First run with Frog, new respect for vintage racers

[Saito]

 

[eek!]

Where's the respect?[8-|]

[Saito]

Hmm... thanks to my astounding (or is it absurd?) computer skills, it appears my post is not present.  Anyhow...I had my Frog out for its first run today and was quite amazed.  The little sucker was so fast and fun!  I really had a blast watching the buggy hop and skip about.  Compared to my Mad Cap, it was quite a handful.  It made me think that the racers from back in the day must have been pretty skilled to get these Frogs around the course.  I know that before the RC10 reached the scene the Frog was quite the popular racer.  The whole driving experiance just gave me a different viewpoint on how it must have been back in the heyday before things got so overly serious in off road racing.

[john45677]

ya and just hink most of us also had to drive them with stick's as the wheel was really pricey back than

[secretsg]

Yea the high COG doesn't help. It has 2 turn in characterstics.Heavy

Understeer and SNAP oversteer. Although it is no less fun than my TNX

or SP2. Makes you want to work it even though it will never to touch

the speed of modern buggies. Make sure to get some modern treads for

the back. The stock tire doesn't cut iton the dirt... unless you like

doing donuts.[]

[WillyChang]

Caster (angle of steering pivot) can be adjusted to change handling characteristics.

What we also found in the old days was that bigger front wheels eg Wild One's wheels made the Frog less likely to "dig in" and handled much better.

[Thorvald]

Even worse, us "vintage" drivers usings sticks (which I prefer thanks, god I hate these pistol grips but that is another story) had to contend with Kyosho Optimas and Ultimas.  We were having a great time racing other Tamiya cars (bouncing like mad around a track) when all of a sudden those "ma's" starting showing up.

They would litterally "wipe" the track clean of us Tamiya drivers (I owned or drove most of them, Wild Willy, Grasshopper, Hornet, Fox, Falcon, Boomerang).  My Boomerang was the closest thing that "almost" kept up ... but the Optima could just turn on a dime and it's drive train was so much more efficient (i.e. longer run times).  Not to mention the better suspension setup (i.e. it was "good" out of the box).

I'd love to have vintage races for fun but I'd make them classed by manufacturer :-)

 

 

 

[Saito]

  I'm just suprised how the Frog handled.  I've driven Grasshopper type vehicles and they hopped alright.  My FAV was very realistic, but certainly no real competitor.  Everybody seemed to rave about and love the Frog when it came out.  The car is great fun, but man, the skill it must have taken to run them competitvely.  My Fox seems like quite a step up (especially with optional stabilizer).  I suppose that's why the aftermarket made so many parts for the Frog.

[3doorpete]

I've just had my first run with my re-re frog and they are great fun. I love the turning circle at low speed. Way more fun to drive than my Desert Gator I sold, plus it has some proper ground clearance! All I have in it are ball races and a sport tuned motor and that seems enough.

[terry.sc]

Everybody seemed to rave about and love the Frog

when it came out.  The car is great fun, but man, the skill it

must have taken to run them competitvely.

Yes, the Frog was a

revelation compared with everything else Tamiya had produced before

then, it just showed how bad the SRBs and HB/SR were.

I raced a

Frog back then, mainly due to local support (I could buy the spares!).

It was also somewhat cheaper than the competiton which was the Kyosho

Scorpion which had taken overfrom the SRBs as the race car to have. I

did actually race a Frog at national meetings, even managing to get it

into a national B final once after considerable development on my part.

In the UK we didn't have any of the tune up parts available in the US.

There were local companies that made parts though, alloy front

wishbones, rear suspension pivots and plastic hex drives were fitted

but most was all home made. Even when modified after running a Frog

bouncing about you couldn't compare to the Scorpions, RC10s and Hirobos

that just glided round the track. The Frog was still the car to have

for club racing as the otherswere expensive and very hard to get parts

for. It was killed off as a racer when the Hotshot came out as at least

the advantage of 4wd gave you an edge over the RC10 in slippery

conditions. the RC10 was never popular as even in 1984 it cost

£180(equivalent to around £400 now!), 3 times the price of a Frog and

almost twice the price of the Hotshot.

It was much more in it's element on smoother tracks. We used to

race on a polished wood floor and my 2wd Frog could out accelerate

everything else when I had finished with it, including 4wds. Even raced

against and beat one of the UKs top works RC10 drivers indoors with my

Frog. It's the only car I have sold on that I wish I had kept.