Robert Schleicher, The R/C Car Bible

I had great expectations of this newly published book (November 2006), and the A4 sized 192 page count seemed to promise much, along with the 'bible' title. I was expecting extensive, wide coverage of the sport of RC car racing/bashing.

I write this review with mixed feelings. The book is extensively illustrated with very large colour photos of RC cars, both electric and nitro, but there are also big 'gaps' in the text, and around pictures as if the authors couldn't find anything else to say or were filling space and upping the page count. The quality of the pictures is excellent. I would not recommend the book for beginners, as there seems to be some knowledge assumed in several areas, as for instance the section on electric motors does not even mention 'running in' a new motor and the stock, standard 27 turn Mabuchi motor gets no mention. There are no guidelines on constructing a kit car, no guidelines on avoiding radio interference no guidelines on waterproofing your car for off road/wet use. The text assumes you are using a trigger and wheel type transmitter. The book is written with the US 'ROAR' guidelines as a major factor, and as a UK reader, I wanted a wider perspective on things.

There are some odd mistakes in the book, for example the electric battery section shows a picture of a 7.2v racing pack wired completely wrongly with cells in parallel (giving 1.2 volts), yet the accompanying text talks (correctly) about 'series' connected cells. The section on painting lexan bodies is poor, you usually get more information supplied with the clear body, no mention of pre-washing the shell to remove moulding residues, or lightly scuffing or sanding the surface to help paint adhesion either, rc users with hard styrene shells get no mention at all, but 8 pages of massive pictures follow the basic text.

There are good sections to the book. The chassis set-up chapter is very detailed and covers all aspects of chassis tuning and suspension adjustment. The sections on how to race fast are good, with info on how to take corners, when to brake, etc. The section on building a racetrack is useful, although I would suspect not many of us are in a position to be able to do this!

I do not use nitro cars, but a large portion of the book covers them, in a nitro introduction section, and later in a tuning section. It seems the author prefers nitro to electric vehicles. I cannot comment on the accuracy of information on nitro cars as I dont have one. The glossary has a sparse 37 entries, which seems a bit light for a 'bible' of the RC car.

Oddly the book has no history of radio-controlled cars at all, so you won't find any information on older RC kit such as mechanical speed controllers etc., which are still used and even supplied with cheaper kit.

In summary, if you live in the USA, and want to race under ROAR guidelines, and already know the basics, this book is for you, otherwise you may find the Tamiya R/C guide 2005 more useful and cheaper to get all the basic car setup, painting and construction information. I consider myself a relative beginner and still found the R/C car bible lacking in information and depth in some areas.