Originally Posted by
Ninja
I have seen several people mention VTA as a good cheap racing solution where cars are equal and it comes down to mostly driving for the winning person. Curiosity and thoughts that I may enjoy VTA had me looking into building a VTA car. Using an HPI E10 as the chassis, I began a build. Going by the USVTA rulebook, and using the cheapest stuff I could find new, the build cost me roughly $550 on tower. Wow, thats not cheap, and only gives me a single battery to run.
Do locals enforce every USVTA rule? As in, could I use my current non-ROAR approved batteries as long as they are 5000ma or less? Any motor other than the Novak choices allowed locally? The motor, esc, and batteries are the biggest cost. Even if it was Tamiya closed silver can I would be much happier.
What do you folks think?
My $.02:
With most current lipo chargers capable of 10 - 20 amp charge rates you only need 1 battery. The battery will be able to be charged faster than the motor will cool down between runs.
I know many people use Tower as a price benchmark, but they really are not the cheapest. Anyway, VTA cars do not tax the performance envelope like regular TC racing so there is no real disadvantage in buying a used (couple models old) car to run VTA. I'm sure there are many deals still floating around for (example) an 08 or 09 T2 Xray or 415 etc Tamiya.
I can't speak for everybody, but I think the real draw of VTA is that everybody has the same rules. You can go to any track running VTA and not have to worry about regional rule differences.