Remotely, Hobbyist Takes Control of a Tiny 200 M.P.H. Super Car

Remotely, Hobbyist Takes Control of a Tiny 200 M.P.H. Super Car

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The SR11 radio-controlled car, which is loosely based on a model manufactured by Team Associated.Later this summer at the Auto Club Dragway in Fontana, Calif., Nic Case, a clay-model sculptor at Ford’s advance design studios in Irvine, Calif, will attempt to lower his own land-speed record for a radio-controlled car.

Mr. Case’s newest in a series of record-challenging models is the SR11, a streamliner loosely based on the Nitro TC3 radio-controlled car manufactured by Team Associated of Lake Forest, Calif, and which we first learned about on Jalopnik. Powered by a 10-horsepower electric motor and weighing around 10 pounds, the SR11 on paper is capable of surpassing 200 m.p.h., Mr. Case claims, yet in this highly competitive hobbyist arena, hitting the double ton requires more than just low weight and high horsepower.

To counter the gyroscopic effect produced by the car’s spinning motor, a circular brass flywheel was fitted to its driveshaft to spin in the opposite direction of the motor. At 200 m.p.h., the 3-inch-diameter wheels would be turning at about 22,500 r.p.m., Mr. Case calculated. A vertical tailfin was added for stability and a long carbon-fiber rudder extends from the lower portion of the car’s stern to help direct airflow away from the car, reducing drag and turbulence.

Its aerodynamic body had to be slippery enough to avoid creating excessive drag while also producing enough downforce to keep the car on terra firma. When a touch too much air finds its way under a car traveling at sufficiently high speed, the car may affect a Cessna 172 for a fleeting instant before crashing to earth.


“A 1:10 scale car is so light that if you have any lift at all aerodynamically, your car could ‘try’ to become a plane,” Mr. Case wrote in an e-mail. “The trick is hitting the perfect balance between negative lift and coefficient of drag.” After his SR11 embarked on an unscheduled flight during testing, Mr. Case developed new bodywork with help from a colleague at Ford.

Perhaps as impressive as the engineering of the car is that Mr. Case expects to pilot it remotely over a distance of 1,900 feet. Keeping the car in view at such a distance presented yet another challenge.

“We have developed a simple long-range camera that is displayed in a monitor that I use to drive the car the first 700 feet with,” Mr. Case wrote. “We have considered many other ideas, but this works well for me. I think that will do the trick.”

Guinness World Records lists the record for a battery-powered radio-controlled car at 161.76 m.p.h., while the Radio Operated Scale Speed Association claims that 173.93 m.p.h. is the mark to beat for any radio-controlled car, regardless of propulsion method. Although the association and Guinness each used different methods for verifying top speeds, both bodies acknowledge that Mr. Case holds their respective world records.

At this stage in the car’s development, Mr. Case says he believes he only needs a long piece of tarmac to achieve his goal. “I’ve never had the car fully wound out,” he said. “The math says it will go 200-plus m.p.h. This summer, we should find out if the math is correct.”

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