Racing radio control cars - Lewis Hamilton

[Herman Toothrot]

Read the other day Hamilton started his car racing at 4 years old (radio controlled) and came 2nd in the BRCA series the year after.

wiki said:

Hamilton's first taste of racing competition came at the controls of radio-controlled cars. Father Anthony bought him one in 1991, and Hamilton finished second in the national BRCA championship the following year. Hamilton said of the time: "I was racing these remote-controlled cars and winning club championships against adults".[9] That led to Hamilton sampling kart racing for the first time.

So got me thinking who else started this way?

Doing organised Radio Controlled car racing, not messing in the road with your Midnight Pumpkin. I raced a Schumacher CAT XLS, ProCAT then BOSS CAT mostly at club, every friday night for 4 years and did a few rounds of the national series as well between about 1988 - 1993 when 11 - 16.

Later 2003 (the year i did my 1st real car trackday) when I wanted a hobby to keep me out of the pub on a friday night I bought some guys full race setup Losi Triple X4 etc and tried to find a club and start racing again. To my horror, RC racing appeared to have declined and I had a 65 mile round trip to Silverstone to race against a handful of middle aged chaps who couldn't drive them, it lasted about 2 months then I sold it on.

So who else did the RC racing? Thinking about it thats certainly why my real road cars didn't stay standard for long, when you start playing with limited slip diff settings and adjustable dampers at 11 years old its obvious your not going to be happy leaving car alone

Edited by Herman Toothrot on Monday 12th January 22:43

[dpbird90]

I've been doing it since around my 14th birthday, and 5 years later I'm still hooked. Haven't really transferred my curiosity with the setup to my full size car though, but then again I do drive a Fiat compared to my current R/C car which is a HB Cyclone with Jaguar XF body, but maybe I should. Then again, my insurance says otherwise...
R/C is quite fun, and certainly got me properly into motorsport (I'll be interested in any kind of racecraft with wheels and an engine these days rather than just watching the F1 now and again like when I was younger). It's a great way to introduce cars to young children. The problem with R/C is the same as the problems with full size motorsport; costs are being blown sky high. You want to be competitive these days you need at least £600 worth of kit to get anywhere near the top, but of course there are always the plucky ones like me who try to give the unlimited money racers a bloody nose, and fail spectacularly in the process.
That said, having raced R/C for the last 5 years I have picked up a few skills for when we occasionally go karting (I can put in some decent performances but being a bit heavier than my mates is a big disadvantage!) and it really is tempting me to have a go with some "proper" race cars. But of course, like my current situation with R/C, costs hold me back.

[BenElliottRacing]

I did,

Raced at local club from age 5 to 11.

Dad then bought us a tamiya F1 car and we did the 'eurocup'

won some uk titles and podiums in europe.

Highlight of my career 5th in 1998 (iirc) european 1/10th touring car finals with a kyosho TF3 (not exactly considered to be a good car) Kyosho also sent me over to Hong Kong to race.

Gave up in 2000 and had a go at big cars for a hobby.....

now run my own driver training company and have had great fun along the way.


Will Mitcham (caterham superlight champion 2007 iirc) was a blinding off road racer in 1/10th electric. Was the man to beat with his Predator.

any more?

[Marc W]

I used to race them when Iwas in secondry school. I came 2nd in my first ever race, but eventually had to give them up due to lack of funds! I still have the car but its not been out in years. I will get it back out one day.

[BenElliottRacing]

dpbird90 said:

It's a great way to introduce cars to young children. The problem with R/C is the same as the problems with full size motorsport; costs are being blown sky high. You want to be competitive these days you need at least £600 worth of kit to get anywhere near the top, but of course there are always the plucky ones like me who try to give the unlimited money racers a bloody nose, and fail spectacularly in the process.

long been my thought. when I was a 'works' driver my car was easily £1000 on the track when considering radio gear etc as well.

It got rediculous in touring cars when we were using 3 - 5 sets of tyres a weekend at £40 a set including wheels and inserts.

I recently bought a losi micro t as a demo model for work but have been so impressed with it that I want to start up a club to race them. They cost £60 ready to go and are great fun. Run a standard class with only low price mods and then a modified class for those who want to spend a bit more. The cars are strong too - I let my wife have a go and she lauched it down a the stairs 5 times in 10 minutes without a scratch!

[hman]

i used to race a cat xls, to be fair it was getting to be full of sad old men who couldnt afford the real thing but could afford just about every tweak you could buy for the rc cars. Hence they won a lot through superior chassis and power.

At least thats what i told myself whenever I finished way down the field ;-)

[DuncanM23]

I used to race them from about 1988 to '93. I wasn't ever really competitive in proper competitions, but then it was too expensive for a teenager without any backing, and I wasn't a great driver. I still have my carbon chassis'd Manta Ray - I found it in my parents loft last year, and I keep meaning to sort it out or eBay it. It's a bit scruffy, but here it is:
It's probably quicker than the Optima Mid that it replaced, but that's the first car I've ever regretted selling!
I too was disappointed when I discovered that the electric scene had died out.
Cheers
Duncan

Edited by DuncanM23 on Monday 12th January 23:28

[phoenix14]

I did for about a month at my local club whilst I was about 17. To be honest the place just didn't suit me, I turned up with my car with a few spares in a bag and you had younger boys about 10 with their dads and huge set ups in their tool boxes. Their tool boxes would put many real size car club racers to shame!! The rivalry was intense and I got a few snide comments so thought fk em and gave it up.

Much prefer 1/1 scale racing now!

Edited by phoenix14 on Monday 12th January 23:27

[BenElliottRacing]

not my hand but you get the idea.

Edited by BenElliottRacing on Monday 12th January 23:48

[Herman Toothrot]

Cool, good to know it was actually quite popular with future Petrol Heads. It is sad that the electric buggy racing has died out. Turning up early to the biggest sports hall the club could find, carpeting it, helping design the track out of drainpipes and taping it all down. Then 3 hours racing was great, it was very professional looking back all transponders, qualifying, grid, heats, it was great we used to have 5 rounds with 8 cars each and final. It was so popular, very sad its died out.

When I went to Silverstone more recently I was the only one with an off road buggy with suspension and tyres setup for carpet, the handful of old guys all had the indoor no suspension touring cars, they just didn't seem anywhere near as good as the buggys that everyone used to use.

Do you think it was costs that killed it? I guess its true I spend my £30 a week paper round(s) money exclusively on running my RC car.

[BenElliottRacing]

Buggy racing indoors is coming back in a big way with micro racing (excuse the pun - couldn't resist)

The development of brushless motors and lipo batteries seems to be helping the costs a bit.

When I was racing you needed several motors and your chosen one would need skimming and new brushes every run. Now slap a brushless speedo and motor in and forget about it (at club level anyway not sure about national). Lipo batteries have little / no memory effect as well so you can buy 2/3 packs and race no problem.

My old club at leighton buzzard have started up a 2nd club night dedicated to these cars as they're so popular

[dpbird90]

BenElliottRacing said:

long been my thought. when I was a 'works' driver my car was easily £1000 on the track when considering radio gear etc as well.

It got rediculous in touring cars when we were using 3 - 5 sets of tyres a weekend at £40 a set including wheels and inserts.

I recently bought a losi micro t as a demo model for work but have been so impressed with it that I want to start up a club to race them. They cost £60 ready to go and are great fun. Run a standard class with only low price mods and then a modified class for those who want to spend a bit more. The cars are strong too - I let my wife have a go and she lauched it down a the stairs 5 times in 10 minutes without a scratch!

Ouch, bet that hurt if you smacked it into the wall. I know exactly what you mean with tyres, luckily we're only using 27T brushed stock motors at the minute so it doesn't wear them so much, a set of 24R's will last a good few months, but 13.5 brushless is now allowed, which is supposedly equal to 27T brushed, however I was being raped on the straights by the same car just with a £200 brushless system in it, and ended up being lapped 9 times. The tyre wear is very slighly more with brushless motors, perhaps lasting 1 month to 6 weeks rather than 3-4 months, but we pay £25 per set of 4 which I guess isn't so bad, but it's still 2500 penny chews(!)

[Nobody You Know]

I used to race when I was studying Motorsport at Uni' 1/10th Electric Touring cars on carpet. Was great fun and was surprised how a little knowledge of real car "set-up" meant that my fairly cheap Yokomo MR4 TC could beat £1k+ "nerd machines".

I really enjoyed it but my car got broken into and all my RC stuff was stolen, this combined with my increasing participation in full scale motorsport ended my racing creer.

I wish I had a phot of my bodyshell though, it was a Celica with two 1/8 scale buggy rear wings (one at the back and one at the front) to make a full on Pikes Peak style car, looked like this....

[trooperiziz]

BenElliottRacing said:

My old club at leighton buzzard have started up a 2nd club night dedicated to these cars as they're so popular

Did you ever race at Gt Billington? I spent every weekend there with my dad when I was around 11-14ish... Proper outside course, none of this wussy indoors rubbish We started off with a track that we needed to build every weekend or so, then progressed to a permanent track at the other side of the village hall.

Started off with a Hornet, then moved onto a big old heavy beast (can't remember the name of it!), then a Cat just like everyone else

[LayZ]

I was major into r/c in my formative years but again found racing was too expensive. I'd always be breaking stuff then there was the hassle of getting spares etc. Not cheap.

I started with a Tamiya FireDragon in '88, then got a Kyosho Lazer ZX, back to 2WD with a Losi JRX Pro-SE and finally some kind of Kyosho racing truck. I was a walking encylopedia on these things when I was 10.

[morgrp]

LayZ said:

I was major into r/c in my formative years but again found racing was too expensive. I'd always be breaking stuff then there was the hassle of getting spares etc. Not cheap.

I started with a Tamiya FireDragon in '88, then got a Kyosho Lazer ZX, back to 2WD with a Losi JRX Pro-SE and finally some kind of Kyosho racing truck. I was a walking encylopedia on these things when I was 10.

Ha! I laugh in the face of your Lazer Alpha! - I had a Tamiya Avante and then an Egress - both the cream of retro 80's buggies - which are now both worth a mint, bit gutted I flogged them both for 100 rubs about 15 years ago, hmmmm, I may go cry in a corner for a while - I also had a Tenth Tech Predator in the day - quite a piece of kit if set up correctly...

[LayZ]

You are right, those Avantes and Egress were super sweet. I used to drool over them in my 1989 Tamiya catalogue. Heady days before beer, girls and real cars.

[DrTre]

Used to race at a local place outside 1/10th electric offroads. Was really good fun for the first few years, just local kids then began to attract people from further afield who had considerably more financial backing (as in, sponsorship, WTF!) and it died from then on. Just became completely "not fun".

I remember sticking a stupid final pinion on my Reedy silver dot for my Ultima that made it undriveable cos it just span the car round with the tiniest amount of steering lock on. I simply couldn't corner the thing. I managed to drive round about the sum total of 6 corners in 4 minutes before a wheel fell off...much to the amusement of the assembled "crowd".

[Mark A S]

Yep, me too. Raced 1/10 electric, in,, oh around 1978 ish! In those days, you relied on chassis flex!, no suspension, and applying Bath silicon to the tyres for indoor tracks!!
Women, and 1/1 Cars then took over!

[Lagerlout]

I started in 1986 with a Team Associated RC10, did about 4-5 years, rubbish driver but still totally love RC cars! May have to get one when my daughter is a bit older.. *cough* Oh and a Scalextric... 8D