Tom Bennett has been taking radio-controlled cars apart for nearly as long as he has been driving them, and, according to his family, putting most of the parts back where they belong.
His interest in RC started with inexpensive hobby-store cars and gradually turned into a garage full of bashers, crawlers, short-course trucks, spare motors, LiPo batteries, chargers, tires, suspension parts, and enough miscellaneous screws to fill several coffee cans. Over the years, Tom has spent countless weekends running RC cars on pavement, dirt, gravel, grass, construction lots, backyard ramps, and anywhere else that looked like a good place to see what a truck could take.
At BashBench, Tom focuses on the side of the RC hobby that doesn’t always show up on the manufacturer’s specification sheet: what happens after you actually bash the thing. He looks at durability, handling, repairability, parts availability, battery life, drivetrain wear, suspension setup, tires, electronics, and whether an upgrade actually improves the vehicle or just makes the parts list more expensive.
Tom is especially interested in helping people who are moving from toy-grade RC cars into hobby-grade vehicles. He remembers how confusing terms like 2S, 3S, brushless, LiPo, ESC, C-rating, differential fluid, servo torque, and gearing sounded when he first encountered them, so he tries to explain them without assuming the reader already speaks fluent RC.
His testing philosophy is straightforward: run it, break it, fix it, run it again, and tell readers exactly what happened.
Areas of experience
- RC bashers
- Monster trucks
- Short-course trucks
- Crawlers
- Brushless systems
- LiPo batteries and chargers
- ESCs
- Servos
- Suspension tuning
- Gearing
- Tires
- Repairs
- Replacement parts
- Practical upgrades
Guides by Tom
- Arrma Kraton 6S vs Traxxas X-Maxx: which giant basher should you buy?
- Brushless vs brushed RC motors: what's the real difference?
- LiPo vs NiMH: which RC battery should you run?
- RC battery connector types: a plain-English chart
- RC motor KV explained: what the number really means
- RC scale sizes explained, from 1/24 micros to 1/5 giants
- RTR vs kit: should your first RC car come built or in pieces?
- SCX24 vs TRX-4M vs Ascent-18: the micro crawler showdown
- The best LiPo charger for beginners, matched to your batteries
- The best RC car battery for your truck
- The best RC car for adults, from 50 mph bashers to scale crawlers
- The best RC car for beginners: 8 first trucks worth buying
- The best RC car for kids, picked by age
- The best RC car for the money, at every budget
- The best RC crawler for beginners, picked by where you'll crawl
- The best RC crawler tires, by wheel size
- The best RC drift car, from desk drifters to RWD with a gyro
- The first 5 upgrades for any RC basher
- Traxxas Slash 4x4 review: still the best first 'real' RC truck?
- Traxxas vs Arrma: which RC brand is better for you?
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