It was a beautiful Saturday in June when the Pit Products crew visited the Sandpit RC radio controlled car racing track in Jonesville, Michigan. What an enjoyable and exciting way to spend some time with your family and friends! We learned a ton about the different RC racing events and we were so impressed by the passion and dedication shown by the RC enthusiasts who took to the track to compete.

These cars were not the radio controlled cars we used to ask for at Christmas time or for a birthday. These cars are highly engineered and finely tuned mini racing machines. Most of the cars were electric with a few being gas powered. (You’d be surprised how loud a gas powered mini race car can be.) The action you see on the track is just as awesome as in full size auto racing, but the ramifications of crashing into the wall or slamming your competitor’s front end are not so severe! One of the funniest things we saw was the act of ramming your competitors car in the event your competitors car is flipped over on the back…the ramming actually helps get the other car upright again.

The Sandpit RC venue has three different tracks. One indoor and two outdoor tracks. The outdoor flat oval track was where most of the action took place when we were there. The autocross track looked like a big challenge also with all the sharp hairpin turns, s-curves, and precarious jumps positioned throughout. Those RC cars can really catch some air!

We put together a short video of our experience which you can see here, below:

There was even a pit row on site. The experienced racers either had their own enclosed trailers or they brought a pop-up tent to offer shade and protection from the sun so they could focus on setting up and tuning their race cars between events. The variety of small scale tools, mini dynamometers, vehicle set up components, and other tricks-of-the-trade were amazing. We sure learned a lot.

Some of the drivers offered us an opportunity to drive their cars on the track. We were nervous at first, but the cars are quite robust. It was exhilarating to grab the controller and fire the car down the straightaways, but it took some getting acclimated in order to control the car around the corners.

After our visit, we would wholeheartedly recommend a visit to the Sandpit RC track in Jonesville, Michigan or you can check out a radio controlled car race track in your neck of the woods!