RC Beginner Dad

Hi everyone! As mentioned in my introduction, I'm new to all things RC and have purchased a FTX Outlaw (Brushed), for my son's 8th birthday. We had a great hour or so out in the back garden and on the tarmac driveway, getting used to the car and marvelling at it's speed, my son was absolutely delighted with the car and quickly got the hang of the basics. He surprised me on how well he caught on to feathering the throttle to keep the car stable on tight turns, we had a blast. It did take a hard knock to the front bumper a few times, once by my over enthusiastic driving and several times by one of his school friends who had happened to pop by, she seemed hell bent on driving it into the kerb at full throttle despite me telling her to be gentle with the trigger. The third time she did it, the bumper fell off, ending our fun for the day. That's our first lesson learnt, don't let people who have no intention of being careful anywhere near it in the future. So the upshot is a broken bumper and a broken chassis plate (sheared at the screw holes), luckily I had spent some time explaining to my son that it's the nature of this hobby that things will break from time to time and its all part of the fun to repair them, so he took it all in his stride. I've done a temporary fix which will work fine for the time being and after some considerable effort of searching I finally found a retailer with the bumper parts in stock, so they should be with us in a couple of days. Everyone seems to be expecting FTX spares stock in May - has there been some supply chain problems? I think I would probably have been a lot more careful if I had known beforehand how rare parts seem to be at the moment. I will upgrade the chassis plate to aluminium asap as the positioning of the screw holes are really close to the edge and although my son's psychotic friend didn't help matters, it looks like that area is generally very weak. Is there any reason to consider the carbon version other than 'bling'? It would be great to hear from fellow Outlaw owners on any tips and upgrade recommendations. Enjoy the weekend everyone! Rhys (49) and Owain (8)

Hello all, well it's the eve of my son's 8th birthday. I wanted to get him something we could both have fun using together, so there's an FTX Outlaw (Brushed) waiting for him when he gets up tomorrow morning. I'm completely new to the RC hobby, I've always wanted to try some RC fun but never quite got around to it, so what better opportunity than a birthday gift 🙂 I did a bit of research before buying and I think I've made a reasonable choice, I almost got the brushless, but it's possibly a bit fierce considering neither of us have used a RC car before. And besides, as we get more used to it, I really look forward to getting him enthused about engineering by doing a bit of tinkering and upgrading the car over time, including moving to a brushless motor - upgrades will hopefully become part of the fun for both him and me. I opted not to take the standard 1800mAh battery and ordered two Voltz 3000mAh NiMH instead, hopefully that will keep us going tomorrow when he gets home from school! Anyway, nice to meet you all, hopefully I will learn a lot by joining the forum. Any beginner advice would be most welcome. Rhys