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Carisma 1/14 R/C Outside Blog

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Sponsored by Eclipse Hobbies.

With the summer months arriving and the daylight lasting longer, we've taken our Carisma R/C club outside. But running these small cars with such low ground clearance means a bit more work to the driving surface.

After much searching we found a local playground that looked smooth enough to run our small Carisma R/C cars on. There was just some loose pebbles here and there that we cleared away with a thourough sweeping.

Once we were done we had a smooth driving surface that created a very different driving experience to our pollished hall drifting. This was more about grip and straight line speed than cornering prowess. The overpowered nature of the Carisma 1/14 scale cars still means you can hang the back out around the corners, but forward momentum is restored a lot sooner.

This threw up other challenges though. Tyres wore a lot quicker, and needed to be glued onto the rims to ensure they didn't come astray. The faster speeds also seemed to make impacts a little heavier - although without the hall's walls we were less likely to hit something imovable.

As the light dimmed we realised the playground's flood lighting wasn't switched on. But ever the flexible enthusiasts we improvised. A couple of real cars positioned track side gave us enough visibility from their headlights to keep going for another hour or so.

By the end of the session we agreed that had been a lot of fun. But, surprisingly, the fun of the slippier hall wasn't abandonded totally. The combination of an indoor venue and the challenge of the corner drifting in the hall made it a more focused evening.

Written by Rupert Stelling

You can support Rupert by buying Carisma 1/14 R/C Outside



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Rupert Stelling writes the Radio Controlled Gamer column.

"Having grown up racing Tamiya radio and remote controlled cars and trucks I was keen to get my kids started on the same hobby. Here, I share my R/C reviews and guides to getting started in this electric and petrol powered world."

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