VIDEO: Radio-controlled motorcycles take to the track
Click above to watch video after the jump
Having grown up in the era of the Team Associated RC10, Tamiya Clod Buster and Team Losi JRX-2, we'll always have a soft spot for radio-controlled vehicles of all sorts. In fact, a few of the Autoblog staff still spend the occasional late-night tinkering on the kinds of small-scale projects that we couldn't afford to tackle in the real world. Therefore, we were naturally entranced by racing footage from Britain of some 1:5 scale RC motorcycles zipping around a makeshift race track.
The footage you see in the video was captured during the 2007 season, so you can bet that the action has only intensified since this was filmed. We only wish we were this adept racing with two wheels, be it on a real bike or with an RC controller grasped firmly in our digits.
[Source: British Radio Car Association via The Biker Gene]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ScuderiaFerrariF1 11:58AM (5/02/2009)
that is actually....pretty damn cool!
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Sea Urchin 12:50PM (5/02/2009)
I guess these days almost everything passes for auto enthusiasm. I like playing video games......am i a car guy?
ScuderiaFerrariF1 1:08PM (5/02/2009)
hmm ok, so this site should only publish things that are directly car related and nothing else that could possibly be cool/interesting to the same group of people, even if of the same genre.....go play your stupid video game
KeatMP 1:10PM (5/02/2009)
@ Sea Urchin
What the eff are you talking about?
asuka 2:47PM (5/02/2009)
I'm with Sea Urchin. Its a bunch of kidults playing with toys. I don't see what that has to do with cars.
Korben Dallas 4:08PM (5/02/2009)
asuka: That's becuse you are pretty much clueless. R/C toys is what you can buy at the mall for $100 or less. None of the models in the video are "toys", but rahther very sophisticated pieces of machinery. The people who control them are highly trained professional R/C sportsmen or semi-pros.
The main reason for the general lack of clue about R/C in the USA is that it is often represented and/or promoted as a replacement for something you can't afford to do on the full scale (the original blog entry above also has that connotation), while in reality it is a completely different thing. Europe gets it right, while USA, as always, copes it in such a half-assed way that it gets completely screwed up in the process.
Sea Urchin 7:01PM (5/02/2009)
"The people who control them are highly trained professional R/C sportsmen or semi-pros."------------I guess i am not the only virgin in here.
kenca32 9:24PM (5/02/2009)
Yes, indeed that's cool!! And some of you guys take things waaaaaaaaaay too seriously.
Polly Prissy Pants 9:38AM (5/04/2009)
Very awesome. I used to race an RC10 back in the day and did a lot of stuff with airplanes but never motorcycles. Even held a model airplane related world record for a little while but that was mainly luck and timing.
With that said, yes these are toys. Relatively expensive and sophisticated toys but toys nonetheless. This was a good one too:
"highly trained professional R/C sportsmen or semi-pros."
That cracked me up.
Stumpy 11:59AM (5/02/2009)
I love Saturday Topics, you never know what they are going to be. Cool video. Never seen those little buggers race before.
..
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Protzenegger 6:37PM (5/02/2009)
I was also impressed by the fact that every bike that wiped out, skidded, or wheelied too far into a turn, recovered within less than a second and kept on going. Wish that were possible in full size -- but I guess we have to worry about breaking legs and such.
Al Terego 12:04PM (5/02/2009)
Very cool indeed. I just wish there was actual audio of these tiny bikes instead of generic rock.
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Farmboy 12:09PM (5/02/2009)
That would actually be kinda fun to go and do. Really cool.
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Stuka 12:27PM (5/02/2009)
Great video. Anybody know if these are electric or nitro?
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cuzzo20 12:43PM (5/02/2009)
I think they are the Venom 1/8th scale electrics, probably using a 21.5 or 13.5 brushless setup.
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Timothy Auhll 12:50PM (5/02/2009)
Too cool, love the onboard camera. But where would you fit that on the bike of that size? They must be really moving at the way the video looks. Someone tell where the race is at.
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Sam 12:59PM (5/02/2009)
From looking at the writing on the track which says "Mendip" i'd say here:
http://www.mmmrc.org/
Chris 1:41PM (5/02/2009)
someone needs to dub some superbike championship racing sound/announcers over this.
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Rich 2:06PM (5/02/2009)
I stopped racing RC cars over 20 years ago, and you could get bikes then. Um... this is news?
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skadebo 3:50PM (5/02/2009)
Cars were available 100+ years ago, autoblog is news?