Has RC Ever Been This Big?
Just lately I’ve been amazed at the amount of effort going into the RC car industry. The sheer number of manufacturers, tracks, racers, specialised press websites etc is so encouraging. Has RC ever had it so good?
The Cars
So many manufacturers are out there these days. Back in the day there used to be the big ones, such as Tamiya, Kyosho, Associated, Schumacher, Yokomo, Losi.
But now we have fantastic efforts coming out of much smaller companies such as Xray, Durango, V-Dezign, Atomic Carbon. And that’s by far not a comprehensive list.
And these new companies are winning too – V-Dezign did jolly well in the recent 12th Euros.
Durango is busy, no sooner has it brought out a 4wd buggy than we’ve seen not one, but two flavours of 2wd prototype.
And Tamiya seems back on form with it’s TRF efforts, topping the touring car and off-road mains everywhere. It too seems to be working on a 2wd buggy as well.
So much development is happening at grass-roots level too. People such as Fabien Simonini busy working on a mid-motor chassis for the RB5. And other’s working on their own custom chassis cars.
It’s all so very healthy, a lot of competition, a lot of manufacturers.
The Racers
RC really does have professional racers these days it seems. Manufacturers are now employing top racers to race and develop products for them.
Watching the international reports, you see some of the top guys racing all around the world, all the time. One week they’ll be in Europe, and the next in the Far East. Racing multiple classes, working hard.
And club racing has never been so good. In my local area there’s no less than 3 or 4 clubs within 10 miles or so. And I’ve heard of some local clubs getting 70-100 drivers for normal club meetings, OUTSIDE IN WINTER!
That all means there’s more and more racers all the time.
The Tracks
Tracks come and go, but there’s been more and more interest in the UK of late for indoor facilities. Maritime, PDA, Ardent are all excellent indoor facilities.
Then you look overseas and see even more amazing facilities that must have cost someone tens of thousands to set up. Multiple tracks open all week long. Sounds brilliant!
And it’s not stopping, I know of several more tracks that are in the planning stages in the UK. There are certainly some gaps to fill geographically…
I’d predict in the next 5 years we’ll have year-round racing on whatever surface you desire.
The Press
There’s many websites out there now, Red RC, oOple, RCRaceChat, RCTech, etc, etc, etc, there’s dozens of them. I can’t keep up. I should probably get my act together and create a directory of them.
These sites are mostly amateur affairs, but more it seems they are gaining sponsorship, especially to cover large events. The quality of event coverage has increased so much in the last year or two.
And we’re not only limited to words and pictures, video is getting bigger and bigger. And RC Racing on Motors TV is bringing RC direct to the television too.
The Future?
I guess where all this is heading is soon the sport will move out of it’s traditional cocoon, and begin attracting sponsorship from companies outside the sport.
And when that happens, more and more money will start pouring into the sport, meaning bigger and better everything.
What will we all do? We’ll carry on messing around with toy cars!
Written by simon.
PDA Dirt Challenge Report
I’ve already written this report twice, the first time on Saturday night I got writer’s block. Then on Sunday I wrote it and managed to lose it in the tinterweb somewhere…
Day 1 – 2wd (& SC)
An early start, 5am ish for me, pick up the boys on the way and get the campenwagen to Bicester. Traffic was light, and cheese power helped us reach Mach 8.8.
Rob revealed his breakfast choice as a gourmet romantic picnic. His girlfriend Steph had bought fancy cheeses, tiny fish, olives, meats, crackers and other delights, so Rob stole them and brought them racing, nice (but smelly)! It’s okay, they’ve gone on holiday today (Monday) so she hopefully wont read this until they get back.
PDA was full and buzzing at 7:30, we squeezed in opposite some Welsh chaps and went to order bacon.
9 heats were booked in, 2 short course trucks and 7 2wd heats. I was in the first 2wd heat: this is because I’m shit at off-road.
The track was cool as always, nice dirt, a big jump over the table top and the double double under the rostrum.
Practice was in heats, and my car was slow, and hard to drive. I fiddled with it a bit and run the first round and decided to pull the nice and safe 10.5 out and put in an 8.5
The next run I discovered my speedo wasn’t set up correctly (that Novak always seems to forget it’s settings…) and reset it.
Third round was a decent run, and I was going okay in the last run until a ball joint popped off.
So I ended up 40th out of 42. That’s not very good at all is it!
The rest of the ‘Lazy tem faired better, Staples was up in 9th (!), Townsend in the 20s, Haskell and Howett in the 30s.
Finals were unusual for electric, running a double-sided Christmas tree bump-up format. So I won my first find (16ths), bumped up and ended up 4th, so that wasn’t too bad in the end really.
Up at the top the boys were flying, Lee Martin lapped pretty much everyone in the A main with his Atomic Carbon Losi XXX-CR2 Red Speed Passion Yadda Yadda machine. It was dialed, great racing.
We trucked up to the Travelodge, and I got very bored and grumpy whilst Mark built a Tamiya and tested it in the corridor. Finally we were allowed to go for dinner, and the Fox & Hounds provided amazing pies, and those Welsh boys provided far too much hilarity! Great crack!
All tucked up in bed before midnight, ready for sleepies for Sunday’s 4wd.
And what do you mean no-one wears sleeping hats anymore?
Day 2 – 4wd
I woke up an hour too early, so got up and showered and dressed, then realised I was knackered so got back into bed. Another couple of hours whilst Mark faffed around and Bob watched children’s telly then to the track.
Tamiya was out in force, with about a dozen 511s, all looking nice and shiny. And practice showed them all performing well.
I was trying my shocks at the rear-rear, and it didn’t really cut it, so I put it back to the conventional position and the car was ace.
I couldn’t drive it very well, I could do a decent single lap (quicker than Mark or Bob, thankyouverymuch), I just need to figure out how to do it for 5 minutes… Lots of mistakes…
Round 3 I thought my diff was knackered, and I popped in a fresh one and the final round was nice.
All three of us ended up at the top of the same 8th final with Nick Wilson joining us. The first handful of laps I was flying, catching Nick nicely and then I put it into the rostrum with a nice crack of plasticky parts… So my bump up chances were shot.
Bob bumped up and his dugga-dugga, I mean Cat, was looking great. All credit to Nick though, he bumped up, and I think he might even have bumped up again?
Up at the top the usual suspects were getting it done, the main started with Lee Martin dominating with his 511, and the other 511s of Newton and Griffiths looking good.
Kifo Newton did very well in qualifying, his car totally kit settings apart from slightly harder rear springs and some front toe out. He even ran Tamiya shock oil, whatever that is!
Lee Martin somehow managed to lose a rear driveshaft, popping out of the diff drive cup so it was left to Truman to take the win.
Brilliant weekend, the PDA guys and girls doing an excellent job, and everyone providing lots of entertainment.
Random Quotes of The Weekend
“He carries it well.”
“Blog that!”
“Go on Downramp.”
“Mmm Manta Ray.”
“Nice Fruit Basket”
“Cheese?!”
“Yellow card.”
“That’ll be £13.79 please.”
“The curry’s sold out now.”
(I can’t remember any more, comment below…)
Videos
2wd main
2wd main (2 camera very amateur edit)
4wd main
[to follow]
Photos
Written by simon.
PDA Dirt Challenge
This weekend sees the first PDA Dirt Challenge.
A 2 day event at the Proline Dirt Arena for 1/10th off-road, 2wd (and short course trucks) on Saturday, 4wd on Sunday.
4 qualifying rounds, plus finals, and finals will be in the Nirto popular double-sided christmas tree format. So opportunities for bumping up finals.
Team rcLazy are racing both days, and are expected to finish in the lower finals. The organisers certainly think they will, judging by where they’ve been placed in the heats…
A dirty weekend!
Written by simon.
Power Tools For RC Use
I recently bought a Power Tool for working on RC cars, cos I was getting a bit tired of undoing a million and one screws all the time.
Black & Decker AS36LN
I bought a Black & Decker 3.6V Lithium-Ion Cordless Screwdriver
The features I looked for was small, pistol grip, and torque adjustment. I especially needed to get it to low torque so as to not strip out plastic parts. The B&D even has a natty little light.
(You can even use it for putting flat pack wardrobes together… and bookshelves. But, remember to charge it before you take it racing…)
The tools I bought to use with it were the EDS Power Tool Tips Set, with the 2.0mm, 2.5mm hex drivers, and a couple of Philips drivers that I’ll use on all those Tamiya cross head screws.
I got them from MK Racing, but EDS are imported via Schumacher (part no ED500901) so your LHS should be able to get them.
Also, HUDY do a Set of Power Tool Tips, part no 190070.
Or, you can buy tools in singles rather than a set from either EDS or HUDY.
So if you are feeling lazy, use the power…
Written by simon.
Tamiya 511 Build Review
After a short delay of doing other things, I’ve finished the Tamiya 511 build. It worked out real nice, probably the nicest kit I’ve ever built.
Last year I built a Tamiya TRF-416WE touring car chassis, and the 511 is remarkably similar, but chunkier, more robust, and just more more more (no much).
The build was sweet, it went together no problem at all. Mark and I did 80% of it one Saturday afternoon, and built it to kit settings, apart from ceramic balls in the diffs (from Ghost RC), Ghost damper o-rings and a couple of other bits here and there, including some titanium turnbuckles.
And of course, wishbones are (or will be) 501X kit items after my embarrassing wishbone breaking incidents: I dropped it breaking a rear, and I drove it into the living room door breaking a front, before it was even finished…
Very few parts needed adjustment, everything is mentioned in the manual. Shimming of the wishbones and steering is worthwhile, so spacers and shims on hand are very useful.
Getting it up to rolling chassis stage was easy. The electrics install was hard though, it easily took as much time again. There’s a lot of things to avoid, the spur gear is right where you want to put everything, and the belts are close by too.
Electrics for now are Losi Xcelorin speedo and 6.5 motor, Futaba S9550 low-profile servo, Futaba 2.4GHz receiver, AMB PT.
After a lot of perseverance, the install was done, and it’s neat. The lipos I used are only 3200s so no clearance issues, higher capacity lipos need the bulkheads trimming, or lipos moving out a little. I located the lipos with some lead strips on the bottom in the cell slots.
The weight distribution is okayish with 845g on the rear axle and 795g on the front. Total weight comes in at 1640g. So that’s 52/48, so I need a touch more over the rear. There’s space between the lipos for some weights, but I’ll probably run it first to see what it’s like, once I’ve got the race tyres on it, currently it’s just a set of Tamiya wheels and tyres from the DB01 kit.
One thing I’ve not done is remove the rear spring adjusters. The ‘TRF boys’ all remove them to get the rear end low enough, but with kit springs (which are arguably too soft?) the rear driveshafts are almost horizontal. I’m as yet undecided whether to run Tamiya springs or Associated, I’ll end up trying both I’m sure.
A quick shell in my usual colours topped it off, and a few stickers and it’s almost ready to race. I’ve got to do final camber/toe adjustments .
Very nice car, I’m looking forward to getting it on the track this year. I’m keeping the DB01 to run along side it, and to compare the two.
Brilliant!
