There’s an indoor track less than 5 minutes from my house that I found, so I thought I would dig through the garage to find a car that I got for my youngest son to play around with several years ago. It’s a very basic Traxxas Bandit, which sounded like it would work well for the Novice class until I decided whether I wanted to get in deeper. Just found out that the track doesn’t allow ANY Traxxas cars on their tracks. They use carpet flooring (‘off-road, carpeted’) and they said that Traxxas cars destroy their carpet.
Anyone know why the Traxxas entire line is a problem? They require a smooth bottom plate so I would have expected that to keep the chassis from snagging, but I guess not.
On a side note, they also run the Kyosho Mini-Z cars at their facility. Are these worth looking into?
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Dont most Traxxas cars use a design that puts the servo arm under the chassis as opposed to the more common in race car parallel bell arm steering setup? I've never raced on carpet and haven't raced in some time so I'm not sure if this is the issue.
Realistically, you'd probably want a modern mid motor car which runs better on carpet than rear motors with good lipo batteries. The kyosho mini-z could be a good option or see if they run a 17.5 turn stock buggy class which is good fun and modest to get into.
I’ll take a look at the suspension. I think I’m just going to go to an outdoor track a few times to see if I like it before I jump in with both feet. I know the Bandit is not a real ‘competitive’ car, but it’s good enough to run for a little bit to see if I actually want to spend some money!
I’ve been enjoying building an RC10 Team Car lately. I’m in no rush to finish it, but enjoying making it my own little factory car.
Haven’t gotten into the race cars but I’ve got a couple 1/10 th scale crawlers that are pretty fun and some airplanes as well.
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I've stuck mostly to 1/10th and 16th scale bashers for the parks and 1/18th scale crawlers for a course I designed in my yard for me and my son. We also go to a local indoor crawler track that has courses built out for both 1/10 and mini crawlers.
Every race track I've been to has too many rules and regulations that you would have to build specifically for them.
Yea I like the crawlers for bringing on camping trips and crawling around the mountains/desert. Can use them anywhere and the scale shots can look pretty cool.
My buddy has a nice berm with trails, cabins, pump operated stream etc that’s fun to play on.
Beware! I got into 1/8 scale ebuggy racing this year and it's terribly addictive. Now I'm building a 1/10 scale carpet rig so I can keep racing over the winter. Then 1/8 etruggy and 1/10 4wd ebuggy, so I can race those classes next year. Then onto nitro.....
It's not cheap, but it scratches my itch to race and be competitive minus the hospital trips.
I kind of prefer 1/24 scale crawlers to 1/10 scale because you can throw a couple in a backpack easily and take them on a hike and they usually scale better on the kind of obstacles we find. 1/10 scale cars are a little too capable a lot of the time. Plus you can easily set up a quick course in the house over the winter. I have an old losi nightcrawler with 4ws that is really fun though.
Hmmm, airplanes.
Have y'all embraced the phrase "Oops, killed everybody" into your vernacular?
It's our "go-to".
I had one as a kid. With a manual speed control at first. I had a Tamiya car before it and the original RC10 was my first real race RC . My friends and I would drag race each other on sand. The local DPW dumped the sand from sweeping the streets in a small dirt parking lot near out houses. We would make jumps out of the piles and hit them on our bikes. Then they always came and flattened the piles after a few days. And it made for a perfect sand dragstrip. So I had an odd setup for an RC10 back then. I put a drag racing motor into it and novak ESC. I was able to get about 45MPH which was insanely fast back then. It ate up brushes and I only got about half the runtime my friends got that had less purpose built RC's . But they also raced them at local indoor races and needed them to work for that.
Years later it was sitting unused and my parents had a yard sale and sold it for $20 or so. With the original box too! I wish I still had it.
I keep thinking about building something on the land I have full sized trails on and getting my slash and rustler tuned up . I would like to make something that had jumps that rewarded being smooth and timing them right. I see many RC tracks that you can just jump to flat and its faster. I think it would be fun to have a track that rewarded a more realistic driving style . Like a supercross track for RC. and or a track that had some real elevation changes. I have an area that is kinda close to the neighbors yard that would work if I only run electric on it. Those mini Z cars look like they would be fun, and could setup a track that would be fun in an average sized 1 car garage or a basement. I don't think they cost that much either. The videos I've seen look like they are fun and handle great for what they are made for.
The smaller the scale, the harder to drive.... but they will def make you a better driver... plus mini zs just look cool and are fairly affordable to race...
If you are looking to race carpet 1/10 off road... look at an associated b7.1 .... ae is doing well rn so plenty of set up and parts support... btw... Carpet racing is reallyyyy about tires, and sadly tire sauce.. I literally can't stand to be in a building where tire sauce is used anymore...
Btw... Losi is mostly dead now days... horizon (their owner) killed off their factory team a couple yrs ago... xray is probably considered the top of the heap for carpet racing if u want the "best" but parts support can be tough (buy two kits, race one, one 4 parts)..
Vintage racing is considere a "hot" class rn as ae has released dozens of gold tub models in the last few yrs...
About traxxas... ya they aren't into the race scene... but they are far and away the largest manufacturer that is left.... the hobby has really shrunk after hobbico/gp/tower died and was sold off to horizon... oh and... to answer your question... track owners will literally make up any excuse to ban a traxxas (carpet or dirt).... lmaooo... but they are not one bit harder on the carpet than any other brand, heck probably less than the others tbh...
Ae getn ready to drop a large scale version of the gold tub... like 5th scale... cant wait...
The vintage Champs in vegas was hugeeee this year... loads of free live coverage on yt... lots of legends there... but the vintage class hasn't taken off at local races as much as expected... chit I live in a large metro that used to have a dozen tracks, now there is only one and it's mostly 8th scale nitro.... the nearest track for me to race vintage is 4hrs each way.... sighhhh
Btw mathes talks about traxxas on this week's moto 60 show on yt... around the 46 minute mark... said that traxxas was going to fully sponsor mitch and a kawi pc 450 team yrs ago... but then Jenkins (trx owner) got divorced (and married one his spokesmodels!!)... the good ole t-maxx money days... lmaooo
Associated recently released this vintage rc10 4wd kit, very cool.
I saw that 5th scale car...pretty cool! My friend and I were just talking yesterday about trying to sign up for next year's vintage race in Vegas. We spent our childhood at RCHR in Costa Mesa, where all of these vintage legends spent their time racing and developing the re-res we are seeing now.
If you want something modern, fun, and fast, you may look into Tekno and Associated 4wd Truggies, or Short Course. You could also do an 1/8th scale Truggy if you want to spend a lot of money. There is also a new thing people are doing with 1/8th scale buggies - converting to 1/8 scale Short Course. Depends on what you want to do...race or play.
If I end up building a good track, I think a 4wd truggie would be the most fun to run. I like how the short course trucks look but the bodies seem to make them not jump as well. But I like that you can bump each other more. My slash is an earlier one, but I put an LCG chassis on it that used a rustler chassis with an extension. I like how the bigger tires on truggies handle . I drove a friends 4wd buggy years ago. I don't remember which it was. It handled so much better than my 2wd slash. I was surprised at how much more speed I could consistently carry around the track and made fewer mistakes. I have not driven anything with a gyro , do people that race run a gyro? Are they strange to get used to not having to correct as much yourself?
I'm not sure if I would race or just wanna play. I tend to like doing laps , like laps on a motocross track VS trail riding. And getting faster and improving on consistency. So I think I would enjoy running laps on a good RC track in a similar way. That's what I've always done, make some sort of track. Sometimes just some rocks marking corners in a gravel parking lot. I found some clay like material while digging that is gravel like when dry, but after it gets wet it dries super hardpacked, and almost no rocks in any of the soil. I think it would be a perfect surface for an RC track. I think a small sand section might be fun to have too, even though I hate seeing them in real Supercross tracks, I think it might be fun to try for RC since most tracks are all harder packed clay.
Pit Row
Tekno has 2 really good short course trucks that are basically 1/8th scale buggies with a short course body. They have a light and a heavy version. The heavy one would be the one to get for playing.
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The last time I actually did the RC racing thing was way back in the early 90s. I had a pretty nice little Kyosho Ultima 2WD that wasn’t the fastest car on the track, but it had great suspension and handled like a dream compared to all the rocket ships that were in the class. We had a place with an off-road track on one side, and a dirt oval on the other. I loved the dirt oval because I could slide under all the other 2WD buggies pretty regularly.
I’ll probably look at a newer RTR buggy instead of putting much effort into the Bandit. It’s too bad because it’s in pretty good shape other than needing shock oil and tires.
Mostly race nitro buggy and truggy and use electric buggy and truggy for practice at big races because it can sit there while I'm in line and don't need a pit person. In the 90s I raced 2wd stadium truck but nowadays 8th scale 4wd is the way for me
Those car stands could easily be used as starting blocks!
I have had a lot of RC toys but the first time i went to a real track they were having a race day so I signed up and had a lot of fun but some of the regulars were having tension with another tracks regulars that were there and there was a lot of fighting over a hobby. I had so much fun though that I went into the office and donated money to the track as they were raising money for upgrades. Then I got back to my pits and someone had stolen stuff out of my truck including my brand new factory Honda jacket. I never went back. It was about an hour and a half drive and new tracks opened up closer but none lasted long.
Another weird incident happened when I went to a brand new indoor carpet track. After a few laps there was some rips in the new carpet and some guy comes up to me yelling like a maniac saying one of my cars is known for having screws loosen on the bottom and rips carpets. The guy was screaming and I actually fealt bad but I was looking at my 3 cars, Losi scte, associate 2wd buggy and a Traxxas slash and couldn't find anything. The owner even came over and was very upset. Then the guy yelling runs his car and hits the jump right in front and rips the carpet really bad. It was his car that was ripping up the carpet the whole time. They apologized and we continued doing laps. Good times.
I had a cool pitbike track in my yard for awhile that was great for the RC fix. I hope to build a cool track here at the ranch eventually if I ever catch up.
https://www.rccaraction.com/teaser-kyosho-ultima-pro-2wd-buggy-kit/
That’s still a pretty good looking buggy!
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