Just Paul
Nitro Member
Hey folks... With the new Traxxas deal being announced, I thought I'd share my experience with radio control drag racing, and a little bit on how things work. (Billy Weeks here is also big time into RC Drags)
I started with one car back in 2002, and by 2005 I was a track owner. I ran several national events, and was lucky enough to pick up sponsors from some of the main companies in the r/c drag racing world. Over the years I have built and painted quite a few cars for myself and other people.
My track has a full timing system from Race America. It is 132 feet long which is a 1/10 scale quarter mile. It has start, finish, mph, and it also has sensors at 6' and 66' (just like 60 and 660) so we get short times. It's able to set dial-ins, indexs, and run a .400 or .500 tree.
The surface is sprayed with a sugar water mixture, and once it dries, the track is left sticky. We also use VHT just like the big boys, but just over the first half of the track. There is also traction compound we put right on the tires.
The 3 most popular classes we have, are bracket, Pro Comp (2.500 second index) and Funny Car.
Bracket and the index classes are mainly your basic RC car, and for the Index class you mainly play with gear ratio, tire diameter, and weight to hit the number.
The Funny Car class is where it gets good. The newer high end type speed controls that power the motor have hundreds of different settings used for launch power, throttle settings, overall power settings, and they even have settings to adjust the motor timing as the car goes down the track just like the big show cars. It's all programmed before the run via laptop computer. There is even an overall power curve map that you can bring power in and out as the car goes.
A 10 degree difference in track temp makes a huge difference in how the car is set up to launch, and how much traction compond you put on the tires before launch. It does not take much to go from a very good run to an aborted run if you miss the set up.
On a typical race day, I would start with a base set up from a past race with similar track conditions, and go from there. Once I figured out my settings for the day, I would stick with it and make small changes. For example, on a good day, a good number would be 1.600 seconds for our funny car class. (That works out to be about .250 seconds in 6 feet, and 1.02 seconds in 66 feet just to give an idea how quick the cars are). In the early rounds, if I knew I had an advantage I could just change a few things and run a 1.64 with no question, then in the final usually go for a 1.58 or so if the track was there. Most runs are close to, if not over 90 mph. (there are cars that run more batterry that go over 100 mph pretty easy)
Here are some pics of my track set up (We have used a couple different school parking lots over the years)
I started with one car back in 2002, and by 2005 I was a track owner. I ran several national events, and was lucky enough to pick up sponsors from some of the main companies in the r/c drag racing world. Over the years I have built and painted quite a few cars for myself and other people.
My track has a full timing system from Race America. It is 132 feet long which is a 1/10 scale quarter mile. It has start, finish, mph, and it also has sensors at 6' and 66' (just like 60 and 660) so we get short times. It's able to set dial-ins, indexs, and run a .400 or .500 tree.
The surface is sprayed with a sugar water mixture, and once it dries, the track is left sticky. We also use VHT just like the big boys, but just over the first half of the track. There is also traction compound we put right on the tires.
The 3 most popular classes we have, are bracket, Pro Comp (2.500 second index) and Funny Car.
Bracket and the index classes are mainly your basic RC car, and for the Index class you mainly play with gear ratio, tire diameter, and weight to hit the number.
The Funny Car class is where it gets good. The newer high end type speed controls that power the motor have hundreds of different settings used for launch power, throttle settings, overall power settings, and they even have settings to adjust the motor timing as the car goes down the track just like the big show cars. It's all programmed before the run via laptop computer. There is even an overall power curve map that you can bring power in and out as the car goes.
A 10 degree difference in track temp makes a huge difference in how the car is set up to launch, and how much traction compond you put on the tires before launch. It does not take much to go from a very good run to an aborted run if you miss the set up.
On a typical race day, I would start with a base set up from a past race with similar track conditions, and go from there. Once I figured out my settings for the day, I would stick with it and make small changes. For example, on a good day, a good number would be 1.600 seconds for our funny car class. (That works out to be about .250 seconds in 6 feet, and 1.02 seconds in 66 feet just to give an idea how quick the cars are). In the early rounds, if I knew I had an advantage I could just change a few things and run a 1.64 with no question, then in the final usually go for a 1.58 or so if the track was there. Most runs are close to, if not over 90 mph. (there are cars that run more batterry that go over 100 mph pretty easy)
Here are some pics of my track set up (We have used a couple different school parking lots over the years)
