No, it takes a couple of minutes to set up the brakes proberly and then you are done, assuming you have your car set-up correctly. as modeller says, on a big track, assuming you have a sweeper by the end of the strightaway, you can sometimes get away with slowing the car down by turning it into the sweeper and scrubbing speed of, if that sweeper is a hairpin, you may want to use the brakes. As for these cars being slow to where they do not need brakes, I am not sure that I agree, there is less mass in motion, yes, but from a speed perspective, the laptimes compared to 1/8 scale:s are pretty close. typically, the larger car will pull away a little from you on the stright away, but the infield is about the same speed. Assuming drivers of similar skill level.