Dawn Sanchez

Great news for you guys in love with LiPo and Brushless!!! And.. for those of you wanting to see the technology......

the 2007 ROAR Off Road Electric Nationals has added a LiPo/Brushless demo class!!!! This will be worked into the program of the four day race schedule, another first for ROAR!

Rules are this:

$50.00 entry (entry flyer will be changed)

Late sign ups ok for THIS CLASS ONLY - as long as its done no later than Wednesday at the track -before racing begins.

7.4V, any capacity LiPo battery
ANY BRUSHLESS MOTOR - open!
ROAR Legal 1:10 2wd Truck
6 minute qualifiers
20 minute A main, B main 10 minutes, the remaining mains, 6 minutes ** No bump ups **
Trophies for A main

You must either send in entry flyer from ROAR website or late sign up at the track no later than Wednesday of the event. (cash or check only)

This is open to anybody!! Even if you have signed up for three classes max as per rules, you may enter this demo class as well.

Questions to [email protected]

Dawn Sanchez
ROAR Vice President

syndr0me

iTrader: (32)

Wow, that's a fantastic first step, and exciting news! It's good to see some steps in this direction. Thank you to all those that helped it come to fruition.

Jake S

iTrader: (67)

hopefully this will lead to a brushless stock class lol

i dont mind lipo, because im still using wc ib4200s

squarehead

iTrader: (75)

Congratulations on the progress. It's great to see the change of heart, especially for a large event.



Now, we just need to make sure people know about the class enough to get out and run it.

tbeardmore

iTrader: (3)

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYY...!

Tekin Prez

20min A main? Now thats cool! Puts conservation into play depending on the track layout.

Looks like the first public outing for the new Tekin Lipo's.

I drive my buggy, truck and 4wd buggy for 20min each a few nights a week on the offroad track at my house. It is a whole different mindset than a quick sprint.

Tekin Prez

syndr0me

iTrader: (32)

Dawn,

Hi there, my name is Adam, and I'm a privateer racer that is not sponsored by or affiliated with any R/C company. I am simply a club racer with aspirations of competing at a higher level in the future, and also a proponent of LiPo batteries. I want to thank you and ROAR for taking this step toward bringing LiPo into mainstream racing. It's extremely encouraging to see the primary governing body in this country finally begin to embrace LiPo, and I hope it leads to good things in the future.

Several other racers with interests similar to my own have been discussing this race privately since you broke news of it, and while we're in agreement that it's a very positive first step, we have some concerns about the rules, and would also like to make some suggestions. I hope this isn't seen as a complaint, because it's certainly not. We're all just hopeful that this race will be a realistic example of what we can expect from LiPo racing in the future, and doesn't bring about the "Wild West" of LiPo, which is a potential problem with so much misinformation floating around, and all the different sources of LiPo battery.

1. Race Duration
The temptation to create longer races is understandable considering the larger capacity of LiPo batteries that are available today. This poses many problems, however. The first, is that not all companies providing batteries make them available in capacities large enough to complete a 20 minute race. Even though this is a "demo" class, LiPo has been used in racing for a while now, and almost entirely as a direct replacement for existing batteries, in existing races. Indeed, the largest provider of LiPo batteries for R/C cars (Orion) only have two capacity packs available, both of which are best suited for races between 5 and 10 minutes. By creating a 20 minute main, you run the risk of excluding this company, as well as others, such as TrakPower and Schumacher. Many of us don't see LiPo as a way of running enduro races, but rather as a low-maintenance alternative to NiMH batteries currently used in racing. Longer races are certainly an option, but I would encourage you to consider changing the length to something more reasonable, as to not exclude potentially a majority of the LiPo providers currently making batteries for R/C cars, including the Platinum pack made by Orion, which was voted battery of the year in R/C Car Action's recent poll.

It was also mentioned that having unbalanced race duration between the heats and the mains could lead to different batteries being used between the two, potentially changing weight, and adding other variables into racing that generally aren't present, and unnecessary. This leads me to my next point...

2. Weight
Solid rules on car weight should be established. Without them, you could potentially see a situation where people are picking the lightest battery possible for a given race duration, and therefore pushing their batteries too hard to make run time. As you surely know, dumping a LiPo is a very bad idea, and can lead to spectacular failure of the battery. There is no good reason to push these batteries that hard, since they have plenty of capacity to handle today's standard race length, but failure to implement weight rules could potentially lead to an unproductive environment, and could misrepresent one of LiPo's biggest markets, which is as an alternative to today's batteries with our existing race durations. It would be irresponsible to create an environment conducive to, and possibly encouraging battery failure.

3. Safety
This is a big issue with LiPo batteries, as we all know. However, quality LiPo batteries have been proven to be extremely safe, even when abused in an extreme manner. That said, not all batteries are created equal in this regard, and cheaper batteries often sourced from Chinese manufacturers are more likely to fail, and possibly do so in unpleasant way. It is CRUCIAL that ROAR recognize that there's a massive gap in regard to safety between cheap cells and quality cells. We all believe that any final rules will ultimately have to name "legal" cells by brand/manufacturer, and exclude all others that don't meet (yet to be) established safety criteria.

At the very least, I would hope there would be someone in place to document any incidents that may occur with LiPo batteries to collect as much data as possible about said incident. This would hopefully include the cell manufacturer, the type of case (if any) on the battery, and the circumstances that led to the failure. Hopefully there's no trouble, but if an incident does occur, it's extremely important to have this data for trending, and ultimately determining safety requirements of cells potentially named in future rules.


I hope you receive these suggestions in good faith, as they're intended. I realize it's not my place to tell ROAR how to run their races or their business, but as a concerned racer, I feel it's crucial to voice these concerns. I know the road to LiPo acceptance will be long, and hope to avoid any unnecessary setbacks by addressing them prior to the race.

I thank you for your time and consideration.

tallyrc

iTrader: (12)

did that just say "new tekin lipos"? do tell... or show better yet...

Tekin Prez

All the protos are pretty beatup at this point. We have been running some of them since the SIR endurance race last year here on our tracks. We used 7 pack in rotation at the enduro. I think they each saw 14 charges and performance never wiggled. Out of the car and on the charger

We plan to offer them to our team in the near future for final testing and use in this demo class.

FYI I drive my buggy, truck and 4wd buggy for 20min each a couple nights a week on the offroad track at my house... when it is not under snow.

Maybe about time for a Tekin Lipo thread where we can ask some questions of the users and see what they really want in terms of capacity and packaging.

Tekin Prez

syndr0me

iTrader: (32)

Do you guys intend to share the source of your cells, or keep that information confidential?

By the way, it's great to hear you're working on getting LiPo out there. Having large companies throw their weight behind it is great progress.

Tekin Prez

Walmart

Now I have done it, Syndrome is here. Glad to have you interested, but perhaps we should move this out of the ROAR demo class thread. Very interested in your feedback. Being Mr. Lipo I honestly intend to send you one when the team packs are going out.

Let me get a decent pic together and we can start a Tekin Lipo thread. I am still not sure we belong in this market, but we are ready. We really try to stay in areas that we have a technical advantage and avoid common goods that anyone can buy that may simply be a price war. Our interest was initially making sure they work with our products, but we did find a good source among all the junk available and have been pushing them to get even better. We are told we are their toughest customer to please. I take that as a compliment.

Prez

syndr0me

iTrader: (32)

Cool, let me know, I'd be happy to test and give feedback. Though I'm not equipped to do safety tests, or cycle life tests, which is one of the things that really differentiates the cells. Anyway, I'll haunt the Tekin LiPo thread once you start it. I promise to tread lightly. :-D