Excuse the terrible picture, courtesy of an eBay seller, but I wanted to blog a bit tonight about my current modelling-related addiction.
For the past few weeks I've been thinking about my days, about ten years ago now, racing the 1/12th ovals with my trusty Mardaves. Week in, week out (and often weekends too, for the Nationals) I used to be at my local Cambridge Oval Racing Club or one of the many other carpet-racing clubs across the country battling it out with other roundy-roundy racers. 4 cells, 6 cells, stockcars or Ministocks, I loved it all.
Then came a move, pubs, 1:1 cars, girls (and it was the girls who really screwed it up for me) and I stopped racing, sold my stuff and that was that. Until I discovered Racechat, an online forum for RC racers in the UK. Like I often do when I get excited about some amazing new hobby, I signed up, asked some questions, eBayed a little and got excited.
As a result of chatting to a guy on the Racechat 1/12th Oval forum, I got invited to an annual event called King Of The Fens, so I took a drive down there this morning to check it out. I'm hooked again. So much so, that I'm due back this coming Saturday for some more, and I've got all kinds of goodies coming in the post to get me up and running again myself.
Some of the technology has chaged, the batteries, speed controllers, motors, stuff like that, but on the most part it's much the same hobby. Simple, but finely tuned race cars battling to complete the most circuits in 5 minutes. Messing about with cars, with friends. Sharing tips and techniques. All the stuff I enjoy.
The cars I used to race are, for the most part, uncompetitive and outdated now, despite their simple straight axle/solid front end design. I'm still gonna have a try to make 'em compete though - the new stuff just aint as cool as the old cars I used to race. I might even restart development of my Greenspeed saloon chassis that was abandoned prematurely, but that's another story for another day.
Soon as that car, pictured above, arrives I'll be tearing it down, and eagerly awaiting all the cool new stuff I've ordered so that I can bolt it all together. Funny story behind this car, by thew way - back in my nineties heyday of racing these things this car was raced by one of the betters drivers at CORC, a guy called Roy. His car was always the car was trying to beat in the four cell classes - who woulda thought that ten years on it'd appear on eBay and I'd accidentally buy it without fully realising that I'd raced probably hundreds of times.
More on this new money-pit as it happens...
JB
For the past few weeks I've been thinking about my days, about ten years ago now, racing the 1/12th ovals with my trusty Mardaves. Week in, week out (and often weekends too, for the Nationals) I used to be at my local Cambridge Oval Racing Club or one of the many other carpet-racing clubs across the country battling it out with other roundy-roundy racers. 4 cells, 6 cells, stockcars or Ministocks, I loved it all.
Then came a move, pubs, 1:1 cars, girls (and it was the girls who really screwed it up for me) and I stopped racing, sold my stuff and that was that. Until I discovered Racechat, an online forum for RC racers in the UK. Like I often do when I get excited about some amazing new hobby, I signed up, asked some questions, eBayed a little and got excited.
As a result of chatting to a guy on the Racechat 1/12th Oval forum, I got invited to an annual event called King Of The Fens, so I took a drive down there this morning to check it out. I'm hooked again. So much so, that I'm due back this coming Saturday for some more, and I've got all kinds of goodies coming in the post to get me up and running again myself.
Some of the technology has chaged, the batteries, speed controllers, motors, stuff like that, but on the most part it's much the same hobby. Simple, but finely tuned race cars battling to complete the most circuits in 5 minutes. Messing about with cars, with friends. Sharing tips and techniques. All the stuff I enjoy.
The cars I used to race are, for the most part, uncompetitive and outdated now, despite their simple straight axle/solid front end design. I'm still gonna have a try to make 'em compete though - the new stuff just aint as cool as the old cars I used to race. I might even restart development of my Greenspeed saloon chassis that was abandoned prematurely, but that's another story for another day.
Soon as that car, pictured above, arrives I'll be tearing it down, and eagerly awaiting all the cool new stuff I've ordered so that I can bolt it all together. Funny story behind this car, by thew way - back in my nineties heyday of racing these things this car was raced by one of the betters drivers at CORC, a guy called Roy. His car was always the car was trying to beat in the four cell classes - who woulda thought that ten years on it'd appear on eBay and I'd accidentally buy it without fully realising that I'd raced probably hundreds of times.
More on this new money-pit as it happens...
JB
No comments:
Post a Comment