I agree, Rob. I think they kind of threw this car into no-man's land. It's not a re-release of a vintage icon, and it's not a new world beater. It just kind of... is.
You could take some of the contemporary touring cars of today and make a killer 4wd dirt oval car with very little effort, and probably have something far more substantial without the iconic name on the box.
I think the JRXS that I had played with had a lot of potential as a late model, but was still based on a narrow-armed touring car. Would have been interesting to get this car a little wider, though.
While I would agree that the touring cars would make an intimidating foe to a Dominator in the class, there is one huge difference. Simplicity. My entire love affair with the Dominator stems from it’s brilliant simplicity. I mean when you look at it there is no wondering what’s going on there. You can see it all. It just looks bad ass and more importantly, it’s lightweight. Not a big deal now, but when these things did as their name suggests and dominated…weight meant everything. You couldn’t go fast and run a long time back then. You had to pick one or the other. I am fully aware that you all know this and are merely talking 4wd oval in a modern world. I was pleasantly surprised at the design of the new Dom in the other link. It still looks bad ass and relatively simple next to most modern 4wds. Not nearly as cool as the original, but pretty trick nonetheless. Touring cars are cool as hell and an engineering marvel to look at, but there’s just so much going on there…
"The world looks so much better through beer goggles: Enjoy today, you never know what tomorrow may bring." Ken
The simplicity of the Dominator was a bane and a curse—if you wanted to adjust the car to make it work better, you couldn't do ANYTHING to it. Nothing. Maybe adjust toe-in and shock springs, and swaybars if your track could handle them. That's it. It didn't work well everywhere, but it looked like it did because you could just use massive HP and 4wd to drive the car wherever you wanted to put it. There were times when it was a handful. There was a huge reason the car needed that giant side dam—because it was awful to drive without it.
It was extremely high maintenance. We would rebuilt the entire car between heats. Not events—heat races! I mandated that if you want the car to work for long periods of time. The shocks needed to rebuilt just about before the 4 minute mark of your race, too.
The original Dominator is an icon of R/C racing history, no doubt. But, it was based on one of the most primitive off road cars of the day, and was grossly overpriced for what you got in a kit. Anyone that had one at the time was racing in the highest levels of dirt oval racing. There were no kids running them, and very few people that didn't have some access to killer batteries and motors.
I owe a lot of my racing history to Custom Works cars, and especially the Dominator, but there is nothing appealing about racing that simplistic car today. If you are a collector, you can find an old one and knock yourself out restoring it, and even taking it for a few mind-blowing laps at your local dirt oval. But given the opportunity, guys like Dustin (GoFast/Hyperdrive) and Chad (Dynotech) are going to build 4wd cars that will blow that car off the track—and they haven't even taken that concept seriously yet. I really would have anticipated a more adjustable car from Custom Works the second time around.
Not knocking CW—I think it's great they are bringing back a legend. But it would have been a great place to really showcase some serious hardware. I would guess that if the class grows again, that this car will evolve like the modern day Enforcer has evolved from Delta shocks and direct drive.
I was pleasantly surprised at the design of the new Dom in the other link. It still looks bad ass and relatively simple next to most modern 4wds. Not nearly as cool as the original, but pretty trick nonetheless. Touring cars are cool as hell and an engineering marvel to look at, but there’s just so much going on there…
