Radio Controlled Cars

The TRCC (Teesside Radio Controlled Car club) meets at Tolesbury Road in Middlesborough once a week on a Saturday night. Doors open at 4.00 and close at 10.30pm. Basically it takes approximately 30 minutes to get the equipment out and set up the track. Then you are free to practice before the racing starts. The Race Director asks everyone to book in and then sorts out the heats accordingly. There are many types of classes but it depends how many people turn up or anyone wants to race that class. The main type that always runs is TT01 made by Tamiya. These are 1/10th scale so 1 cm represents 1 metre. You can only modify certain things on TT01’s so it is very competitive with at least 2 heats every week and 5 on a good week. (Heats contain 5 drivers or more in the TT01 class.) The body shells are a bit like The World Touring Cars or British Touring Cars. Formula 1 cars are popular at the moment and 7 people have raced one over the past few weeks. Modified cars which are anything you want to run (most are very quick and can reach very high speeds). These are for experienced people, as if you have not drove a Radio Controlled Car I wouldn’t recommend one. It would be a waste of a lot of money but of course it is entirely your decision. I struggle with one and I have been going 1 and a half years. And there are mini’s which are a lot smaller scale and haven’t been raced for awhile. There are other classes such as buggies but as we have moved venues they are not used as we are on carpet and have no ramps for them. Anyway after the Race Director has sorted out the heats we stick them up on a piece of paper on the wall and he announces that the first heat will be on in 5 minutes. You get your sticker place it on your body shell and when you are on get your transponder. This is programmed with the computer to read your lap times. When we build the track we place a wire across the track and stick down tape. Every time you go past it beeps and your lap time is registered. So the Grid is formed with you going in whatever position you are in you heat. The Race Director says “Martial’s ready. Drivers Ready” then the countdown begins and you start. As you can imagine as in any normal race things don’t always go smoothly at the start. There can be lots of spectacular crashing. Also there can be very close races where it comes down to the last corner. The race lasts for 6 minutes for F1’s and TT01 and 5 minutes for modified Also is the same as normal racing is you get dirty drivers who will use you as a brake. And also as in life you get people who really don’t like you and you can see that on the track and red mist can descend. When someone is coming to lap you; you should get out of the way but few people stick to this.

The good laps can be anything from 13 seconds to 17 depending on the track. There is 3 heats of racing and after that the finals. It is decided what final you go in by the number of laps you did e.g. if you did 24 laps and 2 seconds and the next best person could only manage 23 and 8 seconds then you would be placed first in the A final. (The finals go down e.g. A= best then b and c.) So once the racing is over everyone helps put the track away. Then the Race Director gives everyone a pound back. You only get the pound if you help put the track away. This was done as only about 5 people stayed back to help and the rest went home.

I would appreciate it if you left your comments. This is my first Re-View. Let me know if you if you have any questions as I may be able to answer them Thanks for reading.