tether cars

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moe7404

Hardcore RCTalk User
Military Veteran
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Location
wichita, ks
RC Driving Style
  1. Bashing
ever watch tether cars? about the size of our RC cars. no electronics. no steering. a round concrete track. on a cable. top record around 200 MPH. sizes by engine CC. many have tons of custom parts.
 
Check out Nitrotrouts thread in the rebuilds and project section, he's refurbishing one and its AWESOME!
 
I've seen them but honestly I dont see where the fun is in them. The Resto project is freakin sweet though!
 
2 entirely different types of cars. The early tether car allowed you to run a nitro engine in a parking lot because there was no such thing as radio control.
The ones on the circular concrete tracks are for no other purpose than speed records. There's the same setup for planes that hardly look like planes, but they are held via a control line to set speed records only.
It's like calling the Bonneville Salt Flats a drag strip.
 
Yeah, really not much to a tether car, just wheels, engine, chassis and a very long string.:D You have your choice of going clockwise, counterclockwise, or straight.
I'm in it for the historical aspect. Dating back to the 1920's or 30's, these are the predecessors to the high tech nitro rc cars we have today. Pretty cool.

The high speed tether cars baffle me. I don't understand how they're squeezing that much speed out of a nitro engine with a single speed transmission no less.
Or, is there a transmission? Fascinating.
 
It kind of reminds me of the control-line planes my dad used to fly when I was a kid.
 
If you listen to the speed cars you'll see that they get push started and almost sound like they are struggling to run. They are geared extremely high and the longer they run, the less the engine struggles, the higher it revs and the faster they go. Like any other speed run, it's power, gearing, weight and streamlining that establish the limits. Be it RC or 1:1 cars, planes, boats or bikes, they're all going for the extra mile per hour that breaks the existing record.
 
High gears, that makes sense. They start off at a snail's pace and build momentum with each lap.
I noticed these guys the top of the car with a broom to slow them down. Crazy.
 
High gears, that makes sense. They start off at a snail's pace and build momentum with each lap.
I noticed these guys the top of the car with a broom to slow them down. Crazy.
what i see is the fun is in getting the most out of a machine with in preset limits. my friend does the same with computers. he takes an old 8088 and beefs it to its max. course i like the commodore 6502. but that an other story.
 
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