I wrote this article back in 2002 when I was with RRCi ...
Learning the Ropes
‘Buggies are coming back.’ How many times have you heard that lately? The recent Worlds would seem to suggest that offroad really is in it’s final death throws but I wonder if that event can really be taken as a representative of the state of offroad. There are a few things that need to be taken into consideration here, firstly the event was cancelled in the aftermath of the events of September 11th, then they were rescheduled to coincide with the onroad event and all in a country that didn’t seem to appeal to many drivers it has to be said. You then have to take into account the global importance of touring cars to the manufacturers and realise that many of them will have felt the need to concentrate solely on onroad. So maybe that event shouldn’t be taken as a real indication of what’s going on.
I would guess there are quite a few readers out there who have never raced a buggy, maybe some of you have never even seen a buggy race; you are missing out. For those of you that fit that category and for those of you who have forgotten how things were, maybe its time for a very quick history lesson. Let’s hop into the RC Time Tunnel and hit the button for the early 1980’s.
Yeah OK, so the haircuts are kinda weird and yes those songs were done before by someone else but let’s concentrate for a moment on the racing. Luckily we got here early enough to see the first few people arrive at the field (but it could be a park or sports ground etc). But where is the track and what are these guys doing? No, that guy is not going to race that lawnmower but he is going to cut out a track in the grass and the other guy dragging the ropes out of the back of his car is going to mark the boundaries out with them, that’s right, just ropes. Those milk crates and scaffold boards are indeed going to be the ‘rostrum’.
As the racers turn up its easy to see a huge variety of cars and drivers of all abilities, there are of course the local ‘hot shots’ with their Cats, PB’s and RC10’s but there are buggies of every kind here and when booking in starts there seems to be no difference made between 2wd and 4wd and the heats are sorted based on ability and previous form, but I don’t hear anyone complaining. The racing starts and two things strike you immediately, one, people are smiling on the rostrum and one guy is even laughing at his huge crash which his buggy survived intact, and the other thing is no one has remembered to put their transponder in! The reason is simple, there are no transponders, there isn’t even a computer at this race, it is all being ‘timed’ manually with clickers (go and ask an old racer if you don’t know what these are, the older the better).
In spite of everyone seemingly running the same tyre (there was nothing to beat the Schumacher Spike) and a 17 turn motor being considered pretty wild, the racing is close and plenty fast enough. It certainly seems a nicer day being stood in a field or a park rather than on a chunk of tarmac all day when its sunny and lets be honest every big kid likes playing in the mud when it’s a wet day.
At the end of the meeting everyone packs up and the track (the ropes) is thrown into the back of the car it came in. The grass will grow back and anyway the layout will be different next week and will stay off the barest patches. Yes, sure it only appears to be a handful of people that are clearing up but then some things never change do they?
Sadly its time to hop back into our time tunnel and get back to today’s touring car race. Just time to get the car scruiteneered, I wonder what tyre/wheel/insert combination is going work today from this huge tyre box, better skim and rebrush this motor and decide on some gearing that I can last the 5 minutes on with these 3000 mah cells. Let’s pick a bodyshell that will give me the handling I need to chase those 100ths of a second. Get the car on the setup board, check for tweak, select springs and damper oils and race face on …. The old days are starting to look good aren’t they?
Buggies are huge fun and especially in the 2WD class can be a very cheap way to go racing and the speeds can be crazy with even the most basic of motors and cells available today and you can add to that the almost zero maintenance. Sure they don’t look that realistic but then they will be going so fast you wont really notice and when you are flying off a jump or pulling a huge wheelie will you really care?
Maybe what offroad needs, and the sport in general, is a return to the basics, keep it simple, keep it fun; maybe it’s a time to re-learn ‘the ropes’.
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