Monski

Thanks to all for these excellent stories. Please keep them coming guys! I share my house with my best friend and RC has definitely kept our spirits up during the restrictions of the pandemic. We've also got RC helicopters but, of course the weather is not on our side in the winter to be able to fly them. The cars have been a way to keep having fun indoors. I've go quite 'into' the racing and we'd really like to do something to promote the hobby more. I'm seeing a common theme running through your stories - the love of RC comes from childhood. I'm sure there are a lot more people out there who would be into RC but have lost that childhood wonder at a toy car that you can control yourself! It just needs a bit more promoting I think.

Haha! Yes, my friend sometimes has this problem. I'm blessed with skinny fingers so no problem for me! 😁

It's a fair point and a shame that RC racing is not so popular in this age of the Playstation. As for running the car outside, if you like carpet racing the car doesn't behave the same on tarmac and if you crash, the least that happens is that you destroy your nicely painted body. It's also difficult in my area to find a carpark that hasn't got cars coming in and out all the time and you can't really set up a decent track without carting very large gutter downpipes with you. The weather is also a factor. At least I can get my fix every day if I want to with my indoor setup. It's so much fun! 157959277_CarsRacing.MOV

I just can't get my head around why small scale, indoor racing is not so popular in the UK. I mean, venues are expensive to hire for larger carpet racing, as well as it being a lot more expensive for parts/upgrades etc. I used to be a member of a 1:10 scale touring car club but became frustrated to only be able to race once a week for 3 heats and a final - 20 minutes actual racing in all with a bit of warm up at the start. I'd want to try new set-ups and had to wait until the following week to test it out on racing carpet as my lounge is nowhere near big enough to run a car of this speed and also only had limited time for tweaks at he club. Sometimes I couldn't make it at all and often had to wait weeks to get my racing fix. So I got into 1:28 scale, the likes of Atomic BZ3 and GL Racing GL-A. I have a track in my lounge and one in the garden in summer. It just makes more sense to me and I can have fun whenever I want. Anyone with a reasonable sized lounge, garage or loft space can do it and the cars are fully customisable and adjustable very much like their larger cousins so not much of a draw back there. It's quite well followed in France, Italy, Spain and the Far East but not much going on here which is surprising in a small, more cramped country! There are a few clubs in the UK that run Mini-Z and have a super-modified class that incorporates the cars I have but the nearest to me is 120 miles away. It'd be great to meet a few more people who might be interested in lounge racing.

Great stories again, thanks guys. You're lucky your lady is into RC too Fred!

Wow, looks great! We've looked at the WL Toys 1/14th. It looks like a cheaper version of the LC EMB-1 so might be good to start with perhaps. We're willing to drive over to meet up with you sometime. Let me know by message when you might be free, after the lockdown is finished of course as at least we'll be able to meet outside again. Does the 1/14th work ok over rough terrain? We have a couple of 1/24th Carisma buggies which are fun with a 2S lipo but we're finding that even the BMX tracks in Portsmouth are too bumpy for them. I must admit, if it wasn't for the cost, a Team Associated RC10 or the like would be the best choice as I know 1/10th will handle pretty much any terrain. Any chance of a google maps pic or map reference of where the 'humps and bumps' is in Cowplain as it might be good to meet there. I wonder if James from Romsey would be into coming along too? It's nice to meet someone in our general area that is into RC. Thanks for all your help.

Guys, this is brilliant! Thanks for relaying those stories. As for me, I remember in the mid 70's, when I was about 7, a lad round the corner got an RC car for his birthday - just a very simple toy one without any kind of progressive steering. At that time we had only ever had cars that operated on a sonic 'click' from the controller that made it go backwards and turn and then another click would make it go straight forwards again - remember those? But this lad's car would go forwards, backwards and turn left or right and I thought that was amazing! He never let me have a go though. My parents couldn't afford it so I never got one. My friend and I bought a couple of toy helicopters about 6 years ago at Christmas just to mess around with and we got hooked on that. Now we have loads of helicopters including a T-Rex 450L Dominator and my friend flies an SAB Goblin 570 Sport which is a beast! But, with the weather in Portsmouth being mainly windy and rainy in the winter we bought a Scalextric set to muck about with in our lounge when the weather was bad - something I'd also wanted as a kid! I got carried away and now have about 100m of track and about 40 cars. We bought a couple of little HPI cars the next year at Christmas and the love of RC cars came back to the fore. We joined an RC club in Newbury that races 1:10th and 1:12th scale touring and pan cars. I got an XRay T4 second hand on Ebay but was frustrated that the club was only once a week for a few hours and ragging it round a car park was no fun without a properly laid out track and a bit of competition. So my friend got us a couple of Kyosho Mini-Zs which we could race in the lounge. Of course, they were not fast enough so we invested in GL Racing's GL-A's. If you're not familiar with them, they're All-Wheel-Drive and completely customisable with full, independent suspension, camber and toe adjustable, fully upgradable and very similar to the XRay I had bought with the bonus that, due to their size we could have proper races in the lounge. The problem is that the nearest club that races these things is about 120 miles away so we can't race with anyone else. Such a shame because these cars perform so well and it's a lot of fun racing properly whilst having a beer in your lounge! I live in hope that at some point there will be more people around my area into racing 1:28th scale - it certainly makes sense in our cramp country! Have fun guys. I hope to hear some more stories soon.

Thanks. I got loads of bridge supports off ebay. People sometimes sell big bags of them for cheap. It makes it so much better. Have fun!

It's great to see some Scalextric fans out there! I've got loads of track and I just love building complicated layouts. I build one every Christmas as most of the time I prefer RC. I had to keep this one as a Sport track as trying to work out which lane is which was a nightmare for supplying enough power to get the cars to go all the way round on a digital track. Sport is quicker than digital anyway!

Hi All. I'm quite new to racing radio controlled cars and was just wondering if you would mind sharing the story of what made you choose RC as a hobby? What is it that was so appealing? Cheers and looking forward to some great stories!

Hi James. Where's the one dirt jump spot you mentioned? We've been looking into smaller scale buggies like 1:14th but are finding that the places to run them are a lot more limited.

Hi James. Both myself and my best friend are into RC cars. We are always looking for a good place to run them, ideally on a track. We have been into racing 1:28th scale on-road cars until now but are looking at buggies now. Where do you use go to run the cars?

I have a GL-A and am looking for somewhere to race. I know about the club in Ashford, Kent who race Mini Z and have heard there is Mini Z racing in Letchworth. Does anyone know of any other race meetings in the UK where the GL-A might be allowed? Thanks

Hi Nick. I was just wondering if you are still racing and if GL or atomic cars are allowed?