I was sorting through my ‘liked’ pages on Facebook and came across Radical Muppets Photography owned by Bradley Giles and Zoe Ramsey (facebook link here: www.facebook.com/RadicalMuppetsPhotography ). They’ve been inactive for quite some time but used to shoot the RC drifting championship D1RC. I thought I would show you some of their work.
D1RC was about for a number of years but sadly collapsed due to internal politics. I was lucky enough to be able to be a part of that scene for the past two years at their indoor winter series.
The events were held at the community hall in South Woodham Ferrers. The track covered most of the available space. There was a small pitting area at the far end of the hall from where this photo was taken and the photo was taken from atop the stage from which the drivers would do their thing.
The track itself is Prima GT carpet which is used by a lot of touring car guys. The red and white barriers were hand formed and painted by members of the committee that owned D1RC and were tapered at the sides so if the cars hit them they would ride up onto them rather than just sitting them which could damage the cars.
These photos were all from 2013 which was the second and final year of the winter series. At the time my little company Garage-R also sold shells and RC accessories. Loads of guys from D1RC were kind enough to support my business.
A lot of the shells in use also came from Garage-R. I used to distribute D-Like and ABC Hobbies shells amongst others. RC drifters tend to change shells up quite a bit, some stayed about for a good long time though! Matt Fellow’s Red Bull liveried D-Like S14 springs to mind. 4 years later and many many drift days later the poor old thing was finally scrapped. I think there was more shoo goo and hot glue in that shell than polycarbonate.
Garage-R’s logo at the time was the rasta red, gold and green. In retrospect that probably made me look like a massive druggy, especially being a skinny white guy, I never have smoked or will ever smoke weed but I liked the colours and the music!
My shell for the season was this D-Like S13. It did well and even got featured in a RC magazine with it’s Christmas decorations!
Dale Andrews also took a bit of inspiration from the Rasta colours with his KGC10 Skyline.
Plenty of bigger businesses had interest in D1RC too. David Shaw-Matthews from Radshape RC used to make the long trip down from Birmingham with lovely BRZ. A Tamiya TA05-VDF sat beneath it. A wicked bit of kit that sadly was not in production for very long.
The car sitting net to David’s is Peter Gray’s S14. Peter is (still I believe) a Yokomo sponsored driver. Pete and his team would fly out to Japan each year to compete at the world championships.
From even further north was Simon Landgrebe with his HPI sponsored PS13 bodied TCFD. Simon works for Wheelspin Models and made their presence known at D1RC.
Simon and David weren’t the only ones to venture from far away though. We had several competitors to come from afar including Daniel Robinson who’s R30 Skyline is pictured above and Andy Baynes/Slideshow Bob.
Of course all the shops and competitors would not be there without the series’ organisers. The face of D1RC was a chap called John Turner. I won’t say too much about him or I will get moaned at on Facebook. He always drove pink and blue cars.
To my knowledge the biggest contributor to D1RC in terms of advertisement was Andy Brunton. Andy is still an ambassador to the sport to this day. There isn’t really a scene local to Essex any more but he is still travelling to compete and practise.
Steve Gravett was always the shell man. He’s a fantastic modeller and has created some stunning shells including this Hakosuka Skyline and S14.
Last but not least of the event committee was Mr Radical Muppet himself Bradley Giles.
It’s a shame that D1RC went under. There were a good bunch of people there and some good times were had. Unfortunately the hobby was progressing and and the way in which that event was run was not which caused rifts. It’s a shame that D1RC as an organisation no longer exists but it made way for other venues and ideas that have really helped push the boundaries of the hobby and brought many new people into the scene.
In my opinion the biggest development inside the hobby since the collapse of D1RC has been rear wheel drive. D1 saw the rise CS but rear wheel drive was only in it’s experimental stages here. Since then (in the UK) it was developed at Soul RC and brought to Rayleigh RC and has been perfected since at tracks such as Slide Dynamics. It was never really something that I got the opportunity to really play around with. One day I would like to give the rear wheel drive thing a go but I think developing my full size drifting ability first is more important haha!
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