Say hello to an informal club that doesn’t have a name yet, but meets every weekend for some on and off-road car racing.
Except, the car racing we’re talking about here does not involve your regular SUVs. What you find on the track instead are radio-controlled cars or RCs as they’re popularly called.
“Since we’re not a formal club yet, we decide just the night before where to meet up. There are around 50 regulars in Mumbai who own RC cars and most of them show up every Sunday,” says Imran Shaikh, an entrepreneur.
Earlier the group used a track in Panvel, but after the ground became unavailable, the RC enthusiasts switched to a number of spots in the city where there’s just enough open space for a race.
There’s the Bandra-Kurla-Complex (BKC), IMAX Ad Labs in Wadala, behind In-Orbit mall in Malad, or even Pochkhanawala Road at Worli. Once a month, they also meet at the Acres Club which has a Go-Karting track.
But what they’re really looking forward to is a new adventure park coming up in Lonavala, which will have a dedicated facility for RC car racing. “Finally, we may be getting a mud track, a fast lane, some obstacles, a few sharp hairpin turns, some soft turns and jumps, complete with a pit area,” says Shaikh.
Apart from this group, there are many others in different pockets of the city who’re getting hooked to radio-controlled car racing.
Siddharth Salian, a dealer for RC cars in Maharashtra and Gujarat, says he sells five or six such cars everyday. “The bulk of our customers are in the 18-35 age group, but we have also sold RC cars to people as young as seven as well as 60-year-olds. There are fathers who come in to buy cars for their daughters, and sometimes couples take up the hobby together. Most of the buyers are average guys, like call centre youth, and not just the super-rich,” says Salian.
“There’s even a huge second-hand market for these cars, with people looking to buy entry-level cars for less,” adds Imran Kagalwala, an offset printer who is intoRC racing.
The men & their machines Depending on the type of car, its cost can vary, from below Rs10,000 to over a lakh. The simplest are electric cars with rechargeable batteries — the ones with the old nickel-cadmium batteries start at Rs8000 and go on to Rs20,000, while new ones with lithium ion batteries start at Rs15,000 and go on to Rs50,000.
Fuel cars that come with GLOW engines (also used in aero-modelling) running on methanol and castrol, start at Rs16,000, going up to Rs45,000.
The most expensive are the so-called gassers fitted with petrol engines starting at Rs60,000 and can cost over a lakh.
The on-road cars are mainly raced on tarmac and are not made for
bad roads. The off-road cars, however, are built for rough terrain. These are mainly buggies that come as 4WD (4-Wheel Drive).
Truggies are wider versions of the buggies. Then there are Monster Trucks, which are also 4WDs, and Stadium Trucks which come in both 2WDs and 4WDs. “People here lean more towards Monster Trucks because of their high ground clearance,” says Salian.
Among the officially available here are a Japanese HPI and a Taiwanese Thunder Tiger. You can also buy US-made and Chinese-made cars online, but you’ll have to cough up 35 per cent duty plus 10 per cent shipping charges. You could also buy cars on trips abroad but finding spares and servicing for them can get tricky.
“Everybody wants to buy the best car, but I would suggest just going for a cheap Chinese-made car to begin with. A lot of the time, people buy a car but soon put it aside as it is merely a passing fancy for them,” says Kagalwala.
But if you really want to go the whole hog, which includes souping up the car, it can get expensive. “You can spend Rs1,50,000 on it, to make it go faster and handle better and look fabulous,” says Salian.
“I enjoy Buggies because they’re 4WDs, have low centre of gravity and handle really well. I race-tuned the chassis for around Rs35,000 and spent another Rs75,000 for the engine, tunepipe and battery.”
Going the whole hog also means equipping yourself with a fancy remote. Salian, for instance, has one remote for all his cars. “This remote works for 40 different cars. It comes with an LCD screen which shows you the ABS [Anti-lock Braking System], traction control, steering, brake exponential and many other functions,” says Salian.
Shaikh prefers to use a light remote which he can hold comfortably for a couple of hours. It comes with a trigger foracceleration and a brake, and you can see the speed map on its screen.
Finally, a committed enthusiast will go for a custom paint job to give the car a unique look. “A friend of mine got a car in henna green and we were aghast at his choice, but by the time he was done customising it with racing stripes, rims and spinners, the car had magically transformed itself and looked awesome while racing with other cars,” says Shaikh.
Maintenance is the key
Buying the car is the easy part. Building and maintenance is a lot of work, which can be great fun, of course, for a hobbyist. It takes about three days to build the car from its kit, if you put in six hours a day. Then there’s the rest of it.
“There is cleaning, oiling the bearings, changing parts — a lot needs to be done so that your car is in top form,” says Kagalwala. “I had a Chinese car that a Hyundai Santro ran over when I was racing it. It was totally destroyed. But after six months, I put it back together sourcing parts online. It was fun to re-build it.”
Shaikh says, “To me, this is primarily about pushing the hobby and making friends who share my passion for RC cars.” For Kagalwala, this hobby is very addictive.
“My wife was very supportive initially, but now she hates it and also the fact that I am always logged on to some RC website or the other. First I had normal friends, now I have only RC friends.”
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