Tether car

Tether cars (also commonly known as spindizzies)^[1] are model racing cars powered by miniature internal combustion engines and tethered to a central post. Unlike radio control cars, the driver has no remote control over the model's speed or steering.

A tether car with 1.5 cc engine

Basics

Modern tether car track surrounded by safety walls

Tether cars are often small (less than 1 meter in length), powered by a non-radio controlled model aeroplane engine (two stroke, glow plug, piston liner, etc.), and run on fuel supplied by a fuel tank within the car. Since 2015, electric motor driven cars, powered by batteries, have also emerged.^[2]

History

Tether cars were developed beginning in the 1920s–1930s and still are built, raced and collected today. First made by hobby craftsmen, tether cars were later produced in small numbers by commercial manufacturers such as Dooling Brothers (California), Dick McCoy (Duro-Matic Products), Garold Frymire (Fryco Engineering) BB Korn, and many others. Original examples of the early cars, made from 1930s to the 1960s, are avidly collected today and command prices in the thousands of dollars.

Locations and speed records

There are tracks in Australia (Brisbane and Sydney), New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, Estonia, Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and other countries. World Championship races are held every 3 years, the 2013 World Championships was held in Basel, Switzerland.

World records

Class	Date	Driver	Speed
			km/h	mph
WMCR I (1.5 cm³)	December 9, 2006	Jan-Erik Falk	268.697	166.961
WMCR II (2.5 cm³)	August 20, 2016	Torbjorn Johannessen	285.711	177.533
WMCR III (3.5 cm³)	March 4, 2017	Andrii Yakymiv	300.953	187.004
WMCR IV (5 cm³)	April 5, 2014	Tonu Sepp	317.124	197.057
WMCR V (10 cm³)	October 18, 2019	Ando Rohtmets	347.490[3][4]	215.920

See also

• Cox Models, a former manufacturer of ready to run tether cars
• Control line flying model