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WANNA RACE? Interested in racing and you live in Victoria, Australia? The cars you are looking at on this website are all 1/10th scale replicas of the Classic Mini Cooper, or BMW New Mini. They are assemble yourself kits, made by the Tamiya Corp in Japan – the biggest manufacturer of r/c cars in the world. The cars all race within strict guidelines regarding motors, batteries and allowable modifications, thereby putting the emphasis on the driving. They are Front Wheel Drive, electric powered, using a control brushless electric motor and speed control system, with the drivers own radio gear. Batteries are either 6 cell Nickel Metal Hydride or more usually now, 2 cell Lithium Polymer. All this is readily available at your local hobby shop. A complete ready-to-run setup, including the car, radio system, charger and battery can be purchased for around $450. This will get you in at the entry level. Figure on another $2-300 on top of that for the control motor/speed control system, plus some other hot-ups for your car if you want to start competing with the 'big guys' But ongoing expenses from then are minimal, usually only tyres every now and then, so it's a great and inexpensive hobby to be involved in. And particularly good for father/son involvement. Race Control is all done by computer using Australian made software. Each car carries a transponder (similar to a tiny e-tag) and its progress is monitored each lap. Races last 6 minutes and its basically whoever does the most laps in that time. Even though there are 50 drivers here today, the software will sort them out from fastest to slowest. Victoria has a very active local electric r/c race scene with clubs in Keilor (http://www.kroma.defmondo.com) Templestowe (http://www.tftr.org.au) Bendigo (http://bendigorc.20megsfree.com) Boronia (http://www.brccc.org.au) Wodonga(http://www.freewebs.com/wodongarc/index.htm) Dandenong (http://www.serccc.com.au) Geelong (http://www.westcoastrccarracing.asn.au). And most of these clubs now race Minis in some form. They also race various electric Touring Car classes as well with full-time 4WD cars of varying motor types and speeds. Melbourne is also the home of rc-mini (http://www.rc-mini.net) the Worlds Number 1 resource for Tamiya Mini racing.
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