Haha well whatever was wrong with my ESC will never be known....it literally just went up in colorful stinky flames while I was troubleshooting the issue. The heatsinks were scorching hot within 10 seconds of testing the motor. I don't know what the problem was, I've had the same motor/ESC setup for several years and it's worked fine. My recent upgrade in batteries may have been too much juice for it....time for brushless!