If you are interested in racing a radio control car but you don’t know where to start then let me help you
1) You can pick up everything you need for £200 if you know where to look.
That’s a car,
A 7.2v battery pack
A transmitter
If you don’t know were to go have a look it Alsager models click here http://www.alsagermodels.co.uk/
You can buy a Maverick Strada TC which for less than £100 you can be on the track as you leave the model shop, in the kit you get the car ready built, along with an 1800mah 7.2v racing stick-pack battery (ideally you need 2000mah upwards, but anything above a 1600 should be fine for basic racing use) & a wall charger. Ideally the higher the figure on the battery the better run time it will give you. The only additional thing you would need to buy would be 8x AA pen-cell batteries for the transmitter which the model shop should be able to sell you anyway, he may even throw them in with the deal if you ask nice enough.
There are a lot of cars out there these days that cost around £100 for the car, radio & complete electrics howwever for racing you would need extras such as the batteries & a suitable charger, ideally a few packs of batteries & a fast charger, which will charge your batteries in under an hour as opposed to waiting 6 hours or so for a trickle charger. a decent fast charger will cost you around £45 for a basic system & additional stick-packs can be purchased from Vapextech for around £35 for a set of 3×3300 stick packs or purchased individually.
Tamiya cars have been traditionally associated with beginners, but also look at brands such as Maverick, Ansmann etc & even some of the more professional manufacturers are getting on the bandwagon, Schumacher are now doing the Atech ATX touring car for around £100. Look for the letters “RTR” (Ready to run or ready to race) or “XB” (eXpert Built) in the brochure, this will indicate the car is pre-built, however ideally you should be looking at building a kit if you want to learn about how the car is put together & how to do repairs.
