andyh

http://hpiracing.com/calendar/

squarehead

iTrader: (75)

Ok, I'm going to be more specific here, because the concept seems to be getting lost in translation somewhere.

If you have one or two guys who are a LOT faster than everyone else in a class, if you don't bring them back to the pack, the rest of the pack will leave and NOT come back. That's human nature. No one wants to go racing every week and know they have no chance to compete.

If you have different levels of drivers, and there is a disparaging difference between the fast and the slow, it's not the same thing. This is a class based on parity of speeds, for everyone. If the speeds of the cars are different, the point of the class is moot.

If you are comparing skills and talent to speeds of certain cars, you're not seeing the differences.



The object is not to penalize someone who has set up his car well and has driving ability, the object is to keep certain cars from getting to be faster than others in speed alone.

TimV

iTrader: (49)

Unfortunatly, the weight does not really seem to have much of an effect until you get about 500 or more additional grams on the car. the first 200 grams actually make the car faster, because it stays more planted in the corners, and you can take them at a higher rate of speed. It sounds good in theory, but it has relatively no effect on a 27t brushed car. I would think it would have less effect on a brushless car.

At our track this past weekend, I Tq'd and won with 200g on my car, and second has around 400g on his car I believe. No one else racing had any additional weight. Most cars were pretty close in speed. It really came down to driving abilities, which is what a lot of people are looking for.

However, it is my experience that the class is the most fun when you come off the track, and you have wheel marks down both sides of the car, and you have been banging doors with your friends.

sportpak

iTrader: (26)

I won this week at my home track. There's no spoken rule, but next time we race, I'll drop a tooth or two. I love driving rubber tired touring cars, so that will inspire me to stay smooth(er) and just get up on the wheel and try to do it again. I want to keep VTA fun for everyone, for the first time in a while, people in Ft Wayne are starting to have fun running touring cars again, why would I want to mess that up? Once in a while, I'm sure a few of us will have at it, all out, but for cut throat racing, I run 12th stock.

Ben

Grenade10

iTrader: (40)

We have the one or two racers who will put 1-2 laps on the field, and have seen the class loose some of its participation. I know the guys in Montana have been adding weight, but what about a break out for number of laps. Our track has kept the same layout for the last several months. Before Racer-S showed up times were mid 10's then he jumped to the mid 9's and this past week made it in to the 8's. It's a small track, but I know how much work I went to, just to get into the mid 9's myself and I enjoy the wrench time, but I don't know many who will spend the same amount of time. I want more bench racin afterwards with a brew!!

Very good talk, and I'm looking forward to some dirrection.

Scottrik

iTrader: (261)

As Tim identified the weight became something of an advantage, though we had a couple guys that had added a LOT more than 500g. Made the cars more planted AND it made them more "stable" when someone would get against them as they worked their way through traffic. This was with 19T motors. We changed to Stock motors mid-way through the season and the racing tightened up--more people are able to stay closer at lower power levels. We did not implement weight penalties under the Stock format.

I guess I'm not opposed to getting "brought back to the field" via some sort of handicapping mechanism if it makes the racing closer. Closer racing means more fun for everybody--my philosophy has always been that I'd FAR rather lose a close battle than win a runaway.

Reminds me of a friend who was (is) a DAMN good pool/billiards player. What he started to do to keep games interesting was he made all his shots either bank shots or combinations--he did not take any cue-object ball-pocket shots. He didn't win anywhere nearly so many games as he had BUT a) it made it so people enjoyed playing with him, and b) it FORCED him to practice oddball shots and improved his game for when he was playing tournaments, etc against similarly skilled players.

Handicapping is not in and of itself "penalizing". It's all a matter of how you look at it. The biggest sin you can make in Vintage TA is getting fixated on "winning". If that's your bag this is the WRONG class for you--there are already classes out there that cater specifically to that mindset. Not that it's wrong by any means--just that there are plenty of venues in which to exercise it.

robk

iTrader: (22)

Maybe a 1 tooth FDR penalty would be better for this situation (64 pitch)?

squarehead

iTrader: (75)

Very well-spoken, Scott. I've been trying to say that all afternoon here and you did it in one post.

sportpak

iTrader: (26)

Nobody wants to get beat by the guy that openly has to drag an anchor behind him either. If the few fast guys in your area can have an agreement to back off little, without making a big stink about it, the other guys can have some fun too. This class makes racing fun again, let's not screw it up.

BobWoodhouse

iTrader: (24)

I got a 21.5 with an XBR just last week. it had a 4.5 FDR on a xxx-s. No heat of any noticable level. This was last weekend at StrictlyRC.

losi nut

iTrader: (1)

We had 6 cars this weekend, 3 4cell/27t and 3 21.5/lipo. One of the 27t guys was complaining about how much faster the lipo cars were and we needed to slow them down. Since I'm the unofficial VTA director of the club, I decided to see if there was any fact for his complaints. I got the heat race sheets and compared the best time of each, brushed and BL. guess what, he had the fastest lap. after I told him about it he calmed down about it.There was only .1 second difference between the two set-ups. so I think it was pretty equal. We do have one guy that everybody says "look how fast he is" , score sheets to the rescue again, he is like the third fastest on the track, I had run him down in the main only to make a bonehead error when I was within striking distance, and ran out of time before I could catch him again. Overall with the expirienced drivers, we are very close to each other on the track, with only crashes being a determing factor, we have some "loose cannons" out there with us, but we try to help them rather than fuss at them.

As far as the temps on the electronics goes, after an 8 minute main with 130F track temps, my 21.5 comes off no hotter than 130 and the speedo is about 110. so there shouldn't be any concern about thermalling anything. We run a 4.3 fdr with the 21.5's.

Laterz

UltegraSTI

iTrader: (20)

there will always be fast guys. who cares, have fun. remember back in the real trans am days, it wasnt like this nascar crap you all see now. if u wanted to sell cars u had to bring your best stuff from detroit. heh to think nascar was that way too.

their toy cars!! have fun. btw, i havent run mine yet, but i do enjoy this whole concept

R

snoopyrc

iTrader: (2)

Youre my Hero Andy!

chicagokenji

BTW, in all this fast guy talk I wanted to let other tracks know we race three qualifiers and one main race. Our qualifiers are 5 minutes long. We use a Lemans style start ( cars at an angle on the straight) with a heads up start. For the Main race, it's 8 minutes, and it's a side by side start, headsup.

For the qualifiers we line them up randomly.

For the main race, in side by side fashion we reverse the starting order with guys qualifying the fastest going to the back of the pack and the slower guys getting to start right up front. All of our racers really enjoy this kind of start for the mains.

Currently the tracks we race on are about 100x50ft and laptimes are between 12.8-13.8 for the fastest guys. One is asphalt outdoors the other is industrial concrete sparyed with VHT, indoors.

I mention all of this so others can see how we are running our racing programs and for them to be able to compare and contrast to their racing programs.

AreCee

iTrader: (1)

As an interesting point, at our last asphalt race the same three racers ended up in the same three positions for all three qualifiers and the main with only a few seconds between them. All three were using brushed motors with 4 cell packs. Talk about an even playing field!