Originally Posted by
ScottE1776
Most of my concerns involve "the rules". I was dismayed when I returned to the hobby and found that "Thingies" had taken over every class for bodies (other than GT or VTA). History repeats itself. The only reason this occurred was because the folks in charge of the rule set allowed it. Innovation within the set rules is fine, the difficulty lies in attempting to anticipate change and to allow or disallow these changes as the case may be to the betterment of the hobby.
I couldn't agree more!!!! I have watched the degradation of the rules and it brings back early discussions with some of the pioneers in RC cars: We must not let this hobby get like slotcars with "doorstop" bodies. I was a member of the ROAR body approval committee, and except for VTA, F1, and a very few others, not many current body would be acceptable. I think ROAR adopted a "Global Spec" set of rules in some classes that really sucks!!!
When we originally started running the pan cars in Toledo a few years ago, GT bodies were used (Motonica). The idea was to be different from the Open 4wd cars and possible attract new racers who liked more "scale" cars. It did not take long for the go fast boys to decide the open bodies were faster and easier to drive, so bye, bye GT bodies!
Some of us even got together an order for old school GT bodies from Italy and to my knowledge none have been used.
Looked at your album! Although I raced in Toledo and the Midwest, the pics look very similar to mine! I knew Joe Sullivan pretty well from ROAR and him coming to the big Toledo RC Show when RC cars were really big!!