What's your secret for the headlights on the Mini? Flashlight lenses?

I used some little plastic cones (that are used on the ends of balloon sticks to hold the ballon to the stick) that I cut to size then added aluminium tape over the top.

brilliant! I was looking into just cutting the light housings out completely out of my old body and sticking some flashlight lenses from a multipack into them to see what it looks like. I love the simplicity of how you pulled it off though.

Cheers mate, yeah I had though about doing it with a torch but didn't want to destroy two torchers to do it!

Yeah, it's sorta sad. Some of it is due to a lot of "bad mouthing". Much of it comes from guys who've never raced a TCS event. I've been around for awhile so have heard many of the "reasons" why TCS is bad, bad, bad.

You have to run a Tamiya car. Geez, what were they thinking????

You have to use Tamiya parts. How stupid are those guys at Tamiya?????

There are too many rules and those TCS guys "cheat". They have a lot of rules to cut down on the cheating. You'll have a fairer shot at a TCS race than you will at most club races.

Please note these comments apply only to my "local" scene. There are other very successful programs out there. But they all use the TCS format and have a structured set of rules and usually limit the motors.

Doesn't matter who's flag you race under, there will always be supporters and detractors. Our rules are loose as hell and there are still some complaints about there being too many. Having been saddled with writing and enforcing rules over the years, I'd almost welcome the simplicity and structure provided by TCS. The only issues are cost and Tamiya doesn't talk to us much.

I had heard that too, but I didn't let it stop me from trying the series anyway. I was begging the guys in tech to tear my car down every round.

Heres my secret to why the car was so fast in GT3 - I got a little lucky when race day was so hot, and I did hundreds of laps of testing at the Hobbytown Fresno track on Sundays in July - when the air temp was 105+ and the track temp was 135.

What was I testing? :ha:

Yeah, I agree with you, but some will "bitch" just to "bitch". I've found tho that just about every non Tamiya hop up I've tried has eventually been replaced by the Tamiya equivalent. That was true on my non TCS minis, mainly cause the quality was better or replacement parts were available.

The Tamiya distributer in each country runs the TCS program there. I'd heard that your distributer dropped the racing program. Too bad cause the
Canadian racers have won some of the trips. Never heard why the program was scrapped.

True, but there were some of the Fresno guys who didn't enter. I'll bet they believed some of the crap out there. Now that you've found that wasn't true, hopefully there'll be a Fresno contingent here next year.

Ive got two m05s..one id like to make a rally out of it. I know all the parts needed..except for the long springs I need. Ill be using the trf works damper set. Anyone have a tamiya part number? Ill need four

Thanks out to everyone here answering questions. Its greatly appreciated

Fresno is a kind of weird place when it comes to racing out of town. But I suspect you'll see a couple of others next year (there were four of us at finals this year).

Oddly enough, I almost never club race locally because it conflicts with work (they race Saturdays and that's a work day on our farm, which means I need to be there).

Well, this little frame grab is interesting. It's not the secrets of the universe, but it's interesting.

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...psb7d568da.jpg

What is that from?

I've heard of taking a hammer to the motor before, but questioned the legality of it. Looks like it's technically legal as you're not advancing the timing with it, just jostling the magnets (risking destroying the motor in the process)