WIITA

iTrader: (43)

I have ran blinky as well and really liked it. Like I said, I would like to see it eventually just because of how simple it is without having to play with the esc settings. IMO Batteries and motors will be a huge part of the game but guess what? It is right now. Alot of the top guys in this hobby run blinky 1/12 knapp, lambert, Anderson, calandra...... And in my opinion the gap will always be there. I really don't care what is ran at brandons race but i would suggest letting guys know so gears can be purchased.

SkarTisu

iTrader: (8)

Instead of fighting speedo settings with open, we'd end up fighting the guys who have precisely tuned rotors, twin Turbo35s, battery warming rigs and more than one motor so they can find out how high they can gear before the motor burns down.

Settings are (basically) free. Equipment isn't.

onroad dude

iTrader: (13)

i will argree to this 100%!!! i was the guy who was killing him by 2 laps on the track. in the main my speedo setings were still better then his and i still had more speed. but Bob had the better human factor! he made less screw ups.

as far as a battery and motor war. face it the guys who run the top will buy new batteries and motors when ever the new ones come out! out at the pkc race i was running on a pack that was 1 year old and a duo 1 that ive had sense it first came out. i finished 3rd right behind the 2 guys i figured would beat me. not because there equipment but there smoother drivers then i am!

ammdrew

iTrader: (25)

open speedo closed speedo same game.. for some speedo is easy to tune compared gearing, rotor,battery... or old school springs, comm, brushes, battery... but same game.. We were doing it just a year and a half ago...
IT is all a matter of rob peter to pay paul..

just a matter of which way you do it, and which way the trend is.. and you can bet that which ever way the pendulam swings it will swing back the other way.....

dski

iTrader: (11)

I can't argue blinky is eaier to set up. But it puts more emphasis on finding the fast motor - one particular style motor will be a must have per a certain track style.

wildman

iTrader: (1)

Kave,
I had very few wall rubs in 17.5 at MMR last week in the main! Sorry you can ask Nelson or Marshall or anyone watching the race that I had a WAAAAY slower car than you in the main! It was pretty sad.. It was my fault for changing my speedo settings for the main.. It killed the punch off the corner in my car due to my driving style. It just shows that you spent a time at the track running and running sat. night and found the perfect speedo setup for that layout and your car was fast! I show up sunday morning and I am basicly testing every round of qualifing if we were running blinky i just have to change a gear ot two and Im right there! I ran .3 ave lap slower in the main from qualifing due to MY mistake of changing speedo settings. The ONLY reason I ran a few fast laps close to John is that I hit a perfect extremly tight lap and it was only a few!lol
I ran a .951 lap deviation for 8 min, John ran a 1.313 and you ran a 1.805..You do the math? I drove cleaner and still lost by a lap! Johns cars was not as fast as yours, but he drove a great race!
This is exactly why I like blinky...keeps it simple for the new guys and us old guys!
I have watched younger drivers at MMR that can drive very well, but they are lacking speed and I think blinky would tighen that gap!

Kave....Man up and run mod at Brandon's or Duluth!
Now back to the topic of Brandon's race!
I cant' wait to run there!
BB

SkarTisu

iTrader: (8)

If you guys had been running blinky and you had been slow like that, you'd have said that Kave spent all night Saturday testing rotors, gearing, battery prep, can timing etc and that you were at a disadvantage because of that. You'd have still been spending each run testing because of those factors. Open speedo wasn't the cause of the problem - less testing time was.

If the rules package gets changed, everybody will have to start thrashing to find the new fast setup and will probably need to buy new equipment (gears at the very least, motors/batteries/chargers at worst). If things remain the same, people can build on the knowledge they already have using the equipment they already have.

For what it's worth, I was making speedo and gearing changes in sedan on Sunday as well, and also went the wrong direction for the main. I learned from it, and found out I need to do more testing. C'est la vie!

Kave

iTrader: (17)

I personally think that open speedo is the way to go for this race. Another thing that helps with open speedo is that everyone is very forthcoming about what they are running in their stuff.

Bob Stormer pointed out that he gained a lot of time with a good setup, which is true. But what is also true is that everyone has access to a good setup as myself and Wiita are always willing to tell others what we are running. BB was even running the same setup I think?

I have said it before and I will say it again, find something that works for you and leave it alone. I have not plugged my speedo in for over a month, and last year I went 2-3 months without plugging it in.

Blinky is the future, it is not the present here in MN.

WIITA

iTrader: (43)

I can say for sure that jabber has not touched the settings in the esc for a while, motor timing as well. Him and I usually just collaborate honestly on what each other is running for rollout to get a good idea where we should be for the track layout. I tinkered with the settings a little but not much. Just a few clicks on boost and turbo. Believe it or not, but the first 3 quals I went from 55 boost and 5 turbo to 52 and 3 in the main. Everything else stayed the same in the esc all day. I did try a different motor once and that was a mistake. Once I hit 80+mm of rollout the car was fast and had extremely low fade through 46+ laps, somewhere around .4 fade. The higher I geared up through out the day, the cooler the motor got and the faster and less fade I experienced. It was just tiny adjustments that got my car to where it was in the main. Anyone, at any time can ask what I am running and I will plug my car in so you can see for yourself. I think the biggest change in my car came from switching to graylow rears to loosen the rear end up and going up in the tubes. Not sure why the settings didn't work for bb in the main. Maybe its that rev6 thats nearly 70 grams heavier than the crc

Bob-Stormer

iTrader: (8)

All debating can usually be solved by applying the error correction formula.

I love to run the numbers, so I apologize up front, but it's an interesting read, and LONG. But fun and worth it.

Read the following thread I wrote on the "Stormer Error Correction", do the math, observe the results.
http://www.rctech.net/forum/electric...on-thread.html

I thought ahead and grabbed the PKC results from the trash on the way out the door.

It's tougher in what I'll call a club race situation, where there is a LOT of traffic and big spread in lap times, compared to a big show (several hundred drivers) where everybody in the main finishes perhaps 5-10 seconds apart, not 45-50 seconds.

PKC main for 17.5 blinky. Mains aren't a good indicator of potential. More a matter of survival and traffic avoidance. but I'm not digging that hard through this 2" thick stack of paper.

1) Bohlman..53/8:05.354 fast 8.914, top 20 9.000, error (.086)
2) Grosse....53/8:05.659 fast 8.871, top 20 8.941, error (.070)
3) Post........51/8:01.486 fast 9.209, top 20, error (.083)
4) Isakson...51/8:03.509 fast 9.10, top 20 9.181, error (.081)
5) Poulson...50/8:06.160 fast 8.968, top 20 9.205, error (.237)
6)Butts.......49/8:09.035 fast 9.112, top 20 9.308, error (.196)

13.5 open
1) Randy....59/8:06.324, fast 7.906, 8.029, (.123)
2) Mitch.....58/8:06.255, fast 7.755, 8.049, (.294)
3) BB........57/8:05.676, fast 8.010, 8.211, (.201)
4) Cookie...57/8:07.393, fast 7.952, 8.121, (.169)
5) Stormer.55/8:13.072, fast 8.306, 8.526, (.220)(last lap marshal...'DOH)
6) Balk......54/8:08.857, fast 8.380, 8.558, (.178)

Bottom line. Error correction in the low (.2's) or less for everybody. Everybody driving to their cars potential. Blinky separation between the top 6 for fastest lap (.198). For open 13.5 fastest lap separation (.474) with similar error correction. It's not a true picture because the mains are different than best qualifying, but it's close enough.

It also shows because the Blinky cars were more reasonable and similar in speed, there is less passing and less discrepancy in speed, and easier and more effective passing.

My WGT, only change, speedo tune.

Stormer rnd #2, 39/6:04.915, 8.938, avg 9.356 (.418)
Stormer rnd #3, 41/6:05.555, 8.591, avg 8.915 (.324) (now 3rd
qualifier)

Had I driven round 2 with the same accuracy as round 3, would only have saved me about 3 seconds, and netted a 39/6:01.21. I'll attribute the slight improvement in accuracy to track time. That's generally the case in the numbers as the weekend wears on. (and a re-sort to help with traffic).

Mains,
17.5 top 8 spread 8.914-9.04 (.126 seconds) with similar error corrections
13.5 top 8 spread 7.906-8.466 (.560 seconds) with similar error corrections

Simple fact is this, "Blinky" produced tighter racing, with more consistent cars and less irregularitys in speed with less fuss. Based on my reading of the "math", I'd be willing to bet that ALL of the drivers in the "blinky" class felt it was fair and even. The open speedo class drivers likely did not feel the same when getting punted on the straightaway by a car doing 20mph more at the end of the straight.

if you want to run a few numbers on yourselves, here's a few pointers.

(average top 20) - fastest lap time= more an indicator of car potential (weeds out slow laps, marshals, traffic etc.)
(average over whole race) - fast lap time = more an indicator of driver potential (leaves in the junk, less junk=better driver)

Nobody minds being the same speed on the straight, and it keeps the cars safer and the rythym better. Throw 3-4 cars in that are utterly to fast and it's a mess every time. we ain't at the Birds, this is local drivers. Slow down the racing, make it reasonable, and people will have more fun, less frustration, and come out to race more. Fast guys will still win, but not by 5 laps, maybe only 1 or 2. 1-2 laps makes me feel like I still have a shot and keeps spirits high. 5 laps... that's disheartening and ends in broken cars and off track excursions.

Kave

iTrader: (17)

You can drive clean and not be fast, please do not assess your ability to win a race on your ability to run clean because they are NOT the same thing. I dont remember the last time I saw Mike Johnson win a race, but I dont remember the last time I saw him hit something either!

And John and I ran the same stuff, in cars settings motors everything. Sometimes it comes down to the guy behind the wheel BB. You have been racing enough to know this.

This discussion is actually fairly valid and I am enjoying it so keep it up.

bjs227

iTrader: (17)

This discussion is pretty health, which is good. Most topics like this get ugly after a while but his one still smells good. LOL
Got a text from big ads today and he said, “your race is getting some publicity.” I had really no clue really what he was talking about till I finished read this thread while eating sushi this evening. (jabber I ate your share of sushi too)
While I think binky is the way it should go at the future races. I’ve gotten calls from a fair amount of racers, after I posted the question if we should switch it, saying they are preparing for open speedo so to be fair I think I need to stay with the current rule set for 12th stock. But blinky will be the next race for sure.
Racing the 12th scale for the first time at PCK was fun in blinky mode right up to the point my lipo puffed up and burned out my tekin and servo. Otherwise it was a great experience a really an enjoyable drive and reminded me a racing oval with Mike Boylan in Florida last summer. The only sucky thing is I cant return the receiver pack to thunder power for a new one because I left it in a damn snow bank outside. LOL

SkarTisu

iTrader: (8)

Looking at things from a different point of view, I see this:

Brian was driving the same car (well, same type of car I assume - he's got 2 1/12th scales and I assume he had one set up for 17.5 and the other set up for 13.5) and his error correction was twice as high with the 13.5 car. That shows me he wasn't as consistent with the car because it was a lot faster. So, the comparison to me is apples to oranges in a way. Faster cars are harder to drive by nature. I've seen this for decades in off-road.

I'd argue that passing is much more difficult when the cars all run the same speed. Ever watched a VTA main? I completely agree that there's less discrepancy in speed. The error correction numbers definitely prove that.

To me, this is the beauty of open speedo. You were out to lunch with your speedo settings, but got help from others and found two whole laps in the car simply by changing the settings. No gearing change, no battery change, no motor tuning. I agree that if you have the wrong speedo settings, you're in the rhubarb. However, as you've seen, finding help isn't difficult, and the results are amazing! With that knowledge, you can now move forward and test more from a known-good setup, and find a little more speed by just moving some sliders around on a control panel on your computer.

Lower power motors produced tighter racing in that instance, not fixed timing in and of itself. You should SEE the racing we've been having in Minnesota in foam tire sedan with open speedos and 17.5 motors. Qualifying positions have been decided by .001 seconds, mains are rarely won with a gap of more than 2 seconds, and error correction (in our case it's called standard deviation - same concept, slightly different calc method) has regularly been under .200. We've all had time to figure out how to make the cars go fast, so everybody's on a level playing field.

It's not a mess every time. I've been "that guy" with the ballistic car on the straightaway closing in on cars in front of me with a hair-raising closing speed. The faster driver just needs to realize he's closing in quickly and...you know...let off. Collisions due to difference in speed are a driver issue, not an equipment issue.

I agree. Here in Minnesota, those classes are called VTA, Mini Cooper and Spec Slash.

My point is this - If the classes which are currently open speedo are brought "back" to blinky, I believe that those classes will be plunged back into motor and battery wars. Racers will gravitate to one or two motors since they're the ones that are proving to be the fastest. To be the most fair, somebody's going to have to check battery voltage on everyone before each run. Pits might need to be policed looking for battery warmers. The days of the money guys showing up with lots of batteries, lots of motors, several chargers (now hooked together for gigantic charge/discharge rates) and dynos/gauss meters will return.

I absolutely understand the frustration of dealing with the matrix of tuning options the open speedos have introduced. Walking into it with no knowledge would make it EXTREMELY tough and time consuming to figure that out. Luckily, racers are generally good people and are willing to help each other out by sharing the knowledge they have on the speedos to get others up to speed. I think the huge upside to these speedos is that the motor and battery combination is a lot less important. Lots of different motors are fast, and most batteries are also fast. If you need more speed, dial it up for free. It sounds like other speedo options are also becoming competitive, some of them very easy to tune. Everybody is getting a handle on the timing advance thing, it's just taken a while. Now that we're here, it would be nice to just leave things alone and not have to break out the credit card again for different equipment.

Bob-Stormer

iTrader: (8)

Firstly, you really can't compare it all, it wasn't the same car. BUT if you want to split hairs over 1/10 of a second...

Randy Grosse had a similar result with nearly twice as high in mod as Brian. Mind you, the difference between the accuracy , all things considered, is only .1 seconds PER LAP. between 17.5 Blinky, and Open 13.5. I'd say that's more than reasonable. .1 seconds that's only 3 seconds over 30 laps. I'd say if you can keep your error nearly the same and go a LOT faster, you're doing just fine.

more importantly, that was the mains, not qualifying. Mains is NOT the place to do accuracy testing if you want to split hairs. And I mentioned that.

EVERY driver in Blinky 17.5 had a Legitimate, mathematical shot at winning the main at the PKC race. all of them ran fast laps in the 8.87 - 9.118 range. In 13.5, mathematically speaking only 4. When you're 25-45 seconds and 4-5 laps down in qualifying by the time you get to 5th qualifier... you're not likely going to go home with hardware...

The only real place to accurately see is in a persons best qualifier. Not how they held off people in the main, or were held up. Or what was left of their tires from the weekend.

there's little doubt that Randy and Mitch are among the best 1/12th racers we have in our area. Randy duplicated Bohlmans accuracy from 17.5 to 13.5 and vice versa. Nothing wrong with that.

And that's my rub and CURSE of open speedo. Of the average guys (who make up the majority of most clubs), Of the guys in the B and C mains, How many of them are seriously able to get to the track to make a 5% change? of those, who among them would be able to tell that it was a 5% gain or loss or the car was tweaked the first time out and simply drove better because it wasn't as bent? The guys in the B and C, would VERY likely turned faster lap times with a blinky setup. They're in the C main because they aren't able to run consistently. let's throw ridiculous power at them...

By the bottom of the "B" in Blinky, the qualifying was 10 laps down from the leader... 10 LAPS... when the field is more even'd up. Once again, this aint the snowbirds. We're not 10 seconds out of the hunt by the bottom of the "B", it's 10 laps.

The high end tuning will NOT take a guy from last if he is typically a last place guy and thrust him into the show. So why add the complication? Do what's best for the majority. Entry fees tell the story, and what racers want. People speak with their wallets.

Somebody BEGGED the PKC race to add Foam touring, "people love it, you h". Lowest participated in class other than 1/18th.

Whatever it is we will show up and race whatever the classes are. Blinky is easier and the racing is closer and better to watch as a spectator, and to be involved in as a racer. I don't care if I'm last as long as the guy in 9th and I are having a major dual, where you get off the stand and shake hands like you both just won the lottery. I just want a good race and to feel I had a fair shot and was competitive.

What do I know....

Bob-Stormer

iTrader: (8)

<---Looks up to make sure the sky isn't falling...

Considering our Spec classes are the same speed as open mod used to be, really? Do you think the average guy can legitimately pull off even 13.5 open anymore? maybe 4 drivers at a race of 150 entries can make it look effortless and correct (regional drivers). and it's not because of a slight difference in a warm pack.

big difference between an old motor putting out 55 watts outta the bag and a new one putting out over 120 out of the bag. The reason we don't see dynos as much... just not necessary the power is now there. AND, as soon as a decent commercially available unit is out.... you'll see them at the track again. needed or not. It's a hobby, it's going to happen. Just now it's not as big a deal to find 5% in the motor. you don't need that 5% for the majority of us.

It's just to fast. 96% of us (waves hand in a broad sweeping motion) can have WAY to much power right out of the package. Those 96% of us no longer need that stuff to have more power than we can use. I have recently done a whole qualifier with what was LEFT in a pack that was in a car from a race 6 weeks ago... that's ridiculous to me..

I think if you look around a bit, you'll find promoters and the people that watch out for racers AND WANT TO SEE INCREASED PARTICIPATION, are pushing for slower cars. And slower is a relative term. 13.5 is silly fast anymore.

I am for one thing, and one thing only. Getting racers to the track. I don't care what class it is, let's make it fun and get folks out.

And the Cold Stone Creamery... I'm also for that.