Team Lotus

There are a lot of good comments from BOTH sides of this issue that I have read on this thread. It is good to see people who are passionate about this regardless of which way they lean on this issue. Personally, I agree with Buckaroo; he has done a good job of saying a lot of what I would like to.

I only hope that ROAR itself reads this thread and considers what has been said here.

Bob-Stormer

iTrader: (8)

Honestly, I just wanted to say how refreshing it was to read a well written post. Agree with it or not, well written. Ahhhh.

Not as I read the rule. Truly, it looks completely acceptable to me. I'd run it that way. Unless you're cleaning house where you race, nobody is going to care.

I think this whole thing is a bit out of hand in the first place. ROAR is worried somebody might make a chassis... What about all the little 1/12th companies we have that knock out 15-20 cars a year? If ROAR is going to complain about a pack, I think it's reasonable to conclude that there is performance advantage in different chassis designs, and different cars. Yet I don't see any fewer cars coming out? And other than say 30 drivers world wide, would ANYBODY be able to tell if their car had a shorty pack in it, even if a car was designed around it on purpose? Car still has a minimum weight. Nobody complaining about short production run cars, Or the fact that places like Stormer Hobbies stock over 500 cars, yet this pack shape is an issue? I'll say it again... 500 different cars. What's the difference in having 200 different (2s) packs to choose from now, and adding this one pack? Do people feel the need to have one of each of the other 200 that are available to them? Of course they don't. Mind you, simply taping a piece of foam to the pack (to make it the "correct" size) and slamming it back in the car pretty much kills the entire argument.

We didn't need ROAR to tell us what a speed control should or should not do. "Blinky", as an example, kind of surfaced on it's own in club racing. It gained in popularity, and there you have it. The masses have figure out what they want, on their own. I do feel ROAR has it's importance.

and enough with the F1 analogies... somebody mentioned f1 having a spec tire... If we had to do ANY of what they have to do with tires in a race, we'd all hang ourselves. The tech table for that type of thing for RC racing would be utter chaos.

I just read this again, looks angry and preachy. That's not the case. Was just trying to have a good debate. My apologies if it looks angry, it's not supposed to be. Just good conversation.

CypressMidWest

iTrader: (1)

That's the way all my posts look too, Bob. Great post.

robk

iTrader: (22)

Yes

LonnyJ1950

Is ROAR even very relevant anymore? The three biggest carpet races in the US, Snowbirds, IIC, and Cleveland, do not use ROAR rules, or use modified versions of ROAR rules. None of the electric TC or 1/12TH nats was as well attended as these races. In any case, rules change according to many outside pressures. Remember when ROAR's stated purpose was to foster competition between scale appearing cars? There is nothing scale about an AMR body except the grill opening. The Audi R8C was a design exercise that never to my knowledge actually raced. I would love it if 1/12TH went to more scale appearing cars with appropriately sized tires. Yes the cars would be slower and more difficult to drive, but the same pros would still win the races and I think it would be waaay cooler to watch and compete. Perhaps in Off Road it's different, but I think shorty batteries will be run in lots of races whether ROAR approves them or not.

Bob-Stormer

iTrader: (8)

My quick "off topic" theory on that. back in the day, we all club raced HARD, and it's where you learned and practiced. Then you went to a regional event once a year and it was WELL attended. I remember an offroad regional 400+. Then you might take in a national event.

Certain races now, are poorly attended because there are just to many races to go to (if you're willing to travel). People go to the ones that seem to have the best location, setup, and the most coverage. I know which races we attend that have the best power, best parking, best security, most pit space. Can I practice, do they let you stay late, is there food? Makes it a lot easier to pick and choose. If you had to pick a race to travel to, would you go to the snowbirds, or your regionals (against the same guys you likely race all the time). And that's how that happens.

There really is no one penultimate race anymore. There are so many classes, so many races, so many titles. I was going to list them all and gave up. Could be 20-30 with as many as 240 winners. (just in the States). And that doesn't include stuff like the Tamiya TCS (what is it 20-30 races?), The RC pro series (another 15-20 events), and other series events I forgot about. Even our part of the world we have the WCICS. Western Canadian Indoor Chapmionship series, there's another 4-5. I bet this could get added to, to the tune of 50 60 more regional races around the country that are noteworty. This spring we decided to take in the Hank Perry race in Washington Sate (LONG running race). We had some spare trailer pit spaces, I emailed Peter Tozser and mentioned we'd be there with a pretty sweet setup. And I called Gord Tessman (Ty's dad) and invited him along as well. There was an RC pro series race in Canada that conflicted that same weekend for Pete, and Gord said Ty was somewhere at some major event track, testing (2 weeks early). And that's how that goes.

The big races have become essentially club racing for a lot of people.

Long story short, that's why some races seem poorly attended. To many to pick from. I think we have our ROAR regionals in Billings in the Spring, during their annual 2-day event. I bet we don't get more than 10-15 more entrys than the standard 2 day event. There will be other amazing races going on, plus or minus 7 days of it, that will force people to pick and choose. Should be the biggest show of all, and I hope that it is.

It would be the best thing that could possibly happen, you only get to a national event by winning a regional. You'd get more people to club race (which is all most of us want). and you'd get people outside your region that might take in your race just for a spot at the nationals (that they missed during their race). Now YOUR regionals is important enough to travel to. you'd see some big names that missed their local chance, having to hit some smaller events just to qualify. that's a big plus from a bring money into the club perspective.

Sorry about that... I'm off the soap box.

HarryLeach

By the letter of the rule, how? What constitutes a: Chassis that require a configuration change, and/or a modification to fit a battery of maximum dimensions will not be considered legal

To me, moving electronics around is a configuration change, same with an alternate driveline setup, and a modification would mean grinding factory parts.

tc3team

The BRCA series and the UK, in comparison does not have as much travelling involved, so is better attended.

So, in some respects, maybe ROAR does have it hard in the respect of trying to group up racers to form a well attended race.

Is it the rules, or the wide area the ROAR has to try and accomodate its racers within that sees a poor turnout?

Does there needs to be less regional races to make them more attended?

LonnyJ1950

Some good thoughts there Bob. But the question is if ROAR essentially bans shorty packs, but IIC says they are OK, whose rule matters? And off topic, you run a great company, Thanks.

RedBullFiXX

iTrader: (34)

Looks like Tamiya is picking up the the ball and running with it Lonny.

New 12th scale TCS class racer...

CypressMidWest

iTrader: (1)

Off topic, but just for your enjoyment Lonny.....

http://www.supercars.net/cars/4158.html

It certainly wasn't raced much, but it did run the race that I consider to be the most important for a legal 12th body.

Now back to our regularly scheduled debate.......

LonnyJ1950

Well, the car is pretty basic but I love the body. Seriously wouldn't you rather run something that looks like this?

Thanks, I stand corrected. Doesn't look much like the Black Art body though, does it?

CypressMidWest

iTrader: (1)

Well, no. The last competitive body that actually resembled the real car was the AE Nissan NPT-90. Since then they've kinda wedged out.

RobS

As much as everybody is hatin on ROAR, you got to remember almost all races use "ROAR approved" battery packs, motors, the ESC Blinky list ect for their races. So as much as we don't think we need them, where would we be without them?

I think the battery pack rule is a good idea, it will keep older cars in the picture longer, not requiring special optimized chassis's for certain battery packs. This will allow older cars to be run by newer racers trying to get into the hobby. I think we need to build up the club level racing before we keep trying to rebuild the National level races.

robk

iTrader: (22)

I asked an Excomm representative about that exact layout. The chassis has to accept that size battery, but the electronics (esc, rx for example) are not considered part of the chassis.