dan, i can get a durga, full set of CVD's and a slipper unit, to the UK for about £120 max, including shipping and taxes, so as far as I am concerned, for my occaisional use, it is an absoloute steal. so if it is the choice between someones sloppy second hand car which needs £50 of spares or a brand spanker, then I know which I would op for.

i am race orientated, but have to do it on a budget, i don't mind carrying a spares package with me.... but no for a fact that i would probably not need it.

Tamiya probably sell more Dark Impacts than all the other 4wd racers put together. There are many times more bashers around than there are racers, racers only count for about 5% of all r/c cars sold. They aren't interested in spending £300 on a car nor are they interested in whether a B44 laps a track 5 seconds faster than their choice of car. It's perfect for bashing without costing a fortune and the owners then personalise it and hop it up as and when they can afford the parts. If they have the money to afford a high end buggy they go for a big nitro truck instead.

Tamiya understand this market, that's why Tamiya is by far the biggest r/c company in the world.

the DF03 is definately a fun players car, but I think the Durga is more aimed at the club racer as it got all the tuning options.

Terry,

I think you’ve missed my point.

It’s not that I don’t understand the basher market. What I don’t understand (and granted this is slightly off topic) is when people buy the very basic Tamiya kits, with the express intension of seemingly spending loads on money modding them, to end up with a car that’s less competitive than a car that would at best have cost you no more off the shelf.

As Alex’s original post was whether this was good for competitive racing the point I was eluding to was that I think it unlikely unless you spend loads on it, in which case you might have well have bought something better in the first place.

but thats where you are so far off the point though Dan, you don't spend lots, with todays internet shopping, stong sterling against the dollar/yen, plus the stuff is just cheaper in asia, you can throw hop-ups at the car and still easily be less than half the price of a full on race kit, i would even go as far as maybe a third of the price.

prove a point, I buy a TA05, £60, carbon fibre chassis, £20, TRF shocks £25, CVD's all round £25, alloys suspension blocks, £20, thats £150, the cheapest I can get a TRF car is about £210 and for what i race, just pointless.

I often wonder the same about people who buy a Citroen Saxo (or other similar) and spend thousands on body kits, engine tuning, lowering/upgrading suspension, turbos, etc.

Steve, you're talking touring cars (I think) which mean nothing to me, less than nothing in fact ;)

But we do clearly come from totally different view points, which is obviously fair enough.

My take on what you said there is that you've paid 3/4 of the price of a TRF(that's the nice fancy one right?) but I would guess most racers would say still not as good, is that fair?

Would a hopped up Dark Force be better than a ZX5 or Academy SB2? I'm unlikely to ever drive any really so can't say for sure but I would doubt it?

I'll try my best to let it die from here as I fear this might all sound a bit argumentative, which was/is not my intention.

Perhaps the other thing to consider Dan, is even if kits are bought by racers, they are not all F1 licence holding superstars. To an average club racer, how much faster will they go with the latest kit?
To illustrate a point, last year (or perhaps early this) I ran back to back my B4 (a car which I am used to) and Fish's old Fireblade (which even had had no attemp at being set up properly). Yes I was faster with the B4, but only by 0.7 secons a lap:o
To you 0.7 seconds a lap probably makes a HUGE difference, but to your average club racer they would be unlikely to even notice this difference;)

isn't this the same arguement as modifiy a road car....

...a 1.4 Saxo is still a 1.4 Saxo not matter how many mods you put on it. yeah it might go a bit faster but for the money spent on 'modding' you could have got a much faster car...

..it's about being orginal, personal choice, horses or courses etc etc....

yes, you could say the TRF is the better car, and if i was doing large tc meetings, i would buy the trf, but for running at club, the initial layout for the trf is just to much, with the ta05, there has been small upgrades over a period of time which makes it far more palletable to the wallet.

the dark Impact will never be good as the Kyosho or the Academy, but then we are talking about the durga, which has the 501x suspension, a very efficient drivetrain and all the adjustmens you need where as the dark impact didn't. so i would say that it would be just as competitive as the other cars.

I don't race big meetings, I got fed up of spending lots of money on gear to race for 30mins a day, so to me, and probably a lot of other people, the opportunity or buying a cheap car and being relatively competitive will be far more benneficial than having lots of top end cars to choose from. The durga fills a gaping hole in the market I think.

But to put a shot across your bows, I do think you are very blinkered in this subject and got to take the broader view of it, kits like this will make it far more accesible for people to get into racing to.

Don't forget also that there is a large community of Tamya fanatics who will buy anything with the two starts on it, regardless of cost.

Tamiya as an RC brand attracts a lot more "modellers" (rather than "RCers") - just look at tamiyaclub for some of the amazing examples of Tamiya RC kits that have never been raced, never been bashed, never turned a wheel!

To be honest, you’re right in the sense I’d wrongly assumed it as largely a DF clone which I had seen and thought very little of in respect of it ever being ‘competitive’ for racing.

If this does have a lot of the 501 geometry etc then hopefully it will be a much better car to get beginners into racing without having to change cars or spend much money on, I am of course all for that. So I’d have to stick by my guns and don’t understand people bothering to spend large money on a DF to competitively race, but Alex it seems that a Durga with a few well choice mods might be OK.

glad we beat some sense into you there dan... I tried to get the DF03 to work as a project, but the Durga will be raced.