Slash 4x4 LCG Stage1: Intro and background

With the upcoming release of our Slash 4x4 LCG conversion kit, we at STRC thought it would be a good chance to offer sort of a “behind the scene” look at just how a product is materialized from concept, to design, to prototype, to testing and finally to mass production.   But first, a little bit of background:

My name is Steve Wang, owner of STRC.  I’ve been involved in the R/C industry for over 20 years , and some of you might recognize my name from my first business in the industry (Speed Tech R/C www.speedtechrc.com).  Like many entrepreneurs in the industry, I started out working at a local hobby shop at a very young age (high school part-time), and then became full time sales.  Then I was offered a part-time contributing writer position to a magazine, and then to full time in-house writer position at the same magazine.  My R/C racing starting way back in the late 80s-early 90s (there was a huge off-road boom back then as well with tracks seemingly everywhere).  Then when all the tracks started disappearing, R/C industry moved on to the parking lot on-road racing trend, and I was heavily involved with on-road racing from the mid 90s to early 2000.  I still hit the track (both on and off-road) regularly, more for product testing (off-road) and visiting old friends (on-road)  R/C racing has been a huge part of my life and career and I still enjoy it immensely till this day.

(Racing at TCS National 2010)

Finally in the year 2000, at age 22, I decided to start my own little hobby shop in a 300 sq ft corner of an office, all the while I was still trying to finish my first business degree.  I actually turned in my start-up business as my senior project for my business degree to graduate.  I emptied what little savings I had and went for it, and hit the touring car racing wave just right and Speed Tech R/C became the "go to" destination for all on-road racing needs.   I sold the business in 2007 and committed the gain from the sale of the business, my entire life saving again (and then borrowed some more) to start STRC (ST Racing Concepts).   I always knew I wanted to produce my own line of products and launch my own brand even as early as the first year I owned my shop.  Little did I known the huge amount of resource and financial commitment it required.  This has been an amazing learning experience thus far. 

Today, STRC is still a relatively small company (despite what it may seem like to some people on the outside).  I have a small group of dedicated employees that takes care of the day to day responsibility (order filling, customer service questions, product packaging…etc.) but I still wear most of the “hats” in the company.  I personally handle all the major components of the business including coming up with the concept for products and overseeing all the designs that come through.  It has always been my intent to keep the company small, and although that for certain means long work days and weekends, but it’s what keeps our operating cost low and the price of our product very competitive in the market without ever having to compromise on the quality and craftsmanship.   



(one corner of the warehouse...bins and bins of parts ready to go.  All labeled and organized according to the vehicle that it is for.  To the right is my little corner of the warehouse, got my own pit table (which is always a mess) a playstation and flatscreen next to me when I need to just let go and zombie out for a bit)

With a project like the Slash 4x4 LCG conversion kit, it’s an opportunity to show case the ability of our company in terms of design capability and translating it to performance improvement on the race track.  It’s a similar philosophy behind our Slash 2wd LCG Conversion kit.   It is not a project that is profit driven, which is part of the reason why we are able to implement and probably for the first time in the industry,  a “manufacture direct to customer” pricing.  This is not a typical item a distributor would carry as it is a very racing and performance oriented product aimed at experienced racers.  It's not the mass market that most distributors and shop caters to today.  We also want as many of our customers to experience the most value for their dollar spent while vastly improving the performance of the R/C vehicle they love to enjoy, in this case, for their Traxxas Slash 4x4.

Some might ask:  “Why now?”  “Why after the Slash 4x4 has been released for some many years?”  Valid questions, and I have a very simple explanation:  I originally had designs for a LCG conversion kit for Slash 4x4 way back just a few months after it was released.  At the time, the only other 4x4 platform on the market was the Hyper 10SC and the Jammin SCRT10.  This was still 6-8 months away before Losi and AE jumped on board with their 4x4.  So I immediately recognized that there was an opportunity then to produce a LCG conversion to allow the Slash 4x4 to race against the Hyper and the Jammin.  However, reality of the business aspect of my company did not allow me the budget to do so.  At the time our company was just starting to find its footing and all our resource were committed to making products that our customers (the distributors) want.  Both our financial resources and factory capacity were tied for months and months in advance to making what the market was demanding (at the time it was rock crawling and short course trucks).  A project like a Slash 4x4 LCG conversion kit will tie up a good portion of our factory capacity at the time due to the amount of pieces involved and it would not have been an item the distributors would want to pick up and sell in good volume.  We had to deliver the supply of products that our customers were demanding (supply and demand!)….so we produced what we “had to make” instead of what we “want to make”.   As an owner, I have to make sure the bills are paid, employees are paid, and families are fed.  I have to make sure our company was financially stable with a strategic plan for growth in coming years before I can think about taking on special projects like this.  It’s the same philosophy to a certain degree for fullsize automobile companies that are heavily into racing today.  Ask Ferrari or McLaren why they make road cars, and they will tell you, part of the reason is to fund the racing segment of their company.   

Fast forward to now, 6th year into the life of STRC.  We are looking at an opportunity to revisit a project that I long had a desire to do.  I know we are not going to be the first to market on this one, which only means one thing to me:  Our design have better be just as good or better than what’s out there….and offer it at an impossible to refuse price.  So with that in mind, we move on to the next step of the process….the design.

(very early initial design that we started with....the final design vastly varied from this, but you gotta start some where)