speed and power...
 

With the direction of the hobby moving more toward an old school frame of mind, the RCGT, Mini series, like the cup racer, drifting, and Vintage Trans-Am Racing, it feels like a real attempt to bring more people in, and more people back to RC , like myself, who want to have a fun, fair race and show off their cars, (just like real car enthusiasts) why are so many still obsesses with speed and lipo and brushless power? my local hobby shop is an endless conversation of power and dirt...I just want to drive a sweet ride around the track...is it just me?

I'm with you, especially if the clubs are just starting a new class out.

Keep it slow to bring in beginners and after you build the class offer the guys who want to go fast the option to run a separate "pro" or "mod type" class.

Keep the "slow" class to continually bring in the new racers and now you have the best of both worlds.

And you can spend all the money you save by not buying the "hottest" stuff to buy more cars! At least that's what I do.

I dunno.. when I first started competativly racing my RC10 and JRX-2 in the late 80s as a kid... we spent all KINDS of energy trying to get as much power, speed, torque, handling, and run time out of our cars.

There is no reason why you can't do it all... Have fun, show off, rub elbows with your track buddies, and do all you can to get around the track the fastest.

There are at least two types of hobbyists and two types of real car enthusiasts (since you mention them) which is why you need a sportsman and an expert class which may not be viable at some tracks due to lack of attendance one way or the other. Drag strips have open track days where you can run your Corvette for fun, and then NHRA steps in and brings cars in the 3's and 4's.

One that just runs on practice days and is happy running any car, win or lose.

Another that has to be on the bleeding edge and have the fastest setup possible and 2nd place is the first loser.

I strongly believe that lipo and brushless will save the electric side of the hobby, it was KILLING the hobby to have to replace batteries every 2-3 months along with truing comms + replacing brushes every run on the low wind mod motors. People paying for their equipment were just dropping out which is part of why nitro became so popular.

The "stock" 17.5t brushless class can be looked at differently by each of these types of people, one that wants to get the car around the track and then another that has their car at exactly the rules and looks at 20 motors and battery combinations to get the fastest setup to win which is why I prefer the modified class. Drive with as much power as you can handle and understand the cars dynamics more.

I can see what your saying Brian, but for the casual racer, a family man, with a couple of kids like myself, dropping 70 to 80 bucks for just a 17.5t brushless motor is way to much, $200 or $300 for the whole set-up! I'd rather just spend $20 or $30 every few months on a silver can and some cheap batteries, better yet, stock up when there on sale...I don't think young kids and lipo is a good mix either...as far as saving the hobby, that kinda cash scares people away...

I couldn't disagree more. Considering the ease of maintenance with both lipos AND brushless, the hobby just got cheaper. Back in the day when racing, you would need at least 2 or 3 brushed motors in your box, and you would need 5 or 6 subc packs as it wasn't a good for them to be run more than about twice per day. So if you wanted some practice runs, some heats, and a main, you would need at least that many packs. With lipo... You can get do perfectly well with 2, or even ONE lipo pack. So lets do the math:

3 brushed motors = $85
1 brushless motor = $79

6 matched subc packs = $360
2 decent lipo batteries = $180

Not counting the incredible amount of time you save not having to do all the tedious maintenance on both the subcs and the brushed motors, frees you up for a LOT more fun on the track itself. More drive time = more fun, no matter how you cut it. Also, not having to buy brush replacements, no longer needing motor spray, battery buildinging stations, etc... it gets even cheaper.

The initial buy in might be a tad higher, but you get a lot more bang from your RC buck wtih brushless and lipo then you EVER did with brushed and subcs.

You are way off base here. You are referring to highly competitive racing. This guy is talking about silver can motors (not rebuildable) and cheap (presumably stick) packs. The lipo packs still might be cheaper but the motors won't be.

I'm with Popdada on this one. I have a competitive B44 that cost a truck load to get set up for Brushless. I enjoy it, but I have as much fun with my stock TA-05 with a silver can. It looks great seeing a "real" car going around the track too.
At our club we have a few of the mum's racing on Sunday's with their Tamiya Mini's having an absolute blast! Their kids are out there with their Tamiya's too, mostly cheap stuff, but getting into family racing.
There will always be those of us that want to be the fastest and best, but like said, the worst thing we could do is scare others away with prohibitive cost.
We have jsut set rules at our little club for a stock off-road and on-road for that exact reason. No Lipo's, no expensive ESC's. Buy a cheap kit or package, paint it up pretty, throw it on the track, and have fun.
It's ironic that the same people above who said RC almost died 10 years ago because of COST and maintenance are now saying the future is in the expensive stuff!

uhmm you are talking indeed about different things here. For competition racing, even on clublevel everything got way more easier with lipo's and brushless. A very good competition brushed motor costs half of a brushless motor. But that is initialy. Springs, brushes all other stuff comes ontop of that making it as expensive or even more expensive then a brushless motor in the long term. Same with nihms and all the stuff you have to buy to get the best out of it.

Now if your just running a silver can and a stickpack you can have as much exitement as any other. The challange and excitement of running a silver can motor around the track is just not there anymore after a year or so. I do think that everyone is looking for more speed after a while because they want to get more challange and excitement. It is a myth that young kids or people in general will like to drive a slow car around the track. At first yes cause they can't drive so the excitement/challange is there to even hold the car on the circuit but once they got that figured out the excitement is gone. going faster will get that excitement back cause it is again a challange and so on.

For instance the Mini class started out as a stock class here. Now everyone are fixing there silvercans so they run like a hot 23t motors so they go faster then the other lol. Even going so far as to make individual tabs on every cell in a stickpack so they can equalize a stickpack! Go figure.

No im not.. im referring to casual competative club level racing.

All the stuff you referred to, like 3 motors, would not be necessary for casual club level racing. Even 3 packs wouldn't be necessary. I ran club racing for a year with just 2 nimh packs and 1 brushed motor when I first started. Anyway the guy you responded to was talking about silver can motor racing with his kids. Im not sure you and the other poster were talking about the same kind of racing.

When you get into competitive racing though where you would change brushes all the time, etc the ease and cost effectiveness of brushless/lipo is great as long as you don't subscribe to the motor and battery of the month clubs which unfortunately a lot of racers do.

Then our definition of casual club racing is different. I considered myself a very casual club racer, and had about... a dozen or more stock motors I would tune, tweak, cut, and rebuild on a weekly basis.

I race dirt oval. We have rules set in stone for at least 2 years. SMC has agreed to make a 3200lipo with the same chemicals and whatever for 2 years. Novak and SMC put DODC stickers on them so they are acceptable. The motors are 13.5 novaks. Rules with everything including bodies is the same, so when the newest thing comes out, you wont be allowed to get it and race with it. I like it because im not spending a lot of money.
http://www.dirtoval.com/rules/index.html