The Frontie class, as the title suggests, is for chassis that are driven by the front wheels only. If you like close racing and realistic looking ‘hot-hatch’ body shells then this class may well be for you. One of our main frontie racers, and Vice Chairman has written this aticle to help you all.

At a glance:

• Front wheel drive chassis with mid or front mounted motor
• Control motor and ESC with fixed timing and 15,000rpm limit*
• Control Ride cut slick tyre and Shimizu wets
• Homologated realistic hot hatch bodyshells.

The class has seen a resurgence in popularity the last couple of years, driven by several factors that will be explained as we go. 

First and foremost of these is that Frontie is a ‘spec’ class which means there are further restrictions beyond the standard construction rules, which sounds complicated but it actually makes the racing simpler, closer and cheaper. The spec rules have been widely adopted at club level to maintain a level field and keep the racing close and costs down. 

Chassis’

The Frontie chassis are generally grouped into two categories depending upon where the motor is mounted in the car. One has the motor mounted right at the front of the car ahead of the wheels and the other has the motor mounted in the middle. 

The front motor chassis are regarded by some as a purists car with the layout dating back to the Tamiya FF-01, the first commercially available front wheel drive chassis released in 1993 during the BTCC heyday which was available with Ford Mondeo, Volvo 850R, Vauxhall Cavalier and Nissan Primera shells amongst many others. 

This spawned a range of chassis from different manufacturers peaking with the experimental and absolutely bonkers Yokomo YR-F2 SP which borrowed suspension tech from its 10th and 12th scale pan cars. This chassis layout has become less popular recently, however they are still competitive especially when grip is low such as outdoors in wet conditions where they are favored by some drivers.

The mid motor cars came to be, at first, with racers converting four wheel drive touring car chassis to front wheel drive initially just by removing the rear belt and differential. Then official conversion kits became available alongside purpose built chassis with weight shifted as far forward as possible. Mid motor chassis have been proven to have the ultimate performance in all conditions due to the ability to balance the car by moving weight around. Ideal weight distribution is around 65%/35% front and rear respectively. All current major manufacturers have at least one frontie chassis on their roster including Awesomatix, Destiny, Mugen, Schumacher, Xray and Xpress.

Electronics

The major aspect of the spec rules governs which speed controller and motor can be used. At present this is limited to the Hobbywing XR10 JustStock G3 ESC and JustStock G2.1 17.5t motor. These were chosen as they are cheap (both coming in around half the price of a top spec ESC on its own), easy to use and have fixed timing. This is further regulated by applying a 15,000rpm limit to the motor with open gearing for BRCA sanctioned events. *Several non sanctioned series are now choosing to extend the limit to 17,500rpm and restrict the final drive ratio to a minimum of 4.5:1 to improve drivability which the author has found to work very well.

All frontie chassis use shorty type LiPo packs which, due to the motor fixed timing and rev limit, don’t need to be super high capacity as the amount of energy consumed in a race is relatively low.

Body shells

The bodies available on the BRCA homologation list are one of the biggest attractions to the class for many drivers as every attempt has been made to ensure that they resemble full size front wheel drive cars. These include the Mk9 and Mk10 Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla and Yaris, Mercedes A class and the Mazda 3. Combined with a race inspired paint scheme they look fantastic on track.

Tyres

The final spec rule is the use of control tyres. At the time of writing the current dry tyre is the Ride belted cut slick available with insert and pre-glued to 5 spoke rims. These tyres are a lengthy subject in their own right but briefly they provide the most grip when almost fully worn out and they last forever on carpet. The current wet tyre is the Shimizu full treaded super soft pre-glued, branded Dunlop on the sidewalls. These can only be used outdoors in damp to wet conditions as they will overheat and be damaged if run in the dry.  

To learn more about this impressive racing class, then feel free to pop on in to the Raceway on one of our race nights to get a real look and feel of the racing.