I hate the track when...

[GregM]

I think there's no bad netiquette in digging out threads if somebody adds something readworthy.

Better than starting another thread on the same topic.

Sorry aside from that I've got nothing useful to say, since I haven't visited R/C tracks. Yet.

[Pjmaxxim]

There's some good stuff in here that I can relate to. I race 1/8th nitro offroad and the comments about marshalling make me wince slightly. Especially the ones about cars coming at you at chest height! I've had far too many close calls with wayward buggies and truggies but I have seen people get hurt.

I also had a situation once when a car had come off the track. Just about to put it back on the track and he pinned the throttle sending it straight into my legs. Luckily I was wearing boots and Nitro motors don't have much torque so I wasn't hurt.

But he was black flagged and lost his fastest time of the day.

But yeah, drivers who aren't considerate of others are one of my pet hates about the track.

[whahooo]

I would hate the track if the others were faster than me.

But in my area I have no tracks suitable for my cars anyway.

[firefoxussr]

I think it's funny that there were so many spoiled kids back then... Then financial meltdown. Here I'm lucky to have any racing at all. There was about a year with absolutely no racing within 150 miles.

It's exciting to see it back & brushless.

Also I am not a fan of using pvc piping as track marking for onroad. Very destructive if you bump. Sand traps or a runoff...something.

[Mad Ax]

...when I'm marshaling, and a car turns over right in front of my corner, and I rush onto the track to rescue it, but I totally misjudge how quickly the other cars will get from the bottom of the straight to the top, and I pick up the car just as the rest of the field arrives, and I lose my grip on the car so it falls from my clumsy grasp and lands immediately in front of the pack, I'm in mid-stride so I have to put my foot down, but just as I'm about to land the car gets hit and bounces right under my foot, and I stand on it and break the chassis

This actually happened to me two weeks ago. Fortunately the car belonged to a friend of mine, it was only a plastic front upright that broke, he wasn't leading the race and he wasn't in the running for the championship, so he accepted my profuse apology and we're still friends. I did offer to pay for it but he wouldn't accept.

That said, I'd never accept an offer of payment from another marshal or racer if my car got damaged - racing is racing. If you don't want to break it, don't bring it - and if you don't want to be badly marshaled, don't crash

[Mad Ax]

I think I have suffered from most of these at one time or another...

http://www.r1wurks.com.au/blogs/news/99927814-top-10-dumbest-rc-mistakes

[firefoxussr]

That said, I'd never accept an offer of payment from another marshal or racer if my car got damaged - racing is racing. If you don't want to break it, don't bring it - and if you don't want to be badly marshaled, don't crash

This is something I found out the first time going to an RC track. I went to a drift meet and bashed for months with no real damage. It only took one race to see what my car was really made of.

[Mad Ax]

This is something I found out the first time going to an RC track. I went to a drift meet and bashed for months with no real damage. It only took one race to see what my car was really made of.

I find there are good days and bad days. Most races I come home with barely a few scuffs on the shell which come off with a bit of solvent. Some days I break something really big, or have an electronics failure, or strip a gearbox or destroy a diff.

My worst ever race day was my local club's first ever one-day championship. A 9am start on a wintery Sunday, with a whole day of heats to qualify for finals, followed by a trophy ceremony.

Went out in practice with my TA05 and did OK, not great but OK - I'd never really got on with that TA05, it was the only TA05 on track and it never had the mechanical grip of anything anybody else was running.

Went out in heat one, lap two I caught the rear wheel on the track wall and ripped the entire rear suspension off. Broken bottom arm, broken bottom arm mounts, lost pillow balls, bent lower arm pin. I didn't have the spares to fix it, so it looked like my day was already over.

Then a mate came to me with a Team Magic chassis that he'd placed in the top heat the previous week. Just needed wheels and electrics. "£20 plus your TA and it's yours." He said. Bargain of the decade.

I quickly got to throwing all my electrics in, figuring I'd learn the car in heats 2 and 3 and not push for laptimes until heat 4. I was ready just as they called my heat.

Car on track, going well. Lap two, I caught the track at the exact same place, ripped off the rear suspension... Being a Team Magic, nobody had any spares at all for it. Took weeks to get spares in from HK and it never felt quite the same after that, I think the suspension pin was bent. Plus I couldn't race at all, because I'd sold my TA.

I saw it racing a few weeks later in some noob's hands, still drifting and sliding like a hovercraft. The guy who'd bought it off me fixed it up and sold it on for way more than it cost to fix!

[firefoxussr]

I saw it racing a few weeks later in some noob's hands, still drifting and sliding like a hovercraft.

That's how my HPI Sprint 2 Sport was on carpet. I took it out for one or two practice nights and decided to buy an F103 instead of trying to race that monster (though it could punt regular weight touring cars off the track )

[Mad Ax]

...I arrive at the shop to use their track, but it's empty because they're all in the warehouse doing a stocktake.  So I go to the warehouse to call someone over to the counter so I can pay for some track time.

But my tyres haven't been glued, so my truck keeps falling over.  So I go back to the warehouse to call someone over to the counter so I can buy some proper tyre glue, which I take back to my pit area.

But then I realise I haven't got my snips with my to open the nozzle, so I go back to the warehouse to call someone over to the counter to ask if they have some snips I can borrow.

By this time they seem to realise they're dealing with someone a little bit special, so they don't lend me the snips but they do offer to cut the top off the nozzle while I hold it, then they stay to watch me as I walk back to my pit area, no doubt certain that I'll need help with something else sooner or later.

And by the time I've got to my pit table, I've managed to get tyre glue all over the nozzle and over both hands, and I've glued both hands to the bottle.  So I opt not to go back to the counter again to ask if they've got any glue dissolver that they can use to unstick my hands, instead choosing to stand with my back to them, trying my best to look all calm and collected while I run a little ring of glue around all my tyres - both hands still glued - then try to make it look like I'm having a little break and picking some dirt out of my fingernails when I'm actually frantically trying to cut through the top layer of skin with a craft knife while simultaneously trying not to spill any more glue and trying not to get the knife stuck to myself as well.

True story...

[MadInventor]

19 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

...I arrive at the shop to use their track, but it's empty because they're all in the warehouse doing a stocktake.  So I go to the warehouse to call someone over to the counter so I can pay for some track time.

But my tyres haven't been glued, so my truck keeps falling over.  So I go back to the warehouse to call someone over to the counter so I can buy some proper tyre glue, which I take back to my pit area.

But then I realise I haven't got my snips with my to open the nozzle, so I go back to the warehouse to call someone over to the counter to ask if they have some snips I can borrow.

By this time they seem to realise they're dealing with someone a little bit special, so they don't lend me the snips but they do offer to cut the top off the nozzle while I hold it, then they stay to watch me as I walk back to my pit area, no doubt certain that I'll need help with something else sooner or later.

And by the time I've got to my pit table, I've managed to get tyre glue all over the nozzle and over both hands, and I've glued both hands to the bottle.  So I opt not to go back to the counter again to ask if they've got any glue dissolver that they can use to unstick my hands, instead choosing to stand with my back to them, trying my best to look all calm and collected while I run a little ring of glue around all my tyres - both hands still glued - then try to make it look like I'm having a little break and picking some dirt out of my fingernails when I'm actually frantically trying to cut through the top layer of skin with a craft knife while simultaneously trying not to spill any more glue and trying not to get the knife stuck to myself as well.

True story...

I was supergluing something not long ago, had my hands full so took the lid off with my teeth, subsequently found the lid had glue on it and I'd glued my lips together

[GooneyBird]

I hate the track when my usually-dead-reliable racer decides to be prissy. This all happened a few months ago.

1st practice: hit a kerb, motor shifts, eats a spur gear.
2nd practice: body tuck.

1st Qualifier: Layshaft literally ejects out of the car, tries to poke a hole in the rear window. Replace spur gear, find out that TRF 2.6mm thread screws are made of unobtanium. At this point the Orange boys with their Xrays start snickering.
2nd Qualifier: I have the world's first 3WD TRF419 as a diff outdrive works itself loose. More snickering from the Orange corner.
3rd Qualifier: I am deadly afraid of breaking anything (as my spares are running out, and everyone else has something Orange and not something Blue) else and end up halfway in the B-main.  

It seems that by the time the mains starting rolling around my car remembers it's a pure-bred carbon fiber-clad racing machine made of speed and expensive, and actually performs well. However, my shot at getting into the A-mains is gone.