Remote Control Cars?

[71chevellejohn]

Good choice. Play with it in your field. When you get bored, and you will, take it to Mike's and play with it on the track. It's free and you will love it.

One other thing though, is the stampede you're getting 2.4 ghz? If not you really should look into that. The old style of transmitters use "crystals" that can get interfered with easily. (especially at a track) The 2.4 automatically searches for a free frequency so you don't have to worry about that.

For those who may be looking for a 2.4ghz

http://www.hobbypartz.com/79p-gt2-blue.html

Only $20
I know a few people with them and they work fine... The handheld feels a little cheap, but no cheaper than the 27mhz radio that came with my SavageX.

[BlueCoupeRedVert]

any old school RC racers? I started racing my Tamiya cars back in 1980 at GameTime. It was a small indoor track in a strip-mall along Forrest Ln near Marsh. Raced all the way up to 1990 or so at places like WildBills in Irving. Raced RC-10s then. Fun times.

[LS1Goat]

any old school RC racers? I started racing my Tamiya cars back in 1980 at GameTime. It was a small indoor track in a strip-mall along Forrest Ln near Marsh. Raced all the way up to 1990 or so at places like WildBills in Irving. Raced RC-10s then. Fun times.

Yep. Use to spend some time at Indy RC World back in the day. Racing the TMAXXs

[1carcrazyguy]

Old schooler here as well. Got my first RC car in probably mid 80's Michael's (chain hobby store) had them. Started out with a pos called Mad Wolf. Then I got a Tamiya Frog. From the Frog, I upgraded to an RC10 gold tub car, then Kyosho came out with the Ultima (super light for the time). Also had a Team Losi trailing arm car. During the winter we moved racing to the skating rink where we had a large 4wd class and I had a Kyosho Optima Mid (most in the class ran a truck body) and I bought an AYK Radiant. Then 2wd trucks came out so I got an RC10T and later moved to a Losi truck. Then the buggy class changed when Traxxas came out with a TRX1. When that came out it seemed like the RC10 and Losi cars were obsolete overnight.

My oldest brother was in the hobby and we started meeting up with friends to race in a shopping center parking lot in the mid 80's. Then when winter came along we moved to the skating rink and set up a track on the skating rink floor using garden hoses taped down and wood jumps. What started out as 6-8 guys, turned into about 60-70 people. Over the years several tracks came and went. There were tracks in barns, a dirt track in a 2 car garage a supercross style outdoor track that had large enough jumps that wind would carry the cars if you were airin in out good. We had a track in a flea market that was eventually large enough the flea market bought an old supermarket and made a dedicated track. We scraped the tile floor only leaving the black tar like backing down. Traction was great. We had some cool wooden jumps and used PVC taped to the floor with carpet layed over the top for whoop section and used 2x4's to line the track. Talk about breaking some A arms!! Another race was put on by a local dirt track owner (for full size roundy round cars), his mom had a hotel and we had races in the ball room. The track was carpet and had a long sweeping corner at the end of the main straight that was on the wood dance floor. You basically had to "drift" that corner because you had so much speed built up. That was the only race that you ran for money!! I think I was maybe 12,13 or 14 at the time and won the "money class" one time and got about $100 or so and thought I was rich! Then someone decided to build a LARGE 1st class track (indoor offroad and outdoor offroad track) with indoor hobby shop and a restaurant above the hobby store. Racing was never the same, it got expensive fast. You had to have new tires every week, better motors, better batteries, and it just got to the point it was not fun when it got that expensive.

We used to travel to Clovis NM (track was at the city park), Lubbock and made a few trips to DFW and ran at some track that was in a warehouse? I recall it being right a highway and the building had loading docks that faced the highway? Maybe Wild Bills? Even made a trip out to the most famous "Old School" rc track, The Ranch Pit Shop in California. That was the mecca of RC back then!!

[bjtheman1]

Damn, after some research you really have to get a good battery & charger in order to have some fun with these things. The battery it comes with supposedly gives you like 10-20 mins of driving time? That's it!

[Lason]

LOL wow this thread is bring back some memories! I saw 1carcrazyguy mention the Radiant and I giggled! That was probably the coolest RC car I ever had as a kid other than messing around with my dads Hotshot of the same era. The chain drive of the radiant was pretty cool though!

I started out with a bunch of tyco cars and my first real rc car was the radiant that my dad gave me. He owned a hobby shop in a mall in kentucky and the city helped him build a track on some land behind it. One night some people broke into the mall and cleaned out his shop. He still had racks of paints, a few models left in boxes, a few planes and then his personal stash from home. He moved back to Texas and it was like heaven on earth for me when I got to meet him. He had a storage shed out back that he put all the stuff in and basically gave me free reign in there.

I got the radiant first then a frog, a hang glider, a Mrs Budweiser balsa boat and all kinds of other crap. Best part was the racks up racks he had of spare parts for all these things. It was pretty damn cool! Sucked after I ran out of parts though because no one sold parts for the radiant (before the internet).

Later on I got the gold tub RC10, RC10T, 10T2, 10B2. A AWD Losi buggy (cant remember the name), Tmaxx, Kyosho KII 1/8 buggy (most fun RC car I had to date, damn things are indestructable). Also currently have a blade CP heli that has been broke for a year or more, lol.

[1carcrazyguy]

Sounds like we need to get a DFWmuSTANGS rc league night going!

As for batteries. Back in the day you geared your car/truck to make 4 or 5 minutes plus a lap before the battery would dump. Races were 4 or 5 minutes each. If you could last 6-7 minutes you were not getting the most out of what you had. Now you have Lipo batteries that can run 20-30 minutes (just watch the temps on motor,battery and electronic speed controller).

[46Tbird]

Damn, after some research you really have to get a good battery & charger in order to have some fun with these things. The battery it comes with supposedly gives you like 10-20 mins of driving time? That's it!

Don't worry about battery life too much. Something else will break catastrophically long before you run out of battery.

[trailerparksuperstar]

My first R/C was a Mauri Big Bear. All my friends laughed because I had to put it together (Christmas Day and 3 days afterwards) while they were outside playing with their new Sears- Lobo or what ever they were called. Well, I had the last laugh when I finally got it together and painted- it would out run everything in my neighborhood and it was a "monster truck" body. IIRC it was a 1984 Datsun Truck body.
I upgraded to Hornet, Bullfrog, I got into Parma R/C products, then found Traxxas. My first was a Blue Eagle and I have loved Traxxas ever since.

[ARIX]

I work at hobby town usa in arlington and work over in RC. hit me up!

you guys have any yokomo shock towers?

[Stunter Bob]

Ive owned quite a few RC Cars and I can say that electric cars SUCK. If your going to drop the money, go with a nitro car, no more waiting for batteries to charge or any of that electical nonsense.

I had a revo 3.5 and it was by far the baddest 4x4 rc truck that I ever owned.

[Lason]

Ive owned quite a few RC Cars and I can say that electric cars SUCK. If your going to drop the money, go with a nitro car, no more waiting for batteries to charge or any of that electical nonsense.

I had a revo 3.5 and it was by far the baddest 4x4 rc truck that I ever owned.

Have you messed with any of the LiPo stuff? Im a nitro guy too but nitro is out these days, nitro cars run longer on charge vs tank and are as quick if not quicker.

I dont have a lipo car but if I get back in Ill be going with a electric 1/8 scale for sure!

[1carcrazyguy]

Have you messed with any of the LiPo stuff?

Brushless motors (along with Lipos) have changed the electric RC hobby!

Have a look...notice the short run on the back straight and how far they are getting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzjt9TCEi9A

[78X]

There is one place and one place only to go buy one and drive them and that is Mikes hobby shop in Carrollton. Cooter was right, the E-Revo is awesome but at $650 it may not be right for a first timer. (Plus there aren't any classes for you to race it in) I would recommend a 2wd or 4wd Traxxas slash. The 2wd is harder to drive but it's $240 RTR (ready to run). The 4wd has a brushless motor and is very fast and handles well and it's $360 RTR or so. While these 2 trucks come RTR the battery charger takes about 8 hours to charge. I would dedicate $60 or so to buy a good charger that way it only takes about 45 minutes to charge a battery.

The best thing about the slash is they will take a beating!! I have not broken anything on mine in 2 months and I have hundreds of laps on it.

I would go to the track and check it out. NOBODY has a rustler, stampede, or any other model of Traxxas out there. Don't get me wrong those are good models but not good for racing. Trust me, once you drive these on the track you will get addicted. If you don't want to race then those are great choices.

The best part of Mike's is the fact that he has 2 tracks on site one indoors and one outdoors. You can buy the truck there, charge the battery and run them on the track and if you break something the parts are in stock and the staff is badass and will help you fix it for free.

I am up there practicing with my Slash or my 1/8 scale buggy 2 or 3 times a week. If you have any questions, let me know.

hey regarding the Traxxas Slash, would you go 1/10 or 1/16 scale? Im looking at getting one for Christmas and see there are 2 different sizes offered.

[78X]

LOL wow this thread is bring back some memories! I saw 1carcrazyguy mention the Radiant and I giggled! That was probably the coolest RC car I ever had as a kid other than messing around with my dads Hotshot of the same era. The chain drive of the radiant was pretty cool though!

I started out with a bunch of tyco cars and my first real rc car was the radiant that my dad gave me. He owned a hobby shop in a mall in kentucky and the city helped him build a track on some land behind it. One night some people broke into the mall and cleaned out his shop. He still had racks of paints, a few models left in boxes, a few planes and then his personal stash from home. He moved back to Texas and it was like heaven on earth for me when I got to meet him. He had a storage shed out back that he put all the stuff in and basically gave me free reign in there.

I got the radiant first then a frog, a hang glider, a Mrs Budweiser balsa boat and all kinds of other crap. Best part was the racks up racks he had of spare parts for all these things. It was pretty damn cool! Sucked after I ran out of parts though because no one sold parts for the radiant (before the internet).

Later on I got the gold tub RC10, RC10T, 10T2, 10B2. A AWD Losi buggy (cant remember the name), Tmaxx, Kyosho KII 1/8 buggy (most fun RC car I had to date, damn things are indestructable). Also currently have a blade CP heli that has been broke for a year or more, lol.

this was the one we all wanted when i was growing up: