Minature Touring cars

[Hobson]

16 next month.

[touringlegend]

Very good news!
There was a nice handy cheque that arrived through the post this morning!!!

[Herminator]

So have you found a good price for a kit? I'm awaiting my new motor and battery, hope it comes tomorrow so I can make it to the races that night. I should do better if they do come, no more quiting mid race due to a fualty motor, and no more loosing ground on the straights iin the final race. I reccomend tyou get a good set of screwdrivers to pu your kit together, asI found that a lot of screws were very tight when trying to use a narrow handled screw driver, njust not enough leverage.

[touringlegend]

Going this weekend (hopefully!) to look at kits - I'll just have to wait for the cheque to clear(3 or 4 days).

Herminator, can I ask you how much did it take to get yours on the road?

[touringlegend]

I went to look at prices, but from what I heard (many more facts, it'd be too long to go into!), I reckon i could s t r e t c h to an Associated TC3 RTR. It's the version thats pre-built at the factory.

From what I heard, one of CML distributions men went to my local club and totally thrashed them with this car, that's what's convinced me...

Your verdict guys??....

[Hobson]

TC3 eh? Ready to run eh? Back in my day.......

The TC3 is the most used competition car in the UK. Most drivers use them because the chassis is strong ( ), easy to set up, and quick as standard.
I was racing at Worksop yesterday, and everyone seemed to have either a TC3 or a Schumacher SST Axis 2.

The RTR spec is a pre-built kit, an LRP ESC, a 19 turn stock motor and full radio set including servos, reciever and sticktype transmitter.

[touringlegend]

The guy in the shop said it was quite strong too.

£250 without batteries & charger. That's another £100+. Not forgetting a 27 turn motor for club regs.

There was another TC3, the kit version, it was £200-£220 without radio equipment.

So are you saying it's good Hobson????

[Hobson]

The TC3 is good in any spec. Better than the Sport 2.

[touringlegend]

Good to hear that!

The reason I'm prepared to spend that is because, if I buy a Sport 2, I might say in a year that I want to move up, so what's the point of buying a car this year and selling it next year, obviously losing money?

[Herminator]

I'm finaly back online, looks like you have a much better model shop nearby than me, hard to believe one of the bigest cities in Britain doesn't have a good model shop. I've read some very good reviews for the TC3, I spent a total of 270ish at first bt since then I've bought another motor and batteries, as I said last week. with all the charging equipment, batteries, tyres and other odds and ends I think the total has come to about 375ish. I would of gone for the TC3 if the competitoin at my club was feircer but the veterans are all still using the older version of my kit, so I have a better car, although they have good batteries, and lots of them. Another guy has a shmacher and I would say it is not much different from the sport 2, it is the same generation so to speak, whilst the TC3 is the newer generation, have you looked at the X-Ray, I'm not sure if it is much more than the TC3, but it is extremely good as I understand. A lot of people think, and I am one of them, that building a kit is very useful, it helps you learn about the components, although you have got your old car. Then again it can be very frustrating if you loose a tiny yet vital part that you cannot replace, grr experience speaking here. ok gotta go. good luck

[AdrianG]

Anyone able to get into the Hpi site at the moment? Everytime I try it says You are not authorised to view this page.

Whats going on there?

[Herminator]

They are updating the website, I just tried it ad got a page of a sexy new body they have, it explains they have had to take everything else offline to rebuild it. Hopefully it won't take long coz now I want their BMW M3, it looks great.

[Herminator]

Hmm, I had an interesting night at my club last night. Got my new motor wired up annd installed and it sure it good, a nice turn of speed even though I was on my 1700 battery pack. I would of used my new 2400 but the handling was just not good enough. I have just put in some new medium moulded inserts in, to replace the borowed foams, that were very soft. The result of this was that the front end had an incredible amount of grip. Too much grip infact the slightest touch of steering and you could see the back end going bye bye. I need to set the front with some toe in but taking the ball links off to do this at the track takes ages so running was ended prematurely. It's strange feeling other peoples setups, I had a go of someone elses car and it was incredibly understeery, I just couldn't get it around the track at any speed, but the guy loves it that way and is pretty fast too. The same car also had to retire early though, whilst I was driving it, I had a very slow speed contact with a barrier and the rear wheel ended up at a funny angle, it was found that a link on the hub/suspension assembly had cracked. Fortunatly he has expeienced this before and has a spare part, it also must have happened in a much hgher speed crash and then just popped out later. phew. OKay enough yaking, I better go attempt to remove those ball links, not fun.

[touringlegend]

Couldn't you put stiffer foam inserts in?

It's a pleasure I'm yet to really 'suffer' from yet, is oversteer, but I'm sure on the shiny gym-hall surface, it will slide about enough.

Getting my TC3 tommorrow, all going well!

[Herminator]

yes firmer insirts SHOULD reduce grip but our hall seems to have different physics from the restof the world. These insirts are firmer than the ones I used before and yet the front grip has inproved, whilst the back is slightly slidier but not much. When I first ran the car the rear was all over the place and I was told to stiffen the rear supsension, which helped. It seems it is very hard to setup any car, as my clubmates have told me.

[Hobson]

Hey, I'm back!

I've been busy doing stuff for members at my local club. We are constructing a new permanent on-road track and everyone is helping out. I am now a 'techie' at the club and spend most of my time rebuilding cars, assembling batteries etc. AND I find time to race!

[Herminator]

Lucky you, I whish there was a club that organised around here. So where is this track? How did you raise the money for it? I'm not suprised about your techie status, you do seem to know a lot, especialy for someone your age.

[touringlegend]

Bad News!

The last kit went last week to another club member! That means I'll turn up and there'll be an identical car!

Good news is that there's more kits coming in next week hopefully.
My budget's(if that's what you can call it!) now £400!

Hobson, my club is also looking for a new track for the summer, further up my county, and are looking for a heap of tar and sponsors. I'm sure that some of the companies in my area will be pleased to help out.

[Herminator]

I wish you guys would stop being so lucky, it's just not fair. I can't believe that Glasgow doesn't have a decent model shop, yet alone a good track. How many people are in your clubs and what do you pay each timme you go? As I feel that what we pay for use of a school hall is stupid, yet the other members don't seem to want to go outside in the winter. Whats a bit of rain, hey we do live in Scotland, you have to expect it.

[touringlegend]

na na na na na!!!!

when i went to see my club, it was a championship night and there were 28 people competing. The cost each night is £3. It's a games hall in a sport centre I'll be driving in, and it is a council service, co the cost of the hall won't be that much, the money will go towards the AMB timing sytsem and all the tape they use to hold down the track markers!

Some outside racing would be OK, but I think if there is heavy rain my club puts of the summer rounds to the next weekend. Now, the way our winters are, I think we would still be trying to race next year!

Has anyone ever thought of a night race?

[Herminator]

Ah so you're in a hall aswell, probably slightly larger than ours though. I don't pay as much either for a night but I have the added costs of getting there, which is quite expensive when you total it all up, I wish car insurance wasn't so darn high as then I would of been able to drive there. We already havea timin system which we use for the competition nights, it's just a manualy operated system but it works well if the guy in charge can keep up. You would need some very good flood lights for a night race but I suppose if you have a dry night in winter it wouldn't have to be held too late.

[Hobson]

Newark Radio Control car club isn't what you would call lucky. A few years ago, our indoor hall was vandalised and torched, and before that we had an offroad track at a BMX track. That was closed 5 years ago.
Now we race indoors at a Showground, and when our track is done, outdoors in summer.

We charge £3.50 for 4 races, and have about 40-50 drivers, plus 50p to spectate (another 30 viewers).

We have worked very hard to get things for the track, a timber merchant created the markers and corner dots, a tarmac company laid the surface and a painting and decorating firm did the track markings. Red & white kerbs, and a new thing never seen before to help beginners (my idea ), a yellow line as the racing line. All done for free in exchange for advertising in the local newspaper. The track should be done for our winter series in November.

[Herminator]

You still seem to have a good setup now, and a lot of enthusiastic members, which is good. The yellow line seems a good idea but if the track gets damp it could be very slippy, and cause a lot of spins. Did you get the idea from a computer game? as I've seen it done in some. What is this showground like? must be quite large, thats the main thing I dislike at our hall, it's too small to build up speed on even the longest straight and all corners are quite tight.

[Hobson]

The Showground is HUGE, about 1 1/2 acres. It is used for agricultural events and classic car shows. We do demonstrations reguarly at events, thats why we got the land there for the track for free.

I got the idea from F1 '99 on the Playstation, the line is only 5cm wide so it won't get slipperywhen wet. Anyway, I doubt anyone would race outside when its wet down here - when it rains, you should race a speedboat!

[Herminator]

Before getting a permanent track what did you use to mark out the track? We use some old fire hose, which is eas to run over or move around so it ruins the racing line. On race days we normaly put some plastic conduit around the hose, which stops any shorcuts and keeps the shape better, but it is covered in scraps of tape and some sharp broke corners, you have to be very careful at specific sections. I've been told they used to occasionaly put some carpet type material down, which was meant to be great fun to race on, so grippy you had to slow down on corners so you didn't roll. Unfortunatly it also takes ages to lay out flat, which wasted half the nights racing time.