Snowbirds 2009

[UFD]

Ya, that was totally out of control, they should never have been allowed to even use the spray thing in the first place, that is a fault of the Snowbirds. They knew this sort of thing was going on along with the battery heating thing and should have put the rules in place for that race as many of the track owners around the country have done already. Back in the early days of the brushless motors oval and on-road guys were using the spray thing to get to the motors ice cold and that was eliminated very quickly due to safety.

I totally agree that these sort of things hurt all sides of racing and do take the fun out of it like Art mentioned. I think we as racers need to push tracks to eliminate these sort of things from the start and if tracks won't take the lead than the racers need to police this and stop these sort of things from happening. We don't seem to have many of the problems like this in Colorado yet, but we should eliminate them before they even get started.

I have found over the years that many track owners are so busy running there business, some times they don't have the time to talk to people around the country or follow forums like this as much as racers so I think that is why it is important to let track owners know about these sort of things and eliminate the issue before it even comes up.

Some of the things I think should be put into place at all local tracks are:
- All batteries need to be charged in lipos sacks
- All batteries to be temp checked before going onto the track, ambient temp +10 deg F

I would encourage everybody, if you hear or see something that is just not right like the stuff Art seen at the Birds, make everybody here is aware of it so we as racers can police these sort of things, just leave off the extra comments, lol.

Brent

[tmunno]

Hope you guys don't mind someone from Florida coming on here with some Snowbirds info. We have raced at the birds for 5 years now and this was the first time lipo has ever been allowed. On-road tech did check our batteries each time for temp and voltage. Any one over the limits was not allowed to race. Mike and his crew do a great job of running the birds. The lipo fire in the Fl. pit room was an oval racer. Lipo is still something new to some people and overcharging seems to be a major concern. I think that next year lipo sacks should be mandatory. Last year we had nimh's blowing up in all areas of the hotel. This year there were only 3 lipo fires. No one got hurt and I'm sure that the birds crew will take a long hard look at what can and will be done to make sure we don't have any more incidents like this years.

I'm not a snowbirds crew member just a racer who brings his family there and hope to see all of you return again next year.

[Grenade10]

No problem on posting here, and I've seen some of your posts on the direct RCTech thread and am looking forward to being back next year.

Having run ROAR Carpet nats, and other major races, I think the tech inspection should be taken to a consitant level with other major races. I know Art, as well as I was surprised as theres was no check of track width, body height and wing size and placement IN ANY CLASS. Heck, I did not even have them check the handout tires in WGT or to see if I had the correct motor and battery in the COT Truck class. The bodies for WGT were to run at 104mm and if you saw what was run on Saturday the bodies were slammed to the ground. Mine was set to the legal height, correct track width and yes the ride height, and weight was checked at tech.

In the oval classes or on road that used lipo, they did check voltage at 8.44 and temp of the lipo at 110 degress. But, to get the pack to pass the 110 since you went through tech the heat prior, you would heat the pack to 125/130 and based on the air temp, your pack would be in the 100 - 105 easily within 10 min.

The lipo temp should be room temp +10 degress period not 30 to 40 degress more than the room. This would have eliminated some of the issues, but not all the issues. Our club is mandating lipo sacks and I hope that all club do as well. We had a lipo pack issue several weeks prior to Snowbirds, but our club did not push for the lipo sacks until we got back from Snowbirds.

As I said before I had a great time at this event and will be back.

[tmunno]

Thanks, I will send Mike Boyland an e-mail directing him to this thread. We also race his FCC (Fl. Carpet Challange ) at Minnreg in Largo Fl. Maybe the information here will help him decide on what rules should be put in place for future races. Thanks again for your time and help.

[RCThunder]

Hey Tony... I am here thanks for the e-mail!!

Hello Colorado. I really appreciate the thread and learned a lot of great insite from the racer's point of view here. We always work on improving the race each year and definitely learned some "do's and don'ts" for 2010. We hope to have your interest back for the next one!!! I don't always get on-line here, so if anyone would like to email me please do: rcthunder@aol.com

CYA!
Mike