Kids have always gotten enjoyment from pushing a button or holding down a lever and watching their remote controlled toys race through the house on its own. Today, the excitement has captured children of all ages and grown adults as well because they will do flips, climb walls, sail over water, and fly in the air. Obviously, this is one constantly changing industry that will never go out of business.

Yet, with a growing market packed with different toys comes a few technical details that have to be considered before you make a purchase. You have to think through what is going to make your children or that child-like adult in your life happy in the long term.

The most obvious consideration is what type of remote controlled toy would be of the most interest to the person you are shopping for. It used to be rather simple to select from different colored cars that pretty much looked alike, but today there are more options. You can now purchase trucks of all makes and sizes, airplanes, boats that really sail through water, and helicopters that fly through the air.

You also have to think about how big you want your toy to be, which really brings your price range into question as well. You can still get smaller scale toys, but today's market is all about bigger models that resemble the real vehicles more closely. Of course, you can expect to pay more for these larger models.

Going along with price and size is the consideration of power. Some larger models can be quite powerful, which brings up the issue of the battery life. While battery technology has come a long way, it is still not as efficient as many children would desire.

Larger sized toys are going to require more power to operate, which means they will have larger batteries that tend not to last very long before needing charged. It is not uncommon for these toys to charge for days just to get 15 minutes of actual use.

This is the reason most parents leave the larger models for older children who want them more as collector's items or decorations than actual use. Smaller children are better suited to smaller toys with less power anyway.

As a final note on the current market for remote controlled toys, it is important to realize that these toys have gone up in price over the years but for very good reason. It used to be that remote controlled vehicles had wires attaching the remote to the actual car. Now, most are completely wireless and travel at much higher speeds.

Fiona Wyresdle is an author on Hobby Source where you can read articles on such topics as simulators for radio controlled helicopters and really cheap Walkera dragonfly RC helicopters.

Posted under Cars

Bobby LaPonte is confessedly just a youth. He is six years young, the only child of his parents, and lives with his family in Johns Creek, Ga. .

Although Bobby has giant aspirations. Despite being jovial in age, he is fully focused on his fantasy to one day compete in NASCAR's huge leagues, the Sprint Cup Series.

Bobby's aspirations are so large, essentially, that he habitually dreams regarding driving with the big boys. According to his folks, Larry and Nancy, he even mimicks the sound of race cars in his sleep.

Larry feels that his son got his love of NASCAR while still inside his mother.

"I raced the amateur track course tour for 10 years," he said. "When my spouse was expectant with Bobby, she would always come to watch me compete and we think that's when Bobby began his love of racing."

Much like Jeff Gordon with his girl Ella, the LaPontes have photographs of baby Bobby climbing in and out of his father's auto when he was only a toddler.

Bobby might drive every day if he could, and he gets that chance with the long driving season, from March through November, in the south. He and his dad race every weekend, regularly going to other states, including Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee, to participate in their regional events.

This most recent July, Bobby participated in his 1st national finals event. He earned a win in his semifinal group competition.

Bobby is swift to notify you that he drives in quarter midgets, a smaller kind of the USAC Midget Sprint autos that Cup racers like NASCAR's championship point leader Tony Stewart begun his profession driving.

Bobby lets you recognize that because he plans to trail in Stewart's footprints and follow that same road in his own racing career.

This small man indeed is looking forward to satisfying his huge NASCAR dreams, that of racing with his idols in the years in store.

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Posted under Cars

NASCAR has shown that they are their own worst enemy yet again. They have no consistency whatsoever in their interpretation or enforcement of their own rules. This was never more apparent than this past weekend at Watkins Glen.

During the previous week at the race in Pocono both David Stremme and Robby Gordon were penalized and held five laps for aggressive driving after a few dust ups during the race. Fast forward one week to the Nationwide race at The Glen and we get to see Robby Gordon aggressively attempting to take out Joey Lagano over a few laps before finally forcing the young Logano into a head-on crash into the tire barrier during a local caution. Yet no penalty for aggressive driving.

Gordon easily could have been suspended had both races been Sprint Cup races, but this most recent dust up took place during a Nationwide race, meaning that Gordon's skirmish was "the first of its kind". It doesn't take a genius to realize that even if someone is still racing on two different circuits, the races are still overseen by the same governing body and something must be done.

Gordon very intentionally forced a crash on Joey Lagano's part. To make matters worse, he did it in a very dangerous part of the track, as another car had recently crashed there and the area was under caution. This led to a nasty crash when Lagano's car spun out, and the car went so far as to catch fire. This ended Lagano's day at the track, yet officials took no action against Gordon for his role.

If NASCAR is to be taken seriously when it comes to enforcing penalties then they must find a way to be consistent and not overlook blatant attempts like those of Robby Gordon.

For those who say he didn't announce over his radio that he was trying to wreck Joey so how could NASCAR know his intent, I say BULL!! Even a non race fan who watched that event could see what Robby was trying to do and the fact that NASCAR allowed it to continue to the point of a crash that resulted in a car on fire is ludicrous. If safety and fair racing are what NASCAR is really interested in then sometimes they need to step up and show it.

NASCAR may slap Gordon with some kind of suspension in the aftermath of this all, especially with all of the media coverage Gordon's actions are sure to command; but that isn't enough here. Gordon easily should have been suspended from the rest of the race.

I've never been a big fan of Gordon, but he just made the bottom of my list. His actions are unforgivable, and I can't believe that NASCAR doesn't see things the same way.

Posted under Cars