Jason Pelletier

iTrader: (33)

amen brotha !

nc-hopsing

iTrader: (6)

JDCrow

iTrader: (32)

enought with the Me Me Me Me. How about some how can I step up and help ROAR be a stronger organization? There are plenty of opportunities to contribute. Many regions with inactive directors usually have NO Challengers at election time.

What has ROAR done that the Non ROAR races are doing? These comments about all the independent racing events are lacking a little background. Most, if not all of them are using a version of ROAR Rules. If this were a multi-million dollar enterprise, you could rest assured lawsuits would be filed for misuse of intellectual property.

What does ROAR do for its Members?

It works with Racers, Tracks, Manufacturers, and International Sanctioning bodies to create consistent and fair specifications for equipment and racing. This happens everyday between Executive Committee Members, various Committee Members, Mfg Reps, and others.

It works to ensure our Racing Venues are cabable of hosting our most prestigeous events each year to ensure the events run effectively.

Its Volunteer Committee members donate countless hours of time to keep in touch with grass roots racing so ROAR leadership can keep ROAR viable with regard to the direction the Industry is going.

It works to ensure our form of entertainment is Safe to our participants and guest. It only takes 1 injury to shut down a facility and financially ruin many good people for a long time.

While everyone agrees there are areas that need improvement, to just say ROAR is useless is not fair to its years of existence and service by the elected and volunteer members who serve on behalf of the membership at large.

I hope many will decide to focus their attention more to what they can do to help, than take the easy way and just go online and whine. Improvement for any organization only begins when each one of us decide to step up.

These comments are my own, and not any association with ROAR.

JD Crow
Chairman
ROAR Off-Road Electric National Committee

MDB

Why don't you guys stop whining about ROAR and start your own sanctioning body. Oh yeah I forgot, all you guys know how to do id whine, nothing else.

Buckyaga

iTrader: (9)

you make a very valid point and something I will think about next time director elections come around.

Metla

yeah, Your just failing to see how the structure works. and it does work.

If it was as you wanted it then the rules would be completely out of touch with every level of the hobby, and would alienate entire continents.

At the grass roots level the racers dictate the classes to the club, the clubs advise the national body (roar for you guys),and IFMAR correlate it altogether to work at an international level.

It makes sense that all the early adoption gets done at the grass roots level, That feedback from this has a great weight on national guidelines, and that these may or may not eventually be adopted by IFMAR.

Buckyaga

iTrader: (9)

if adoption really started at the grass roots level, we would not see how long it takes for equipment to be "ROAR legal" for sanctioned events.

how long did it take for Lipo to get approved?

Which major manufactures finally pushed(paid) to have brushless legalized for events?

SWTour

iTrader: (9)

Contact FRED HOHWART at the ROAR office, and he'll fix you.

They've written rules, held NATIONAL EVENTS, Provided a Needed insurance to MANY tracks.

As for YOU being insured and the other guy NOT being...if it's a ROAR track that does that - they can and should LOSE their ROAR membership for allowing ANYONE to operate a car or corner marshal w/o being a ROAR member in good standing.

When ROAR restructured how they hold a NATIONAL EVENT they did it in such a way as to gaurantee the tracks make a certain amount of money. ROAR although a Not For Profit organization, they do need to MAKE money from events to help keep ROAR alive. With ROAR providing and paying for the RMT at National events, plus paying for their travel expenses and lodging, it can get quite costly.

Crunch the numbers sometime on how much it costs to do an Major event that has to be split up between the Organization and the Track, plus purchase NATIONAL level Awards, T-Shirts etc.

The entries stayed pretty much THE SAME for a lot of years - just like the Big Mac, Whopper and a gallon of Gasoline - PRICES have to go up if things are to continue.

The only ROAR races I know of that are now 80.00 are NATIONALS. That does not affect LOCAL Club Racing that is ROAR sanctioned. NATIONALS are supposed to be the "ELITE" races, maybe with the new Entry Fee structure it will become that.

If I'm not mistaken, the SNOWBIRDS and the IIC races (On-Road) have very high entries, Not sure about the REEDY or BABCOCK Shootouts...but I don't believe ANY of those are ROAR Sanctioned, so there is NO SPLIT on the income, unless the race Organizer and the Track are different and they are splitting things.

..if you KNOW that the NAT'S are going to be $80.00 - start saving EARLY and start a NATIONALS FUND - and add $3.00 - $5.00 a week to it. That will help with some of the SHOCK.

...I proposed to ROAR that since they can do On-Line payments, they should allow registration for a MAJOR event with a Deposit/Partial Payment (to get the EARLY BIRD Price) that is NON-REFUNDABLE. Then you can pay the balance anytime between when you register and the date of the race...and THEY get a confirmed headcount for ordering TROPHIES and T-SHIRTS...and for advertising WHO is attending the event.

Derby Bros Racing

iTrader: (7)

What exactly do you want ROAR to do for you?

I am not biased taking one side or the other but I was just wondering....

Anyway, I think of it like a car insurance in a way. If you ask what have they done to you lately, the answer is probably nothing at all. Unless of course you got in a big car wreck or got your car stolen. You pay every month and when there's nothing wrong going on, it's basically pointless.

That's just insurance part of it... about the rules well some governing body has to step up and make racing rc cars somewhat uniform. That's what separate "real" rc car racing to "run what you brung even if it was from radio shack and got 6 wheels" racing.


To answer your question what has Roar done for me lately? Well, nothing. I guess when I go to a Roar sanctioned race and a runaway truggy flew the biggest jump and hit me square on the head then I can give them a call for help.

J_P

RB: Lets do it this way. Sell everything you own, that ROAR has had something to do with. Let's start with, you race at a track, right? Most tracks are based on ROAR rules. Lane width, amount of cars, length of races. Your track has AMB, right? Why do you think the standard race heats are based on Ten cars? Yep, ROAR rules. Do you drive a truck? Sell it. Trucks are not a part of IFMAR, so that means that ROAR has made every rule from Wheel size to wheel base to body spec's. Does your radio have eight batteries? Bye-bye. That voltage is within ROAR rules. Every wheel, tire, body, part and kit is made to fit within ROAR specs, along with IFMAR. And now, the new stuff, like Brushless motors and Speedo's.
Have fun finding a new hobby, I'll be looking for your stuff in the "For sale " thread.

Buckyaga

iTrader: (9)

so points made in the thread.

1. people dont like how ROAR runs things, and appears to be bias towards manufactures/team drivers over club racers.

2. the validation of equipment that wants to be labeled as "ROAR Legal" can be viewed as racketeering

3. ROAR believes that the only way to change things is for more people to get involved.

I think the only logical way for resolution to all this is for the people that complain about ROAR to run for election and make changes on how they believe the organization should be run.

JD Crow made a very valid point and something that will think of doing when elections come around for my region.

Metla

Uh, that's my point, Lipo was used at the grass roots level before being officially endorsed nationally. It means the guidelines reflect the actual real world conditions.

I thought the time taken to approve Lipo and the way it was done was a perfect example of a system working well.

Buckyaga

iTrader: (9)

the main issue was not where it started.. but how long it took AFTER it was started.

IIRC, it was a few years before ROAR even started thinking about approving LIPO.

Metla

I referred to the time frame, Like I said it was well done.

The grass roots level user have to adopt new tech in suffeciant numbers, and it has to be proven as a reliable and worthwhile tech rather then a fad before it can be adopted at a national level.

J_P

But anyone who is actually a ROAR member has read in the rule book a paragraph about keeping cost down. Just because someone came out with a motor, or a battery. And Joe local is running it doesn't mean it should be ROAR legal. What if ROAR jumped on every bandwagon out there? It would cost a fortune to keep up with every POS part that someone thought was better. I applaud ROAR for taking the time, finding out, and learning about the new batteries before just jumping in, like so many wanted them to do.
But really, it doesn't matter. Because the one's doing all of the bitching, won't ever be at a Regional, or a National anyway. So go run your 1/12th scale, knobby tired, Truck bodied, 1/8th scale winged,42 celled lipo car with your other three friends. And leave racing to the racers.