Radical idea & concept for TC racing?
 

The proliferation of TC classes (mod, 13.5, 17.5, 21.5, 25.5) got me thinking if there might be a way to combine some of these together to race heads up. Particularly at the club level, where a few racers get spread over several classes.

What if there was a 'power to weight' compensation?

E.g. something like this:

25.5 TC => 1350g min weight
21.5 TC => 1450g min weight
17.5 TC => 1550g min weight.

This would help balance things out and perhaps make for some interesting racing. The 25.5TC's would carry more corner speed but would have less top end, and better tire wear/temps

The 17.5TC's would carry the least corner speed but would have better acceleration and top end but would work the tires harder.

Like I mentioned, this isn't something designed for big races or national rules, but something that might help boost field sizes at the club level.

How could something like this be made to work?

Mark

how about just have 2 classes mod tc and 21.5 tc leave 25.5 for beginners.

Something along that line is actually feasible. Maybe go a little beyond that with simple groupings of cars to actually make a "class". Use the "mini's" as an example. Combine the stock and mod mini's into a single mini "group" as opposed to class. Like the Continental Sports Car series where the two classes compete simultaneously but for separate honors. Something like this would certainly speed up the show not to mention providing adequate numbers for Marshals for the following race. Better yet, make 25.5 as recognized by VTA and ROAR the official stock motor and everything else is modified. No more hassles over resistance, rotor length, stator material or who shot the piano player. You can still have all the specific classes but they are "mod" and if there are three or less of them at an event they get lumped in with what is closest to them performance wise and run for separate honors. One of the issues to me is the events get so dragged out time wise that it becomes difficult to stay pumped up while waiting for the local self proclaimed hero driver to peak his batteries or slather on an extra layer of tire snot in order to maintain his imaginary status. Or suffer through a series of 3 car races, so that everybody can get their(little league) participation ribbons, that could have easily been grouped into one.

Many of us drive 150 miles or more to attend these events on a regular basis. Personally I don't mind arriving early to get set up and prepped for the day. However, I am not a fan of arriving back home at 0 dark 30.

This is for sedan only, not USVTA or USGT as they run on spec tires and different weights. Leave the scaled realism events alone and don't run them on the same race day. At club level you could probably run all of the TC motor types together excluding beginners and still only have a heat or two.

25.5 beginner
21.5 stock
The rest are mod.

:nod:

Seems to be simple easy to understand concept, but I doubt that it will work. I experimented a lot with tc's of different weight. Beeing lighter 100gr will be worth nothing under highgrip conditions. Also the rubber has to be the right one.

Then again the driver of the strong class need to find space for around 250 or more grams of weight in his chassis. I don't think the driver would want this.

I am sorry for beeing so negative. A defined gearing ratio for each class seems to be easier and more naturally. Just make the stronger class a little slower on the straight to compensate for the stronger acceleration out of the corner.

My thought on the weights are this: the older cars & chassis might be more inclined to run a 17.5 motor at the higher weight, and the newer cars more inclined to run the 25.5 at the lowest weight.

And I have indeed found for myself that a 100g reduction is indeed worth something, even on a high grip track. And the extra weight would eventually show up in the tires going away as the race went along.

No apologies necessary, I'm just trying to think "outside the box".

Mark

Ok, this makes sense now. Here in Germany there are not many guys with such old (NiMh?) chassis at the clubs. But like this you easily could include heavier chassis (Tamiya plastic bricks :lol: ).Then just the drivers have to accept this idea.
I for myself dislike all weight rules not only because of the extra weights to put in the chassis, but I think it is against the idea of racing cars :sweat:

The problem as always is that everybody or at least the most guys accept the rules. Then everything is possible. Good luck!

I think the classes are fine the way they are, except that the 13.5 tc class is not really run at all here(Europe only).....

What you'd ultimately have happen is that the people that were consistently slower, assuming that some were, would eventually just change to the other setup. If they were both at the same performance level, you'd eventually have everyone using the cheapest option. If they end up costing the same and the performance is essentially the same, there won't be much point to it. At least with real race series where there are multiple classes, they have a noticeable difference in performance and looks. It's like running 2 races at the same time on the same track. The concept would work better if it was a TC class paired with a similar performance level pan car class, where the difference is far more than the motor and battery. I think this could actually be pretty cool.

Perhaps using the "Mini's" as an example wasn't the best choice since there are far more differences than I realized. Group the cars any way you want to. The guy's in the lesser group are giving up nothing to the faster group since they are essentially on their own clock. You may wind up 5th overall but first in class so you still win. Hell you might even learn something and heaven forbid you might finish ahead of some of the faster cars. Everybody wants to see some changes that will improve car counts, reduce prices, gain new participants and more but nobody is willing to give up anything to do it. It has gotten way to complicated. That is why I choose to run in VTA only. Spec motor, spec speed control, spec batteries, spec tires and spec bodies. Put it together then shut up and drive. You get to spend several minutes actually driving the car instead just point, click and squirt to the next corner and repeat. it isn't just about the speed it is also about being there with friends enjoying yourself drinking Frappe's(can't leave out the milleniels)(sp) and swapping lies. Personally I would rather spend 8 minutes door to door with somebody at 25MPH then spend half that time white knuckled yelling at a marshal to dig my bottle rocket out from under a bench in the corner. Speed has little to do with racing except increase the cost. Since the races are a time over distance event it is about seeing how far you can go in the time allowed not how fast you can do it. That is already a given.

See you at the track.

Too much conceptualization = NO RACING !!!
JUST RACE IT !!!!

And then the 2 beginners will get bored and give up when there aren't enough cars on the track.

Full scale racing cars have weight limits too.

Well with 13.5 , 17.5 ,21.5, 25.5 there is almost 3 per class