Jump to content
Juggular

Silliest thing you've seen?

Recommended Posts

Many of us have been in RC for some years.  You might have seen some silly things in your time?   

In 1987 or so, there was a semi-organized race in a large parking lot.  I had a Porsche 956 then. (no on-road car for all these years!)  On-roaders got done first.  But all of us stayed around to see the off-roaders (grasshoppers and frogs).  Anyway, one kid from the Grasshopper section suddenly ran off 10 minutes before the race.  He came back with a can of silver spray.  As he was vigorously shaking the can, I thought, "is he going to spray that over the beautiful stickers?"  To my surprise, he sprayed it all over the tires.  At the starting line, his Grasshopper stood out for sure!  Even though I was a year or so younger than him, I didn't think that was a good idea. (If it was, why were tires all black?)  

When the track gun went off and other cars were darting out, his Grasshopper wasn't going anywhere.  It was doing all kinds of wiggly-jiggly dance at the starting line, alone.  Fresh paint tends to be very slick.  Oh, did I mention, his Grasshopper stood out?  Forward or reverse, it wasn't going anywhere... It was doing an RC version of the Moonwalk (Michael Jackson was popular then).  The poor self-humiliated kid had to retire his Grasshopper before other cars came around.  ...that was the silliest thing I've ever seen.  

(Let's be gentle... cause I was young once and probably did something worse!)

 

  • Like 3
  • Haha 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well.....a lot of the things I've done to RC cars over the years I guess.

Anyone remember those old cheap fast charge leads with no timer on them? Just a set of battery clamps and a molex/Tamiya plug on the other end?
Yeah, I blew up a few batteries with those. **** my forgetfulness.

  • Haha 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
18 minutes ago, Pablo68 said:

Well.....a lot of the things I've done to RC cars over the years I guess.

Anyone remember those old cheap fast charge leads with no timer on them? Just a set of battery clamps and a molex/Tamiya plug on the other end?
Yeah, I blew up a few batteries with those. **** my forgetfulness.

The number of times I forgot about those leads, or my mum just drove off with them attached and never had a problem, I hope I didn't use up all my get out of jail free cards before lipos were around!

I did a lot of things when a kid, and still learning. Like who knew you glued tyres until a nice marshall put my tyres back on mid-race then came over with glue after the race. Along the same lines a wheel came off, I thought it must've broken off as the marshall took my car away...nope, I just hadn't tightened a wheelnut properly...did I say as a kid? The wheelnut was about 3 months ago but I still feel like a kid...

  • Like 1
  • Haha 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
12 minutes ago, PoormanRC said:

I will Laugh at these Stories :D but not with Ridicule....

I've done some WHOPPERS - and not all when I was young and Stupid!!

........ Just last year, I was charging my LAST NiMH Battery. My Dynamite Smart Charger, that I bought in 1994 and figured it was good enough. After 3 Hours, it was barely Charged. I was a "young" 52 then, I figured "OK, it needs more time". So I let it charge all night. :o  

Next morning, I went out to the Garage.... and found the fuse blown, lights out, my Charger a scalded MESS, and my only Batry FRIED!! I WAS torn apart then, but now I can Laugh! 

I was depressed. RC was ALL I had left, after a major incident....

BUT we get by with a little help from our friends - Right?? John Lennon wouldn't lie!  One of my friends had just bought a new Venom 4 Bank, 300 Amp Charger. She GAVE me her "old" Charger, which she bought new, in 2014! 👍👍 

But WAIT, there's more!! She also gave me a 5200 mAh 2S Lipo Battery! 😱😊  It's my First Lipo Battery EVER!  (I know, way behind the times!!!). I was always worried about Lipos catching FIRE 🔥 🔥🔥 🔥!!!  Turns out, most of the Horror Videos are just Hype. Sure, they CAN be dangerous, but like anything High Performance - they just require a bit of Respect.

But while we're on the subject of boners and bloopers....  The DUMBEST thing I've ever done - in 1986, a young Me figured he could get his Grasshopper into the A-Main, BY FITTING A 12 TURN TRIPLE in it..

Well, it WAS Fast - as it catapulted itself THROUGH the First Turn Barrier, IMPLODING my poor Grasshopper!! :o:P

~ Carmine 💥

I have this image of flames chasing the grasshopper as it turbo summersaulted over the barrier. 🤣😂🤣😂

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Watched a buddy who wasn't paying attention run his new RS4 on it's first run out into the street to promptly get run over by a truck. The car did not survive. I felt so bad for him, but you do need to pay attention lol.

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
  • Sad 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
8 hours ago, TwistedxSlayer said:

Seen myself leave my Tx switched on the cupboard and kill the 3s LiPo that was in it.

Similar to you, I've learned a few times that a Futaba 3PL will go about 50 hours on fresh AA batteries before the low voltage alarm starts sounding!

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Raced a Peugeot 205 with my TA01 lancia delta after a skin full 🍺 when I was 18, straight under the Peugeot's rear wheel! Wreaked.

  • Haha 4

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Silliest thing I've seen was probably at my first ever competitive RC event: a beginners' meeting organised by our LHS in the grounds of our local rugby club.

I was driving a Grasshopper 1, which was basically stock apart from the ballraces and 540 motor. I came sixth out of about thirty entrants, so that'll give you a measure of the average standard on the day. But everyone has to start somewhere.

One driver who didn't start that day, though, was the silliest thing I've seen at an RC meeting. About halfway through the first round of heats, I was marshalling a race in a spot quite close to the race control caravan after driving in the previous heat. The race controller was midway through reading out the current race standings when a driver from another heat ran up to the window in a state of some agitation. This was despite the fact that we'd been clearly told at a drivers' briefing before the meeting started DON'T APPROACH RACE CONTROL DURING RACES. In the days before laptops and transponders, there were three people in the caravan, one of whom was watching the cars go past and shouting out the numbers to a second, who was counting the laps on numbered mechanical counters. The race controller was looking over their shoulders, checking the counting lined up with what he could see outside and occasionally giving us updates over the PA. I helped with this process a few times and it was intense, as the cars came past quickly and mistakes were hard to sort out.

Whatever the reason, race control did not want to be dealing with this hopping halfwit's sorry *** in the middle of a race, especially since he was standing directly between the race control window and the track, meaning he was obstructing the view of the counters. I looked at a couple of the other marshalls and we rolled our eyes, feeling suddenly much more relaxed and experienced simply because we weren't that guy.

Over the course of the next few seconds, however, the encounter at race control became much more entertaining. I could see and hear that a heated exchange was taking place between the silliest thing and race control, which included a few choice words from the latter, presumably on the subject of getting away from the window so they could see the race. Then I noticed that the car being gingerly held by the increasingly upset driver – a Boomerang, if I remember correctly – was now crackling and spitting from its battery and emitting smoke. The argument with race control also stepped up a notch, culminating in a presumably accidental PA announcement of the phrase "I DON'T CARE! TAKE IT AWAY!"

At this, the frantic youth got the message and ran back through the pit area, carrying the smoking, spitting car at arm's length in front of him, until he found an isolated spot in the corner of the field where he could drop it and retreat to a safe distance.

Although I saw a lot of the competitors from that day at future events, he was not one of them. I didn't see the car again, either, but it was rumoured that it caught fire and was rendered permanently unusable. Nobody else approached race control during a race that day. No laps were harmed.

 

  • Haha 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

A speed hungry boy in his early teens got his hands on a mint holiday buggy for pocket change, he'd never seen one before, and once the elecs were stuck in, took it for a run and was disappointed with the speed. Made an adapter in metalwork for a 540 and promptly stripped the gears trying to make it do wheelies. His next genius idea, with it being November , was to nail a dirty great big firework rocket (without stick) to the roof, wedge the 540 pinion into the chewed spur, light said firework and enjoy the extra speed.

Well it worked, he got extra speed, but also got no speed control,  or steering either, and when the pretty explosions and sparkles aren't removed before flight, ended up with a bubbling, flaming holiday buggy, with a damaged chassis and stripped gears...😭

I've still got the wheels and tyres somewhere 😳

  • Haha 8

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've done a couple of dumb things but the worst part is, both were not as a kid but were within the last 5 years :wacko:

First, my Novak brushless ESC literally went up in smoke after I powered it on. I had just installed a brushless motor. Turns I shorted two of the three wire tabs with solder :blink: 

Then I killed the Savox throttle servo on my 1/8 buggy. After a run, I turned the transmitter off while forgetting to turn the car off. The receiver went to failsafe mode and triggered full brakes. Turns out leaving it this way for too long will fry the servo motor. After that I programmed the failsafe to just go to neutral in case I do it again

  • Confused 1
  • Sad 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Just been reminded by @Baddon posting a Tamtech for sale in another thread of another silliest thing. At a race meeting at a local fete, a very experienced and well-known driver of national standing, who shall remain nameless, was given an earful by race control for driving a Tamtech car about in the pits, causing terrible interference for drivers who were actually racing and potentially ruining their races. His response was that the interference couldn't be coming from him, as he was using a Tamtech controller, so "the signal is smaller".

I also remember one driver who should also have known better insisting that 27MHz "split" crystals caused interference to drivers using the "solid" crystals on either side of them, but that this only happened if you were standing on the wrong side. So by his reasoning, Red-Orange wouldn't interfere with Red or Orange as long as Red was standing on Red-Orange's left and Orange was standing on their right. I once asked him how the crystals knew where everyone was standing, but he just told me that I was too young to understand the technology. :blink:

  • Like 3
  • Haha 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
22 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

 His next genius idea, with it being November , was to nail a dirty great big firework rocket (without stick) to the roof, wedge the 540 pinion into the chewed spur, light said firework and enjoy the extra speed.

Well it worked, he got extra speed, but also got no speed control,  or steering either, and when the pretty explosions and sparkles aren't removed before flight, ended up with a bubbling, flaming holiday buggy, with a damaged chassis and stripped gears...😭

I've still got the wheels and tyres somewhere 😳

My bro in law has a similar story, his friend put a block of those tiny skyrockets on his long suffering Falcon to run in a mall carpark on a Sunday afternoon (before shops opened Sunday). He tried to be clever with the fuses so only a few would light at a time and he would have consistent speed. Of course fire, and they all lit at the same time and the car went incredibly fast, and straight without the ability to turn it, into a concrete barrier. That was the end of the Falcon.

  • Haha 5

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Most of the silly things I've seen have been things I've done myself.

I didn't bother gluing the tyres of my TA05 IFS when I first built it, on the basis that a) I'd never glued a set of tyres onto any Tamiya before and 2) I would probably change them from kit tyres to Sorex 24s as soon as some where in stock.  I lined up for the start of my very first race, accelerated hard when my number was called, and watched as all 4 tyres came off and ran down the track on their own.

Obviously brand new Tamiya race slicks are a lot more bendy than hard monster truck tyres.

 

Another time I managed to drive right under the carpet.  I guess the tape had come up and the low snout of my Ebbro 350R body lifted it up.  The really silly thing is that I didn't notice.  I always look about 3 metres ahead of where my car actually is and only keep the car itself in the periphery of my focus.  I saw a dark shape moving up the main straight but it took me a while to see that it was a bulge in the carpet, not my 350R body.  The car got stuck at the far end of the straight, and anyone who wasn't responsive enough to drive around it simply went up the ramp it made and jumped into the barrier.

We had to abandon that race while we rescued the car and re-layed the track...

 

Another time I arrived early for a one-day championship event.  I went out in race one, caught the track barrier and ripped off the rear right suspension.  Nobody carried TA05 spares so it looked like I was out for the day.  But it was my birthday, and my girlfriend had given me some cash, so I bought a used chassis off someone who had been getting FTDs with it a week previously, missed race 2 while I swapped all my electrics over, went out in race 3, hit the exact same barrier and ripped off the rear right suspension all over again.

 

A bunch of us who always pitted together decided we should make ourselves into a little crew and gives ourselves a name.  For reasons that I have expunged from my memory but probably related to the fact that we always got through several packets of Iced Gems and Party Rings at each event, we called ourselves Soggy Biscuit Racing.  The local hobby shop at the time had just rebranded from The Gas Cupboard to Hobbybase, so naturally I arrived at the track the next week with some Soggybase stickers made up in the exact same font and colour, much to the annoyance of the shop owner.  Things took a turn for the ridiculous when we started supergluing Iced Gems to the roofs of our touring cars (like little police lights) and party rings to our wheels.

 

I'm of the opinion that nothing is worth doing unless you can have a laugh doing it, which is why I don't take racing seriously.  When I put my own colour scheme on my Top Force Evo, I decided it should be sponsored by a local plumbing company.  So the rear wing has the company name and contact details along with a big Impressive Plumbers slogan.

  • Haha 5

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Mad Ax said:

Another time I arrived early for a one-day championship event.  I went out in race one, caught the track barrier and ripped off the rear right suspension.  Nobody carried TA05 spares so it looked like I was out for the day.  But it was my birthday, and my girlfriend had given me some cash, so I bought a used chassis off someone who had been getting FTDs with it a week previously, missed race 2 while I swapped all my electrics over, went out in race 3, hit the exact same barrier and ripped off the rear right suspension all over again.

 

A bunch of us who always pitted together decided we should make ourselves into a little crew and gives ourselves a name.  For reasons that I have expunged from my memory but probably related to the fact that we always got through several packets of Iced Gems and Party Rings at each event, we called ourselves Soggy Biscuit Racing.  The local hobby shop at the time had just rebranded from The Gas Cupboard to Hobbybase, so naturally I arrived at the track the next week with some Soggybase stickers made up in the exact same font and colour, much to the annoyance of the shop owner.  Things took a turn for the ridiculous when we started supergluing Iced Gems to the roofs of our touring cars (like little police lights) and party rings to our wheels.

I did the exact same thing once, although I had the spares to fix it. Went out for race one, overcooked it into the first corner on the second lap, broke the front left suspension. Fixed it for race two, did exactly the same thing again. Ran out of spare suspension arms. Went home early.

We had a driver at our meetings who used to sway about violently on the rostrum in sympathy with the direction his car was moving. This was odd to watch, but didn't really bother anyone as there was enough room for him to stand on his own and not affect anyone else. Nevertheless, sometimes in practice all the other drivers used to imitate him, leading to the rostrum looking like it had been taken over by the local chapter of the St Vitus Dance society.

  • Haha 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Yalson said:

We had a driver at our meetings who used to sway about violently on the rostrum in sympathy with the direction his car was moving.

When I was racing the M-chassis clubman class, getting to the rostrum used to be an adventure in itself.  Somebody would choose their preferred spot, then everyone else would do their best to get in it.  The result was that 5 or 6 of us were trying to occupy a spot usually sufficient for 1.

Then, when everyone was too close to get away, I'd instigate my mid-race distraction technique of tickling people in the ribs while I was on the main straight and didn't need my steering hand.

  • Haha 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Flattened the battery on a friends Granada Scorpio using the cigarette charger all day to charge a Hornet! His dad was fuming....

Used some chemicals dad had to strip an Astute body, came back 15mins later and it had dissolved to nothing. To this day I don't know what the chemicals were!

Bought a TL-01 Impreza from Ebay and received a cheap Nikko. When I asked the seller the woman said I just copied the picture off Google as it looked the same!

  • Like 1
  • Haha 5

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

A couple of things I have done.

I used to have a Toyota GRB Celica I loved it I would wait for the one Nicad I had to charge all night and my 8 minutes of play was soon quickly over! 

I must have been about 12 or 13 at the time and was becoming impatient so I had a spare battery connector and wired it up to an old  plug and then though I could plug it straight into the car and play with it connected to a cable.

So there I was MSC directly plugged into the wall no ac adaptor turns on the plug the car instantly bursts into flames I just grabbed it without thinking and threw it into the bath in the bathroom and cried my eyes out it was dead! 

Luckilly my Grandad helped me fix it back up lesson learnt, I dont really remember the rest but my Grandad was able to get it all working again and it looked brand new!  

A few years later I sold the GRB and had pretty much forgotten about RC, until I saw a Thunder Tiger Dt10 in my local hobby shop, I grabbed it. 

I had never had nitro before thought I would start it in my room........................................ I didn't know how to turn it off to this day I hate the smell of nitro! 

  • Like 1
  • Haha 4

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
50 minutes ago, acprc said:

Flattened the battery on a friends Granada Scorpio using the cigarette charger all day to charge a Hornet! His dad was fuming....

 

I remember doing this to my dads car, out racing in the middle of a field and he had to get some of the other dads to push us to get going at the end of the day

  • Like 4
  • Haha 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Of course back in the days of MSC's no one in here was silly enough to plug in a car that was sitting on their lap right?.......Right?

To be completely honest, having a car do a burnout on my lap or shot across the bench is kind of a ritual for me.

  • Haha 4

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Is this topic restricted to RC???  'cause I've been to many many many Phish shows and I've seen all kinds of stupid silly things...  

Terry

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I watched an idiot try and fill up his nitro car with the engine still on, didn't go so well, whole car caught fire and there was nothing to be done except watch it burn... he wasn't impressed.

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
18 hours ago, novicelad said:

I had never had nitro before thought I would start it in my room........................................ I didn't know how to turn it off to this day I hate the smell of nitro! 

I did that, but I absolutely love the smell of nitro, the stinging and watering of the eyes not so much 😂

 

4 hours ago, djmcnz said:

I watched an idiot try and fill up his nitro car with the engine still on, didn't go so well, whole car caught fire and there was nothing to be done except watch it burn... he wasn't impressed.

 

I've done this everytime I've run mine, and it's done at race meeting too!! 

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
13 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

I've done this everytime I've run mine, and it's done at race meeting too!! 

The guys I watched didn't do it very well! :lol:

  • Haha 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 10/17/2018 at 12:12 PM, djmcnz said:

The guys I watched didn't do it very well! :lol:

What did they do wrong? This is done all the time at my club, and during the mains, and even after a few warmup laps before the race starts...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...