From Traxxas PRO Lights & Super Buggies to RC vehicles, CJ Greaves crosses over @ TORC
Posted on Saturday, September 24, 2011
CJ’s a HUGE RC enthusiast, which interestingly crosses over nicely to his setup & on-track Traxxas TORC Series racing
By Pat Schutte
INDIANAPOLIS, (Sept. 24, 2011) – You should have seen it. At Crandon Colton “CJ” Greaves (Traxxas/Monster Energy/Maxxis) flew off the track rolled like 12 times. It looked to be horrible. But not only was CJ laughing about it, some little girl picked up his truck – put in back on the track – and he took off, then rolled some more.
With Traxxas, the TORC Series, presented by AMSOIL, has one of the more symbiotic relationships with its title sponsor out of any American motorsport race series. Cell phone and insurance companies, generous clothing and beverage companies – a giant camping store chain – all keep various motorsport series going, which is great. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a series with a title sponsor that relates as perfectly to the racing it sponsors as Traxxas does to TORC.
And CJ Greaves, son of off-road racing great Johnny Greaves, is a great example of how high-performance radio control vehicles relate to off-road racing. Traxxas’ industry leading Slash, Slash 4x4 and Slayer models do a remarkable job duplicating what their full size counterparts do on the TORC tracks. And while many professional drivers, including Rick Huseman, Kyle Bush and the Jenkins brothers Mike and Mark all count RC racing as their first racing experience, Greaves, 16, has literally used RC racing as a legitimate training ground for his TORC Series setup and racing efforts in both the Super Buggy and Traxxas PRO Light divisions.
And it goes the other way as well … the TORC pro drivers who experience Traxxas radio control for the first time during the series’ live event Pro Driver Challenge are highly impressed with the authenticity of Traxxas’ products, as well as how much effort the top RC racers put into their personal racing programs.
We caught up with CJ here recently and got his take on radio control racing, his background with the sport and, most interestingly, how RC racing translates to experience with this TORC efforts – and – visa versa.
TORC Series: CJ, tell us a bit about your RC racing program here. How long you’ve been involved and what are some of the similarities between RC and TORC racing.
CJ Greaves: I started getting involved with RC cars when I was about 12. And for about the last four years I do the RCs during the week and off weeks from racing … it all comes into play because you learn different lines and stuff for your actual TORC racing from the RC cars. But the big thing with me was having the RC car help explain the setup of our competition TORC vehicles – especially the Super Buggy class.
TORC Series: That’s interesting. The Traxxas vehicles have operating parts that are more or less exact scale version parts of what’s on your TORC Super Buggy and Traxxas PRO Light truck?
CJ Greaves: Yeah, it’s pretty crazy how similar everything is. You change little things here and there on your car, the toe-in, shock valving, ride height, roll center, spring rate, weight distribution, gearing and even the tire compounds. Then when I get to the TORC events I know better what that stuff does. So yeah, my Traxxas RC has helped me out a lot with my TORC racing setup.
TORC Series: So you pretty much not only know when you’re looking over a mechanic’s shoulder what he’s working on, but you can also probably relate better any issues you’re having with the vehicle of the track – and a lot that’s based on your RC experience?CJ Greaves: I use RCs to learn and gather information. And it’s a huge advantage. Ride height, valving and rebound – closing and opening the rebound tubes – changing springs from harder to softer ones, moving your pivot points around, all your roll centers and knowing what does what where and what does better where helps out a lot.
CJ continued: When you’re working on an RC car, you learn the names of everything more or less – and they’re the same on the actual off-road race vehicles. You break something and you come back into the pits and say ‘I think that was the rear gear that went out, or the driveshaft.’ And you learn that by just going over these RC cars time after time. My dad can be like ‘Go check your drive axle and some people might be like ‘Can you show me what that is?’ But from RC cars I know all that now and can pick it out and see if it’s good or bad.
TORC Series: Did you have to learn a lot about electronics that you didn’t know before in order to be able to work on your Traxxas RC car?
CJ Greaves: For sure. When I first started they’d just started with the brushless stuff. I’d learned on the brushes and once the brushless stuff came out it made everything much more simple. But you have to know some key things. Like if your car and radio aren’t programmed right, your car can like go wide open at half throttle. So I learned, and figured out all that and I’m finally getting to know it to the point where I can start helping other people at the RC races.
TORC Series: Does RC racing help one class more than the other?
CJ Greaves: It’s pretty similar, but the Traxxas RCs are more like buggies. They’re not locked rear ends. Independent rear ends. You go into a corner, throw it in hard, it’s going to haze the inside tire like it does my super buggy. So yeah, RCs play out more like a Super Buggy, but overall it’s pretty much all the same.
TORC Series: You know what it takes to be good at TORC racing. No. 1 is an incredible team behind you. And you’re fortunate to be the son of one of the all-time greats. So what’s it take to be good at RC racing?
CJ Greaves: You definitely have to get to know your car. You have to know what you’re putting in it all the time and know that it’s going to improve. Yeah, there’d be times when you might change stuff and it gets worse, but you have to know for the most part what the car likes and what it doesn’t. Same with the TORC racing. Driving time definitely plays a big part. And tire selection as well – in both RC and TORC. And while you may not have a team at the RC races, you have your friends there and everybody at the races is always super helpful if you have questions and stuff.
TORC Series: Along those same lines, how does your TORC racing help your RC racing?
CJ Greaves: When you’re on the track, hitting jumps, you know the feeling of what it’s like being in the car. Then when I carry that over to my RC racing, you recognize areas on the track where you were in the same-type situation. And you know from how you came out of it (driving) how to set up and adjust with your controller.TORC Series: Do other guys you’re racing RCs against know that you also are one of the world’s top short course off-road racers on the TORC Series?
CJ Greaves: Yeah, most of the guys I race RCs with know me and what I do. It’s all fun. I see them at the TORC races and actually experience the real off-road races and they’re into it. They stop by the trailer, hang out and ask all kinds of questions that I’m able to relate back and forth with them on.
TORC Series: We all know where you rank in TORC Racing – 1st in Super Buggy and 9th in the Traxxas PRO Light division – where do you rank amongst the legions of RC racers?
CJ Greaves: I haven’t been to that many big races. But around here there’s a couple good guys that go to all the races and, when they show up, I can usually run right with them, stay in the top three.
TORC Series: Ever wrecked one of your Traxxas RC vehicles to the point where you might have though ‘Man, if I was in that there’d be no way I could get out of bed tomorrow!
’CJ Greaves: Oh, yeah. For sure. Some of the times we’ll just go out there and practice, have fun and just bash each other. It’s so fun because it’s affordable and it doesn’t hurt when you wreck. The Traxxas RC vehicles are bulletproof. In fact, for a lot of people RC racing is their form of TORC racing. They don’t have the money or the driving ability to go out and race TORC, so you can go out and smash and bang your RC cars as much as you want and it all plays out for them that way.
TORC Series: How many laps would it take to lap your dad?
CJ Greaves: With RCs? Oh, not too much.
TORC Series: What about TORC?
CJ Greaves: Haha. I don’t think that’d be happening.
For more on CJ Greaves link to: http://www.johnnygreaves.com/bio.asp#cj
For more on Traxxas link to: www.traxxas.com
CJ Greaves photo by Michael Roth
About TORC
The Traxxas TORC Series, presented by AMSOIL, is the fastest, most punishing short course racing series on the planet! TORC events are packed with flag-to-flag fender banging as drivers push the limits over whoops and jump-filled natural terrain race tracks. Off-road racing fans come from far and wide to experience the most challenging form of high-octane competition. And once they taste TORC for the first time they’re hooked for life!