. Also running a 2c 7600 mah lipo battery. After making all of these upgrades i went to my lhs to watch their 1st friday night race and out of 73 racers their were zero rustlers! Obviously i got ahead of myself even though it would have been nice for the guy at the hobby store to inform me of this. Anyway, i cant decide rather or not to convert my rustler some how into a racer or go and buy the losi ten SCTE 4×4. Any suggestions? Im tired of spending unnecessary money.

[suburban_hooligan]

you could give racing the rustler a shot, but i don't see it being competitive against trucks like the RC10T4.1 and losi XXXT and 22T.
but you can use the rustler as an introduction to racing. gain some experience, learn to tune for track conditions, learn to drive on a track. things like that. then once you have that experience and you're more informed about what works, whats favored and what's supported at that track then you can buy a new race truck.

as much as i dislike the rustler i say go for it. race it. you've got nothing to loose and everything to gain

[nerdyrcdriver]

Racing rustlers is a blast man! There is a reason that stadium trucks were so popular. They were the short course trucks of their day, and I guarantee that my rusty (seriously rusty and falling apart) could out handle my blitz any day of the week. Do you know the guy from ultimatercnetwork? A rustler was his first hobby grade truck, and when he got into racing he owned with it! Then the other racers would say something like, "you beat me with what?" Granted it isnt extremely durable, it can be made durable.

My guess is that if they dont have a group of people racing stadium trucks, they will probably throw you in an open offroad type of class. So anything that doesnt have someone else to race against. I got stuck racing my merv against my friends rusty once. He owned me pretty quick, but I only had the car for a week and had never driven on a track.

My friend made a custom extended chassis for his rusty and put on a short course body. It is cool, but it doesnt handle like a stadium truck or a sct. And he doesnt get to race against short course trucks unless they get tired of small races, and throw him in a different race.

I would say, race the rusty the first couple times, then if you want to switch, buy the losi you want. But keep the rusty for the day the stadium trucks come back and own the sct's. It already started happening at my local track. One day someone brought their st to play around with it. (he was a regular sct racer). Everyone else saw, and fixed up their stadium trucks. Now they have a whole class at least every other week.

[Kevin Ham]

Racing a Rustler offroad would require alot of *precise* tuning to be able to compete and win. If you don't know much about racing or how to make your rc do what you want it to, I would look into getting something else specifically setup as a race-ready rc. It's worth a shot though, it's always fun to drive rc's. If you're racing offroad the first thing I'd get would be better wheels and a better steering servo. The Proline Badlands are a great set of wheels, I have them on my Stampede for non-competitive offroad racing and it's literally a night to day difference from the stock treads.