Panic Attack's Kim Davies reflects on winning Robot Wars

Little did the team from Cwmbran know that they would end the series being crowned champions after beating series favourites Cassius.

The team featured Mr Davies, who was a maintenance manager in Cwmbran, Kevin Pritchard, a teacher at Llantarnam School, and Lee Wicombe, a colleague of Mr Davies.

Panic Attack is one of the most iconic robots from Robot Wars. Picture: Kim Davies.

The first series of Robot Wars was broadcast on BBC2 in 1998. One family watching along at home was the Davies family in Cwmbran.

“Me and my son, we happened to come across the programme on TV in series one,” said Mr Davies. “We watched it and my son said ‘Dad why don’t you make a robot?’, so I did.

“It was not something I had ever done so I had to do a lot of research.

“I was trained as an industrial mechanic, so I had a lot of mechanical background, but absolutely no background in radio controls and how to transfer them to a robot. I had to do a lot of thinking and research.”

While watching the US series BattleBots, a robot called BioHazard caught Mr Davies’ eye.

“It was really low and it had a lifting mechanism on it,” he said. “I didn’t want to copy that robot, but what I really liked about it was no matter what weapon (the opposition) had, if you take their wheels off the ground they can’t use the weapon. That’s where the forks came along.

“But the main thing about the original robot was that it was extremely powerful. We geared it down, so it wasn’t very quick, but it would pull a car.

“I started building it on my own. I think I’d virtually completed it and then I’d realised that this thing weighs 80 kilos.

“At the time we were allowed three people in the team. My son told his teacher all about it and he was interested. I went down and spoke to Kevin and he was really enthusiastic about joining the team.”

The team were initially going to call their robot Toxic Shock, but after researching the condition, decided to change the name to Panic Attack.

“Because we didn’t know what design to put on it, (Kevin) said it would be a good idea to put it to the class, asking them ‘What makes you panic?’. The winner was a spider, so we transferred that to the robot.”

The first iteration of Panic Attack which won the second series of Robot Wars. Picture: Kim Davies.

The team tested their robot in empty car parks in Cwmbran, finding that it could pull a car, and after attending the series two auditions, made it to the full series.

“Basically all we wanted to do was to be entertaining,” said Mr Davies. “We looked at some of the other robots and thought ‘Wow we’ll never get past those’. Some of them had spent so much money – there was Mortis from a university who spent £70,000 on their robot; and there was Rex Garrod, who we beat in the final, his was Cassius, and he had designed and built Brum – so he was a professional. He’s died since, but he was such a lovely guy.

“Some of them we knew full well we could beat, but because of the nature of the games, you were up against the arena as well and the house robots. There was never ever a certainty, you didn’t know if you would get through or not. So we just thought nuts to it, we’ll just enjoy it.”

In its heat, Panic Attack made a soaring jump from a ramp in the gauntlet round to qualify, before besting house robot Shunt in the sumo round.

The series semi-finals saw Panic Attack almost knocked out in the first round, as they had to re-run the gauntlet after recording the same distance as Mace. They then beat second seeds Mortis to book their place in the Grand Final.

After beating fourth seed Killertron, Panic Attack faced one of the series favourites, Cassius.

“I sat down with Rex before we went in to the arena and said ‘I know you can beat us easily’,” said Mr Davies. “He said ‘No, any one of us could win’. But he said he just wanted it to be entertaining.

“We didn’t want a two-second fight where he flipped us upside down. And I think he could have because we went right over the top of him, but I think that also surprised him a little bit so he didn’t manage to fire his weapon.

“At the end we managed to get round the side and push him into the pit, which of course was quite a shock, because I thought they were going to win. It was good. I think it was quite entertaining.”

In future series, Mr Davies was joined by his son Michael, as Mr Pritchard built his own robot, Evil Weevil, and Mr Wicombe left.

“The first show we didn’t understand what was going to happen, so it wasn’t a good idea to take him as he was quite young,” said Mr Davies. “After that it was no problem, we knew what was involved and what we had to do.

“Taking him along, it was great. He actually got to drive some of the house robots while we were fighting.

“We did BattleBots twice and went to San Francisco, so he got to go there. We did lots of live events and met quite a few famous people which was really good.”

Kim Davies and his son Michael with their robot Scallywag, which entered BattleBots in the US. Picture: Kim Davies.

After series two, the format of the series was changed so it was now purely fighting.

“It didn’t change us,” said Mr Davies. “I focused on the fighting, I didn’t worry about the events because I knew ours was powerful and it was manoeuvrable, so if it came up in any events then we’d be okay.

“What we enjoyed doing was taking on the house robots. It wasn’t about beating all the other people, it was just having fun. We didn’t get paid, and we got nothing for it. It cost a lot of money to go there, so we thought just enjoy ourselves.”

Mr Davies was known as one of the best drivers on Robot Wars, and the series might have even helped him land a job.

“I was a maintenance manager for 25 years and that company closed down,” he said. “So I applied for a job as a technician at a nuclear power station.

“On my CV I put that I worked for Mentorn Barraclough Carey, the company that did Robot Wars. They asked what this was, and I said I was in a programme called Robot Wars.

Kim Davies was known as one of the best drivers on the series. Picture: Kim Davies.

“So the first 10 minutes of the interview was all about nuclear, and then 45 minutes of it was all about Robot Wars. It probably got me that job, and I’ve been in the nuclear industry since 2006.

“Part of that is operating remote control cranes because we work with radiation and obviously we can’t go anywhere near it. So Robot Wars gave me the skills to get this job.”

Reflecting on his time on Robot Wars, Mr Davies said: “It still surprises me. When I decided to sell it, the amount of people who contacted me and said ‘No you can’t sell it, it’s an iconic robot, it’s part of history’, but I thought it’s stuck in my garage doing nothing.

“It’s just a waste. If people want to see it, I’d rather it goes somewhere where they can see it.

“I would take it to events – I went to Wolverhampton last year with it, and loads of people came up wanting autographs and pictures. It’s really surprising at how famous it really is. But I suppose it’s part of TV history. It was good while I did it, but I’m getting a bit old now, I’ve got other things I’m supposed to be doing!”

Panic Attack is now on display at the Norwalk Havoc Robot League museum in Connecticut.

“Am I sad, no not really,” he said. “It spent about 10 years at my mother’s locked up, and then five years in my garage. It never went anywhere, it was all hidden.

“There isn’t a museum in the UK, so I thought it would be a good idea if it went there – it’s not going to get damaged, it’s going to get looked after.

“It’s a long way to go, but now people can see it for the rest of its life.”