In about 1985 I came across a copy of a US model RC car mag that covered a range of 1/4 scale manufacturers in an article. My passion was fueled like never before. At about the same time I came across a crowd on the South Coast of Africa that had bought and copied an Arrows Sprint car. They made about a dozen of them and started a race series with limited success before being barred due to legislation and safety issues. The cars were relatively poor quality with many design flaws. I was too young and poor to afford to indulge myself, but was sad to see their demise. By 1990 I was in a position to realise my dream of running a 1/4 scale Sprint car and looked around for help. It had seemingly died off to a large extent in the States, hardly anyone was on the net. Companies I wrote to were gone, the crowd on the coast at home were gone too. Somehow, I managed to trace a couple of the Arrows copies and ultimately get to buy what was left. I salvaged what I could and put together a demo vehicle to try get it all going again. Being young and stupid probably did not help me much as I could not improve the design flaws or generate enough new interest. I eventually got hold of a set of photos of a QuickDraw Sprint which to me at the time looked amazing. From those pics and my experience of low key manufacture of the previous attempt I came up with a design that looked similar to the Quickdraw but with low cost manufacturing methods and spec. My aim was to build a dozen or so cars and form a circus of sorts, inviting experienced RC racers to take part in demo races, etc......My design was completed, but never did make it into production. The reality of low interest from the community, lack of funds and pressure to earn a living took me away. I am proud to say however that I was one of the founding fathers of 1/5th scale racing in South Africa a few years later,and enjoyed the growth and fun that came out of it.......fast forward to 1999 and the decision to move to the UK. America was first choice and in fact my wife Mariette and I got married there..........but anyway, new country, new life style, old memories and the passion took hold again. I found even less interest in Sprint cars here than I had ever felt before. 1/5 scale is big, but been there and got the T-shirt type thing, so I indulged building an offset midget similar to Super Modifieds (Full size) and got involved in large scale helicoptors and planes, giant scale stuff in fact. Here is an interesting bit, and I am sorry, I am trying to keep it short.....I followed up on some old links to QSAC in about 1993 and purchased a used car from Mike Willmann, the very car used on the front page of his website in fact. Once again I hoped to make a go of it. I rebuilt it, bought a shed load of tires from Todd Bishop, tested and developed it, showed it off, shelved it.........again, till now. Forgive me, it has been about 6 months since my last confession, I looked at good old QSAC today and found your link. I am in love all over again. I must continue on this journey, where ever it leads.
Lastly, I am a serious true scale addict, the more realistic the better, bring on the full function, bring on the full cockpits, give me the detail.
