CShearburn

iTrader: (5)

I am going to have to disagree here. More traction is just as much to blame for the classes being too fast as the motors and batteries. Along with better motors and batteries; the better chassis and tires have helped increase the overall speeds of the cars. Its one thing for the car to shoot down the straightaway at an almost uncontrolled rate... but its another when it is capable of taking the next turn at virtually the same speed as it just went down the straightaway. My opinion is that reducing the corner speed is more important than reducing straightaway speeds which is a reason why I am all for spec rubber tire racing.

Why? No offense but this to me is part of the "a class for everyone so they can win a trophy" mentality. I will never see the arguement for forcing drivers to move up or even down a class. Someone will also have better/more equipment than someone else whether they bought it themselves or had it given to them via sponsorship. There will also be someone or even a group of people that will outperform others on a consistent basis.

I think it is unfair to force someone to move into a faster/more expensive class just because they reached the top level of one class. How fair is it to move soemone from being near or at the top of one class to mid to bottom of another just so some other guy can have his turn at the top of the class? We pobably saved one guy from quitting since now he gets his shot at winning but lost another guy since he got forced into spending more money and possibly running the back. Net gain of people racing=0


It may have been designed that way... but the design is flawed if thats the case. I've personally never understood why manufacturers put their effort into promoting their products in mod when the majority of the average racer will be running stock for most if not all of their r/c racing "career". Alot of the stuff they promote doesn't work as well in the stock classes as it does in their mod classes... so why not sponsor drivers in the stock class to promote the products that will sell better? Makes business sense to me so I can't blame any of them for it. Slower/stock classes shouldn't be only for beginners. Not everyone feel's the need to drive the fastest most out of control car. Most of the time the best/most fun racing is in the slower classes anyway.

For the stock class, I think the original proposed idea of restricting the cost of the chassis just like the restrictions of the cost on motors is a good start. However, restricting just the cost probably wont work for reasons alwready mentioned. IMO, the way to control costs of the stock class is to more tightly restrict certain aspects of the car. Maybe material of items (chassis, arms, shocks, etc), certain components (diff vs. spool, alum shocks vs composite, etc), maybe even as far as shaft drive vs. belt drive. Whatever can make the car more affordable AND easier to work on will help the new guy/beginner which the stock class was originally intended for to begin with.

As for speed of the class. Rubber tires and 4 cell stock should be plenty slow enough for the beginner, and may be enough to make drivers want to move up when they get good enough.

My proposed class structure:

Stock (4cell with chassis restriction)
Super Stock (5 or 6 cell, no chassis restriction)
19T (5 or 6 cell, no chassis restriction)
mod (5 or 6 cell, no chassis restriction)

And no requirement for anyone to move up or down in class.

Ok, so I've rambled on long enough... I'm done

robk

iTrader: (22)

You know what? You have a great idea for a class. I'd love to see that get big everywhere, and you are doing a great thing for the locals. If you look below, you can see what is being tried in my neck of the woods...




Again, if you can make an A main in stock at a national, you can wheel a 19t all day long. We need some sort of intermediate between stock and mod. Unfortunately, 19t is now viewed as a "track time" class, when it should be the fast guys spec class. Alternately, we need a slower than stock spec class, especially if it is slow enough to discourage top drivers from lingering there.

As far as the need to let everyone win, that is total crap. You need a slower car, however that is accomplished, and the absence of cherry picker drivers to let guys figure this stuff out. This is about development, not wins. We will not retain new and less skilled drivers if they are blown out of the water instantly. I have seen guys become regular, skilled racers when they have this opportunity. It's just so inconsistent from track to track, I want to see it standardized across the country. That way people will know what to expect when they make it to a track.

nashrcracer

iTrader: (1)

slower motors for stock 55t 35t or 19.5t something in the motor department. or 4 cell and cut out lipo on the stock class. use lipo in super stock it's easy to tech and and makes it cheap. call it stock and super stock and get over it.

Jack Smash

iTrader: (35)

I agree with CShearburn. If you want to make racing affordable, take traction away from the cars, it wouldnt matter how much motor and battery you have when you cant hook it up. Plus the cars will not break as much since the return force of when a car hits a pipe will be able to transfer some of the inertia into moving the car away from the pipe instead of the car having soo much traction it cant do it, plus the cars will be slower through the corner anyway.

SARCAR_Revmax

All of this 'affordable' and 'new racer friendly' stuff is starting to really confuse me. When Jim So 'n' So buys their first car, they should know that to be at the front of the pack they need skill, and they need to have the bucks to get the newest/greatest batteries, motor etc. to be competitive.
Just my two cents.

Unregistered

If you just take traction away it's going to make the cars even harder to drive for the new guys. Not good. I can't emagine trying to race 12th or oval with cars that spun out all the time.

I just don't understand why it's so hard to just slow stock down with the motors.

As far as less cells are concerned, how many new guys out there are buying prebuilt sport packs to race? Yes, the kids are doing it especially in dirt. Changing to 4 or 5 cells is going to force these guys to pull all of their packs apart. It sounds easy for us racers but it sucks if you're just starting out.

With a slower motor you simply change the motor out and at most you have to get a new pinion and solder a couple of wires. Best part is, you can put the faster motor back in when you get home.

CShearburn

iTrader: (5)

That may be true if you were just taking grip away from the REAR of the car. Taking the general overall grip away would still (for the most part) keep the car neutral and driveable. Last time I checked the spec rubber tire classes handle just fine as far as being able to drive the car, yet the corner speed is reduced by a pretty fair amount. I'm not saying we need to turn the cars into drifters. The corner speed just needs to be less especially if you plan on slowing the motors and/or batteries. There will be a point where it gets too easy/boring if the car sticks too well vs. how much power is put out.

Mike Haynes

iTrader: (2)

I say we have someone invent a tiny GPS box....it will only let a car go a certain (programmed) speed, no matter whats under the hood.

Joel Lagace

iTrader: (4)

WOW taking away grip i cannot beleive im hearing this. The Solution is limit the output of the motor and battereis electronicly....... IF you illiminated expencive batteries and motors and slow the cars down just a touch to make them all run at nearly identical top speed then you help the new guy and the old guy race stock without blowing the budget..

REDUCING GRIP!! WFT! Thats insane. Joe-new-guy already cant drive, and we want to reduce the only confidence inspring part of the race.. GRIP!... This is not F1 with million dollar drivers and billion dollar teams. Where you have the worlds best drivers forced to use grooved tires to slow down the cars.... The #1 fustrating thing about touring car when we first started racing was lack of grip, coming off of pan car days into touring rubber tires sucked, and there where plenty of tirewars goin on, i recall thinking we had it all figuered out when an out of town guy showed up with parma PSE tires and blew the doors off of us as we slipped and slided around on tamiya or hpi tires... FAST FORWARD to today with SOREX,TAKEOFF and JACO offering relativily long lasting and high grip tires, we can tell the new guy just get a set of 28s and your golden. Learn to drive from there.. (in the last 4-5 years tires has never been an issue,no wars, not secrets we all run 28's or 24's)

Our best entry level class we ever had was SPEC TL01. Box stock with 540 motors it worked so well because the GRIP to motor ratio was like 5:1 or greater, with tire sause it was near impossible to spin the cars. Why? because the motors where slow and grip of the tires was high...

Im not ever suggesting stock become silver 540. But from the sounds of this thread the main issues around here is 100% factory guys beating up on average joe, AND simply locals fighting each other and make excuses as to why they cannot keep up.... I feel the pain when guys slap on fresh meats every race or run new packs all the time.... I dont complain i just enjoy the race anyway. But if we wanted to fix all the issues in one sweep. RESTRICTOR PLATE the class would fix the issue. Oh yes various motor will have different characteristics but if the RPM and accleration is limited stock will be back to what stock has always been intended. It works for NECKCAR is should work for us.


HAVE AT ME! Im heading to work now! LOL

Wild Cherry

Taking grip , slower motor`s, even 5 cell ...

anything is acceptable...

cept racing mod .....

Greg Sharpe

iTrader: (15)

I wish the thread had stayed on my original topic, attracting more newbies and keeping more newbies. Nonetheless, all of the discussions in here have been constructive and non-attacking. Applause for everyone!

timmay70

iTrader: (5)

The title of the thread is: ROAR Stock TC Guideline Suggestion. According to the title of the thread, this was just about dead on target, with only a few forays into the unknown.

You cant discuss adding a class for amateurs within ROAR without people making the lame argument that pros have to leave stock class racing. IMO the only thing that 'seems' to be broken is the lack of a national rule set for amateur racing. Because the other topics of how fast other classes are, and if they should be slowed, are such close topics, people will always feel the need to include them in the same discussion.

Before this goes much farther, "amateur" doesn't have to mean nooB, greenhorn, or the 'I can't drive' class. Amateur can be defined within the organization as non-paid driver. There are tons of seasoned vets within the hobby of Ham Radio called Amateur Radio operators. They chose not to make it their profession, rather, their hobby. People that are into model rockets are also known as 'amateurs'. It doesn't mean that they are any less a rocket scientist than a paid pro from NASA, Boeing, or Air Bus. The stigma that people attach is sometimes extremely retarded.

Creating an 'Amateur Class' may be a good thing. Especially if one of the rules is; "you cannot be supported by a sponsor to race in this class". To encourage people to 'want to move up', don't allow this class to be raced at the Nationals events (level 5).

I am still a fan for leaving the current Stock class alone. I like it the way it is. Even with sponsored drivers in it. Having drivers like Steve Boice, Mark Strasnick, and Jarrod Langlois racing in it locally gives me a benchmark that I can judge my progress against.

There is nothing wrong with 19 turn. This is the Modified that we get to see raced on the local level. With the speeds that the current modifieds are capable of, people don't race this class at any of my local tracks. Even at national events, 19 turn is great because it is truly the class that the modified drivers and stock drivers mix it up. Sure, it's an extra class that many people race just for more track time. When the pro's stay in it, it also serves as a benchmark that will show the difference between the stock drivers and mod drivers. If there is no bar being set or raised, there are no goals to reach.

Unregistered

You can still traction roll in sedan on premounts depending on the compound.

So, once the new guy gets his car to the end of the straight (at the current stock speeds) your reasoning is that he's going to magically have the skills to lift early so that his car doesn't drift out into the boards? Give me a break.

Also, when the car gets too "boring" and "easy" in stock IT'S TIME TO MOVE UP. Reducing the speed in stock will help make this happen.

Until we remove the prestige from winning stock at a big race there will always be very fast guys in the lowest class. Most of these "fast" guys should be in 19 turn or mod.

Greg Sharpe

iTrader: (15)

The title and the topic aren't the same concept. In the case of my thread, I wanted to suggest a change to a ROAR class (title) to fix the topic of increasingly lower numbers of racers in Touring Car these days.

I wasn't complaining about the divergences. Frankly, these are all important topics, regardless if they revolve around attracting and retaining newbies.

Somewhere in the middle of this thread I became convinced that a new class for entry level competition was the better route, than that of changing Stock class TC racing. Since then, I've been convinced that a grassroots effort to develop ametuer/entry/noob/sportsman/spec/budget racing is the best way to reach the goal, rather than trying to have ROAR draft rules nationwide.

Again, the opinions in this thread are helpful even when many do not agree with each other. Talk is good!

CShearburn

iTrader: (5)

True, but still the corner speeds even when this happens is less than when on foam tires. I guess I could have rephrased my original statement and instead of saying we need to reduce grip, we need to reduce corner speeds. Reducing corner speeds can be achieved by more ways than just reducing actual grip.

Ok now you are just being silly You're taking what I said to an extreme despite me saying we don't need to turn them into drifters. All I am saying is part of the speed issue is the corner speeds the current cars/tires (and bodies) produce. A lot of your straightaway speed is how fast you come out of the previous corner. I am also not saying you should leave the current stock speed motors as is when you reduce grip and/or corner speed. But I think some sort of balance should be maintained.

Also... my point about too high of corner speeds is not necessarily just aimed at the stock or beginner classes. Personally I enjoy having a little less traction/corner speed in both racing and watching the races. Personally I think the Mod Rubber classes are the most fun to watch.... moreso than Mod Foam. My opinion only of course. Funny... we try and copy what they do overseas in almost every other rule such as motor, batteries, bodies, etc. But when it comes to tires we just have to do our own thing.


Now I will agree with this to a certain extent. If a particular class has become too boring for someone then they should move to a different class (probably a faster one). Like you said, this is probably the best way to achieve "forcing" someone out of the class. This won't stop manufacturers from sponsoring drivers though. You simply won't get away from manufacturers trying to promote their product on the track. The best way to do it is to get fast guys on their stuff in bigger races and hopefully winning those races too.

There is a point where the car can also drive too well for new people. 12th scale is a good example. I don't know how many people I've seen shy away from 12th scale because it just looks too fast for them, even with a Mabuchi (silver can) motor. This is probably one of the reasons why 12th scale goes in circles in participation. It is a good, relatively inexpensive, low maintenance, and fun class to run. Yet because they look like they just fly around the track (which they do) a lot of guys dont want to run them because they don't think they will be able to keep them between the boards.

I just think the best beginner type class (where stock should be) is something that doesn't have a lot of power AND also doesn't corner like a railrocket. Lets also not forget that low maintenance and cost should be big factors too.