These are my 'very' retro memories

[daveyboi1973]

Dont race but bash really.Used to race mids and procats at an indoor club in tilbury in essex.Remember making a alloy chassis up with a tamiya falcon front end and a kyosho outrage rear for a laugh and actually beating a few "pros" with it.

[Ant]

Used to race my Mardave Apache at Chingford Car Club in Essex. We used to race on the outskirts of Epping forest, but in a small clearing under the trees.
I remember Pete Stevens and George Land quite regularly turning up with their Zerdas with the belt slip clicking. Lap counting was a manual affair, calling out the numbers and finals went down to k on a regular basis.
In winter we raced indoors in 'the Lid' at the nearby scout park where we later had a permanent track.
I remember there being lots of home made and extremely modified cars.
The Hotshot wasn't so popular at our club.
Then the RC10 came along - and I stared in amazement when I saw people drilling holes, cutting down the chassis and sometimes making a complete mess of these brilliant machines. We were still running Apaches and a Frog.
We stopped racing for a while and came back with an ultima based bitsa which my brother got into the A or B finals (2 & 4wd raced together) and a Raider until he got a Procat and I later got a Topcat- which became a Cougar then a Cougar2.
You used to see the look of panic on people's faces for the last 30seconds of a race as their cars started dumping .....

When I first started I remember reading an article in Model Car Monthly by George Land about speed controllers. The general jist was that variable resistor speed controllers fitted to small fast servos were the way to go, and it would be very unlikely for electronic speed controllers to become small enough or efficient enough to challeng them.
How times change!

[MHeadling]

Great thread, well here is my story....

First car was a Tamiya Moster Beetle bought from a family friend for £30 this was around 1990 when I was 10, had loads of fun with this and set from there, had various tamiya's, Manta Rays, Thunder Dragon, Clod Buster, just used these for fun in the garden.

I went to my local shop alot (buying fast motors and lots of resistors! Lol) Model World Ashford and heard about the racing club at the North School in Ashford , i Kent.

This was a great club ran by Clive and Terry Stockham of MRT fame, I remember being dropped off the first time and couldn't believe the speed of the buggys and the Pro 10 cars they used to race. I got the bug big time and went most Sundays.

I started in 92 with a Schumacher Cougar Club at Ashford club and had many cars during my time there, Cougar 2000, Pro cat, Kyosho Lazer Alpha, t tech pred international, Losi XX and a AE B3 and probably lots more!

My main retro memories from this time as a kid racing were:

- Clive Stockhams crazy transmitter style, people who have seen it will know what I mean, he was pretty handy so we'll let him off!

- Foam donut tyres on the buggy rims

- Predators howling around the hall!

- Wide body touring shells, 405's, Escort Cosworths, Mondeos

- A certain David Spashett coming along to a meeting with narrow touring car (proto SST on mini pins), we all
Thought that will never take off! Lol

- The fantastic range of MRT brushed speedos

- Big Velcro numbers on your cars and number crunching as each car went by on a green screen BBC computer

- Richmond Rogers and Richard Bettany visiting the club at times and being super fast

- Comm lathes and £2 a skim!

- Home made ply pit boxed

- A husband and wife race team who had matching home knitted brown tank tops! Lol

Great memories!



I then got into Basket Ball and girls and left Rc alone whilst at secondary school.

In 97 got a Hyper 7 rally x car and raced that at Kent Rally x club once and then got one of the new Schumacher SST, raced this at West Kingsdown club near Brands Hatch, had a break then worked at local model shop for a bit and got into TC as not much off road in Kent.

I raced a AE Tc3 and a Yokomo at Barham club on a Thur night and lots of familiar faces there from Ashford club.

Had another break from racing and bought a few cars for fun FG's, AE B4, Xxx etc and had a dabble with 5th bikes and did the first World Champs at Brooklands raceway in Kent, was good fun that meeting!

Moved to Maidstone and raced each week at Maritime with various TC cars and 12ths then I saw the light and went back to my roots of off road 10th.

I bought got a Cat SX and went to Faversham club and the rest is history...... Over 60 cars I'v owned and still loving it!

[maineyak]

Good stories!

Ant - I'd forgotten about Zerdas! They weren't really big around our way though.

So it got me thinking, just what was the first commercially available 4wd 1/10th car - Hotshot, Progress, Zerda or Wonder Dogfighter? or something else AYK?

[Stretch]

Progress was pre Hotshot.

[Jason A]

Originally Posted by tisher

I wonder how many people have just got back into the sport in the last two years that raced 20+ years ago

Haha thats so true.

I raced in the late 80's with a cat XLS then had a break for 20+ years and have now been back racing for 3 years.

[Ant]

There were a few very modified hirobo rock'n city's around before the Zerdas.
We had a few Progresses race, but the Rc10 came along and beat them all.
Lots of original Optimas, Cats, Cougars, Optima Mids and then losi after that

[traffman]

My foray into the world of rc began after purchasing a Tamiya Grasshopper and paying it up weekly via the Janet Frazer catalogue.

I ran the car for a while trying not to lose interest as i didnt want it to turn out to be another five minute wonder.

My best mate purchased one soon after and so began the bashing.

After my friend returned from a caravan holiday in yorkshire he brought me back some radio controlled magazines to browse through.

This is where events took a more serious turn , i ballraced the rear axle of my Grasshopper to improve the efficiency! They cost 7 pounds back then circa 1985!

Shortly after i ventured into Marionville models and purchased a second hand Optima with a salute bodyshell.

I replaced the worn wiper board on the speed controller , rebuilt the entire car and with my mate whom had purchased a Boomerang we began racing at Queensferry rc club on a Friday.

Those days were very interesting , a multitude of mainly Cats Pb Mustangs and the odd rc10 were the order of the day.

My friend purchased a secondhand Optima turbo and i went onto a mustang and fitted Brimod shocks to it (machined exquisitely but leaked allways) .

As we got more serious i received a brand new Optima Pro for my birthday , then onto a Mid optima Turbo which i still rate to this day as being one of the best performing rc cars out there.

Before i left the sport i had moved onto a Lazer then lastly a Tomy intruder with fibrelyte shock towers. Lovely car and ran well with a 17 quad MG motor.

I took a short dive into 1/8th scale and traded my electric buggy in for a Kyosho Turbo Burns but sadly the 1/8th scale club in Scotland folded.

So fast forward to circa 2009 after coming back to the hobby via yokomo mr4bx , followed by a b44 mid , Durango , Kyosho lazer fs2 i have now settled for the best compromise to my smoother style driving and currently loving the Tamiya 502x.

Happy days .

[Si Coe]

I really liked my Progress. It was much better than the Falcon I had before it, even though the Progress was a dated design by the time I got one. It was also superior to the Boomerangs my friends ran too - which seems odd if it wasn't as good as the Hot Shot!
But then my Dad got an Optima Mid for himself and the Progress just looked silly next to that. I wanted to start racing, so the Progress was shelved and I went to Springfield Buggy Club with my Dads Mid, Futaba 112b esc, 40mhz Attack and an MG Brown Dot.
My younger brother wanted in too, and my Dad managed to score one of the first few Top Cat's from RadioActive models. At first we ran together, but as more people got Top Cat's, 2wd and 4wd split. My brother got a PB Ace to run in 4wd, but abandoned it after just 1 meeting saying it was awful to drive. He eventually got a Yokomo (heavily modified Yz870c) which was just all round better than my Mid. 4wd was dominated my ProCat's and I considered one, but then a random chance got me to switch to 2wd.
Years earlier I'd got an RC10 - the original gold pan, but never really used it. But a friend of mine managed to acquire an early pre-release Stealth gearbox, which mated with my RC10 chassis became a force to be reckoned with. 2wd used to consist of a dozen Topcats/Cougars and my sole RC10, running a Lazer Comfet Mini-pro and Parma motors I used to acquire off Andy Carter and Danny Conway.
Things looked good for a while, especially during a cold, wet winter series outdoors on tarmac where I was running the only 2wd with a slipper clutch, but the rest soon caught up. Besides by this point I was doing my GCSE's and too busy.
My brother carried on racing for a while after me which meant he and I blagged places helping out at the '93 Worlds. He quit when he went off to Uni and swapped his Losi XX with me for a mountain bike. The XX prompted a return to racing for me (having just left Uni myself) but the scene was all touring cars and I quit again around 2000 having got back into cycling
Then in 2007 I was working on a bike on my drive when a neighbour started running a Hyper 7 up and down the street. This got me to dig out my old Cat'98 from the loft and somehow I ended up racing at Bury with it.

I still love my retro cars though - specifically RC10's. I now have a pair (Truck and Team) which have been upgraded to modern electrics and still take on todays cars. Things have moved on a lot, and yet they haven't changed as much as you'd think.......

[maineyak]

LOL Brimrod shocks - I remember them traffman. I went to Mick Goddards factory once over in Wales. Nice bloke he would put together a lovely 'standard' motor for £50......

Anyway here's may latest instalment. As far as I can remember its all true.


I guess the highlight of my RC career was the Reedy international race at Romsey in 1988. It might have been ’89 but I believe it was ’88 because Masami was driving a YZ870 rather than the Cat he had used to win the worlds the previous year. It was the first time we had seen a Dogfighter and its shocking pink wheels and it was awesome.

We turned up a whole 2 days before official practice began so had plenty of free time to learn the track and dial the cars in. I was equipped with my trusty RC10 and a borrowed Ultima, which I quickly discarded after a few runs. Masami was already there too, but funnily enough he wasn’t camping on the dog poo infested field opposite like us. He was hammering round the track and we were totally stunned by this guys talent. I watched him on a qualifying run when a bad pot hole had appeared on the racing line on the final bend before the straight. There was *just*room inside but with the barrier so close it was a risk you wouldn’t take. I watched him go through this gap flat out for 12 laps in a row.

Looking back now I realise that the most valuable single piece of equipment I had that week was a set of custom cut crystals that Nick Marson had lent me. They were an expensive item but they were also guaranteed to be a one-off, with no one else on your frequency. These meant I could bypass the practice queue and grab any coloured peg as I walked past. I got some very strange looks but it meant I could drive all day and by the time official practice began I knew every inch of the hard baked slippy dirt track and my RC10 was dialled.

The pit marquee which was once empty started filling with faces we had only seen and read about in magazines. Mike Reedy, Masami, Cliff Lett, Butch Kloeber, Jammin J, Joel Johnson, Gil Losi Jnr, and the list went on. So to the start of official qualifying and on my second run and BANG fifth fastest 2WD overall and as my trusty RC10 was sat on the finish straight Masami wandered over to it and bowed towards it. To say I was happy is an understatement….. Nobody really knew who I was till then but people soon started to find me and I was quickly offered a sponsorship deal by Central Models and a team coloured shell was hastily cut out and slapped on my car.

Early days though. There was another 1½ days of qualifying to go but the track started getting worn, rutted and even slipperier and my position stood. I never matched my 2nd round pace again. Unfortunately disaster struck on the final afternoon of qualifying when rain started to fall. Now you would think that was good news but no, they sprinkled the track with sawdust, and the grip came back up. The top drivers started putting in fast motors to take advantage of the conditions and I was quickly knocked down into the B. I couldn’t believe how much grip there was but I just couldn’t take advantage of it as I had no speed. The masses of practice laps had taken their toll and motors, Nicads and everything were on their last legs. While others were power scrubbing on the start line in an attempt to get rid of peak volts my mate was plugging mine in at the last possible second.

Mike Reedy was sat ahead of us and just to the right. I watched as a never ending queue of works drivers approached him for advice. Often he would reach into a big leather case and hand over a clear sealed bag which contained an RC10 gearbox with a correctly geared Reedy motor already attached, plus a set of nicads. Screw it in and go. I was so tempted to go over and introduce myself and ask if I could borrow a motor for just one run. I practiced over and over what I would say to him but even when he was alone I just never had the bottle to do it. I have big regrets over that as I’m sure with some power I could have got back in the A, and after all the worse he could have said was no.

Still the B final was full of top names too and as the countdown began I’d never been so nervous. I think I was ahead at one point but got tagged and spun out at the hairpin. Basically I was overwhelmed by the people I was racing. It was a really aggressive race and I was too polite and just got swallowed up. I think I came last in the end.

However marshalling the 3 legged A final was even more nerve wracking. I think I had the worst marshalling position of all were if a car crashed in the centre of the track I had to run out, crossing another part of the track to get there. Nightmare – drivers screamed at me from the rostrum. Masami won and treated us all to his trademark ‘sitting down driving with his feet’ trick. What an amazing week though. It’s one trophy I wish I’d kept.

Next up: CML sponsorship

[john333]

Interesting about the custom crystals, I had a futaba 3EGX gold transmitter which had a 40 meg module in it supplied by Phil booth, at the time 40 meg wasn't available in this country so the same as you I could just practice whenever I felt like it, much to a few fellow drivers disgust lol.

[TARTMAN]

long story short. ish........

My 1st buggy was a Subaru Brat, the base version of the Frog with a pick up truck shell in solid plastic....... great fun off road outside, not mucjh of a racer....... My next door neighbor, Andy Shaw(anyone remember him?) was already into racing, both of us about 13 yrs old i think..... So i went along to the track, indoors, in langley....... Friday nights....... LOVED IT!

Hooked from day 1............

upgraded the brat to a Frog, oh yes, i was well in to it lol.....

Then, after much bribery of promising the housework etc to my mum/dad, got them to help me buy a Hotshot......... WOW big time, that was soooooo much better!

then stated outdoor racing, west london, cranford, aylesbury, chesham etc etc.... progressed through the ranks. got a job at Richmond model shop at 16 then sponsered by them, helped me get to club A final level and some decent finishes all over........ raced with some top lads, Jamie Booth, craig dresher etc etc.......
had all the greats, optima mids, yokomo dog fighter, Cat xls etc etc....

the ply home made pit box. 12v battery......
loads of nicads for the one use a day charge/race. motor tuner, box of 20 plus motors, the Demon standard/stock motor( and we all know they were never stock one tweaked lol)
£5,000 of RC stuff in the boot of my £500 mk4 cortina........ hit 18, found women and real cars and nightclubs a bit of a distraction........ left racing............ now, 22 years later............ I AM BACK! Love it.....
Spend to much money and time on the 2wd and the 4wd and the SC, but what the hell, married and settled, need the break!!!! LMAO!!!!!!!!

SHRCCC is now my 2nd home, and part run it..... always wanted to run a club back then, so now, involved in it big styley. Great fun and looking forward to the senior years of thumb twidling and wife avoiding !!!!! HEHE!!!!

[MILKY]

Blimey Darren i thought we were a rare breed,another cranford buggy club racer from back in the day.
I love this thread so here is my contribution...

IT starts as most do,a friend of mine had a tamiya buggy(falcon i think) and of course i wanted one but my parents thought it was just another of my fads!!
Then another got a Tamiya vanquish and desperate begging earned me an increase in pocket money,a few months of saving bought me a second hand optima from a friend of mine.What a beast,easily out performed the tamiya's of my friends but this was only down the park so i looked for a club local to me.

Cranford buggy club was my first club and one which i have the fondest memories of,Andy Shaw,Les Grimmet and of course Pete Stevens are a few names that instantly spring to mind,but there are many more i have forgotten which i should'nt have to be honest.
A very friendly and well run club with the pete's awesome products spares in the corner,large rostrum with manual counting and i think one jump which used to scare me being so young but is nothing now a days!!

Went on to a cougar then a yokomo super dog fighter works 92 and of course the inevitable,evenings out with your mates and real cars and a break from the hobby ensues.....

2001 rolls around an i am in SMiths and see radio race car and mmmmm i remember when......Associated tc3 later and i am back rocking and rolling at langley model car club and wlrc.

Another break and we are in 2010 and taplow model car club and surrey and hants are my regular clubs, off road has re emerged as the dominant class and of course i have to have another go,a series of cats,yokomo's and so on and its in my veins and to be honest i don't think i will ever stop now

[J'MM'N]

Originally Posted by maineyak

I've just started racing buggies again after a 23yr break. Haven't done many races yet but it's a lot more difficult than I remember I seem to have no subtlety in my thumbs whatsoever. I need to race more than once a week to get anywhere good again.

The problem is my wife needs to understand I've got a hobby again now

I'm guessing this is Mark, if so hello again.

I've just made a return after 17 years, drove one of my lads old TC3's for the first time last week. But their was no compatibility between car, brain and my thumbs whatsoever Plan to get myself a 2wd buggy though and have some fun.

Trevor.

Time machine back to Dowty's track with RC10's and five link JRX2's

[Dandare]

Loving these stories.

I remember me & a few mates used to go into Model Junction in Bury St Eds & prod the suspension of Brats, Strikers, Porsche 959's & the like, & on the way out we would gawp at the Avante that sat on it's own shelf, lol. I guess it was '83-'85 ? I'd have been between 11-13. I remember the Brat was £55odd ! On the occasions when we didn't have the courage to go in (lol) we'd watch the Tamiya vids on the tv through the front window

I even took their black & white photocopied a4 brochure with me on holiday to Menorca & would look through it repeatedly, deciding which kit to buy, as if i could afford any of them, lol.

A mate eventually beat me to it & had a Thundershot bought for him, then i got a Boomerang, other friends got Super Sabre's, Hotshots etc. Iirc he replaced the Thundershot with a Kyosho Maxxum FF !

The Bury Buggy Club used to race at the back of the Shimpling Bush pub, we only made one or two meets spending more time 'bashing' than racing.

In 1990 i got a job/apprenticeship, i became mates at college with a chap called Ian Kemp, he had a mate called William Mitcham Ian was sponsored by Schumacher & raced a Cat XLS, he even got William to rebuild one or two of my Reedy motors !

I then went 2wd with a Cougar Club 10 but never actually raced it. Annoyingly i sold it for parts only last year & now wish i hadn't as i would've liked to do some vintage racing with it

So, i am another who has returned after a 20 odd year gap, now at the age of 39, i never would have thought i'd be racing clubs, regionals etc now...

[gainsy]

These are great stories guys, keep them coming
There seems to be loads of us who have recently returned to the rc world, does anyone remember the old Tamiya adverts on the tv? this is how i became interested, saw the advert for the tamiya fox & immediately wanted it, after 6 months of visits to Beaties to lust after it & constant "please dad can i have one" my parents relented & got me one for christmas
Started racing at the cottonmill club in st albans a few months later & was instantly hooked, the fox wasn't up for much & i was regually whiped by the other tamiyas, my dad used to race with me & had a hotshot, he quickly upgraded to the supershot & gave me the hotshot which compared to the fox was amazing, as i got more into it my dad said if i could beat him he would give me the supershot, i tried my butt off but couldn't beat him, 1 day i was sitting in my workshop/shed & thought i would lighten the car so it would go faster, i set about the chassis with my dads drill & soon it looked like swiss cheese, i was sure this would give me the edge over him
Race day arrived & my dad set a great time with the supershot, i was in heat 2 & the hotshot flew off the line, i was thinking this is good, went round the first corner & over the big jump, as i landed the front half of the car seperated from the rear & went flying into the bush!!! the rear stopped about 10ft from where my old man was marshalling, he just picked it up & gave me that look that said i was for it lol he wasn't happy with me but once he realised i was just trying to beat him he took pity on me & gave me the supershot
Went through a few more cars with the xls, optima mid, top cat etc until the lure of motocross got the better of me & swapped my cars for my first bike the kx125, i quickly realised i was hopeless at this & before i killed myself decided to buy my first real car, beer, women, holidays & kids followed but now the kids are old enough to start their rc journey i have been back for a couple of years now & love the modern tech we have, just not having to take the motor out to clean it after each heat is a god send in itself
This is the ad that got me hooked
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66OygXbxfFw

[HKS_TRD]

In the spirit of blast from the past, I unearthed these photos of my Turbo Optima Mid SE. Bad photos and not a great scan either but this is all I have as a momento from those days

[traffman]

Loving the mid optima, that looks like the mid i used to race.

The body was yellow , i fitted a graphite wing on it . The rest was standard turbo fare though.

Does anyone remember racing under the Forth road bridge in South Queensferry?

That was where i first got a taste of racing.

[Teaboy]

I will have raced with / against you in the TA Center days, i use to love it there with my Hotshot, we as the Bromyard bunch always use to pit together in those days. I went past the old Bulls Head track a few weeks ago and was shocked to see nothing there at all now.

Those names ring a bell, i seem to remember a James Bond (really) with a PB and also Chris something with a Gold and white Cat.

From my Hotshot i went to a PB Mini Mustang which i have just restored to run in the Vintage class at Caldicott.

When Hereford moved from the TA Centre i raced at Kidderminster and Worcester.

Cheers

Rich

Originally Posted by dirt track date

Wow what a cool thread....................................
I remember going to thee Eastor model show with my parents in 1982 ?? maybe 83 and watchng the boats and planes, but being totally obsessed with the buggies, I loved it when they wheelied off the line!! I was so exciting because unlike real motor racing you could see the whole track. We went every year after that, me and my brother used to choose a car that we liked the look of at the start of each race and see who came in first, we begged and begged for our own car but my dad used to say 'they're not toys' and 'they're too expensive etc....'. I used to look forward to Eastnor all year just to watch the buggies and see 'whos' car would come in first every race. In mid /late 1986 my dad heard about racing at the TA centre in Hereford so we used to go and watch the racing (I think it was on tuesday night) still dreaming that one day I'd be able to have my own car. I remember the fast drivers were driving SWB Cats and PB Mini Mustangs, Dave Rogers and Clive Hall ruled supreme in Hereford back then. In early 1987 after 5 years of begging and nagging my parents finally conceded and my dad swapped his prized model boat for a Marui Samurai. That car was so bad, the diff gears used to strip every other race. Me and my brother race alternate weeks. I used to practice at home in the garden after mowing a track into the front lawn but the Samurai was really no fun and the majority of the time it was in bits, I remember frantically trying to change those stupid diff gears in the back hall of the TA centre. Christmas 87 was the best year ever my parents bought us a Mardave Meteor to share between us. I remember building it on the kitchen table with my dad. It took 2 days to build!! I think my dad let me and my brother do most of it and at 12 and 11 respectively i don't think we had a clue!! For my birthday we got a new body shell (I'll post some pics because i would love to try and identify it so that I can rebuild that car) and painted it british racing green with some white stripes, our Meteor now looked like the fast cars. Some time late 87 we got another Meteor so we could both race at the same time, loads of other kids had Meteors so we had our own little Meteor pitting area. Racing by this time had moved to the Shire Hall and the Meteor was now long wheel base with long wishbones, MG Orange Dot with a Speedmaster Silver Star speed control. I got that car in the A final one time, soooo proud, but spent most of the time getting out of the way of the fast boys ha ha ha!! During the summer we raced behind the Bulls Head Pub in Hereford, various other school fetes, steam rallies and Eastnor Model Show. Some time in 89 I sold one of the Meteors and got a 2nd hand Top Cat, I remember racing this outside at the Bulls Head and racing at Eastnor with a Trinity 19 double which I bought from a team driver (so he said) managed the C final and was the highest placed 2WD. I sold the Top Cat in early 1990 and bought Clive Halls old PB Mini Mustang which I remembered from the TA Centre days of watching and dreaming. The Mustang was a little out of date but at least it was 4wd and I could win the B final from time to time at club level. I think I had the Mustang for 4-5 months before I sold that and got a second hand worn out Lwb Optima Mid with a red anodised tana plan chassis. I really loved that car and regularly used to win the B final. This car was great indoors and outside on grass. Sadly this was sold in early 1991 and I bought a Swb cat for £20 (Oh how I wish I'd kept it) and sort of converted it to a Pro Cat, well it had a Pro Cat Body and Chassis, I hated this car, it was horrible to drive, but by this time girls and music were taking over and nothing puts off teenage girls more than 'going to play with toy cars'. So in the summer of 1992 aged 17 I took my 'Pro Cat' to Eastnor Model Show and sold it for £35. I've still got my original Meteor although it needs a new chassis because the endless modifications finally cause it to snap. Occasionally I'd go and watch the racing at Hereford but soon I was playing in bands and that was the end of that....... Until May 2010 when I got a Mardave Cobra off ebay and bashed around the garden for a bit of fun. I liked it A LOT. September 2010 I started racing an Associated B4 at Stoke Model Car Club and tried to collect all the cars I owned as a kid. So far I've got all of them except a SWB Cat, but these are rare and expensive now. Any way thats my memories of the happiest times growing up and the best time I ever had with my dad.

[Matt cannon]

Originally Posted by tisher

I wonder how many people have just got back into the sport in the last two years that raced 20+ years ago

That would be me, my father was always a bad infulance with regards to Hobbys and kept my two younger brothers, my sister and me busy every night of he week. If we where not at the athletics track we where at the gun club and if we had nothing ele to do then we where all racing rc cars in different classes. My first car was a holiday buggy back in 81/82 which I used to race at the white heart pub at calow in chesterfield ( I remember filling fag packets with snow and atatching it to the rear of the HB -to get weight and grip when we raced outdoor in winter - it was fun but hard going). The rough riders/scorchers used to dominate and the races where packed with at least 15 cars on the grid race after race. Things moved on car tchnology-wise and I remember Jamie booth running the first Schumacher cat and wasting all comers.

I remember begging my mum and dad to take me to "pepperdays" model shop in chesterfield town centre every saturday, dave P was a bad influence so we came away with a 1/12 electrocar oval stock car which I used to race on a Tuesday night in clay cross community centre. (now Reminiscing over prepping tyres with silicone in advance of race night and the exitement of climbing thru the ranks and being able to change the roof colour of the car to signify you where no longer a novice.)

My younger brother longed for the same so my dad bought him a mardave mini stock car and he raced this against the early 1/12 pan cars at the goldwell rooms on a wednesday ( I was downstairs at the gun club in the basement til 9pm then met my family upstairs for the last hour or so). Once James had picked up his race craft my dad splashed out on a Schumacher c-car and that was how things progressed for a few years until the club had to move to the winding wheel and then coal aston.

Sadly my mum passed away and then life got a little more serious so the Hobbys dwindled as my dad struggled to bring up a young family on his own. The inevitable happened - girls,music,pubs and cars all took their toll and rc racing fell into the past. The good thing was that my dad didnt part with any of the old cars, for the last couple of years I have been reclaiming the old cars from the back of my old wardrobe and restoring them.

The passion for old rc really kicked in and I started collecting all of my 80's favorites (I remember drawling over hot shots,boomerangs and bigwigs on the way home from school in the mid/late 80's) and now the collection is ridiculous.

I am going to take a pic of the old period cars that we all ran and post them up on this thread as this has been the best walk down memory lane for a long time.
The upshot off all of this waffle is that 6 wks ago both James and myself visited c.a.r.s at sharley park leisure centre for the national meet and the rest is history as I took the plunge and bought a gt12 car so that I can get back into a hobby that was a big part of not only my life but that of my whole family's. (yes the wife thinks I am loosing the plot slightly but it's either rc cars or I take one of the proper rally cars I pamper out for a thrash and that is deffo more expensive - either way I'm happy)