Some of my favorite aspects of RC drifting that I feel are not around anymore are, simply put, individuality. Pre-covid, how many colors did we have for option parts? Now there are, what, three colors (red, black, purple)? I mean, I know it was expensive to offer all of those colors, but still.

Shell Choices - There were a variety of licensed bodies with optional body kits. Now it’s just GR86s, Supras, GR Corolla, and S-chassis. Pandora RC is literally the only mainstream company offering more than five different shells. Absolutely nobody makes option aero for any ae86 shell and that makes me sad (that’s why I just made my own).

Dual Servo Setups - Some people used to run dual servo setups on their car. The first person to do it was Sean Whitrock with his RC-Art CE-RX. Then Ryan Hellrung did it with his Wrap-Up-Next FRD and I followed with my StreetJam OTA-R31. Ryan helped me with mine. The whole purpose of running a dual servo is having Ackermann and toe adjustment on the fly. Instead of fiddling with turnbuckles, you just hit a few buttons. It was very helpful when visiting various tracks that ran on different surfaces as it helped to dial in the speed of the chassis to cater to everyone else. I also did it on my Yokomo DIB. Any chassis can run dual servo setup as long as you have an option to mount servo on either side of the deck. You will just need another servo and gyro.

Street Jam Pit Bag - I’ve only ever seen four of these
pit bags ever, two of which I own. There are two more people here with one. All local. Crazy considering the bags only came with the StreetJam r3x kit which included a StreetJam MT44 remote, and all the electronics that are embroidered on the bag. This was a counter kit chassis from 2012. This whole package was $1800 USD, IIRC.

By the way, Keyence was Accuvance before they became Accuvance ;)
slow tandems - There is a time and place to drive fast. Old school guys would prefer a chill tandem whereas newer guys (that probably started on the YD-2 or RMX) would prefer a faster, quicker course. I like controlling the slide with a higher gyro with throttle control and less steering.

One more nugget of Old Skool Coolness… Rare Arts

Rare Arts was founded by Randy Beard who is an O.G. in the game. It was basically a group that started with a handful of people that just vibed. Randy did take it to the next level by making a group page (still exists) and started sponsoring drivers and shell builders out of his own pocket. It grew into a page that people were finding inspiration from because the level of body and chassis posts were just next level. I believe it was around 2015-2019. I was brought into the circle around 2016 because of my previous missile builds but I don’t believe people realized how long building a missile actually took. People tend to want things as soon as possible; it just ended up not being worth it on anybody’s end. I believe it was also like that with the other builders in the group. This was the shell builders as well as the custom chassis builders. It was a great idea, just too far ahead of its time, in my opinion.

-Matt Youkhana