Should A-main drivers from the past 5 years be allowed to tune their cars or practice
07-05-2007, 10:09 AM
#31
bill: A novice will only beat a racer if the racer backpedals, or breaks. A handicap is an artificial means of making someone of a lesser skill level competitive with someone who's actually good. And yes, different shoes, clubs etc. do affect a players game, my point was that in Golf, an individual who sucks doesn't stand around pissing and moaning that he got beat by a better set-of clubs, or shoes, they understand that the club pro is the club pro because he's actually good. If they didn't understand that, golf would be dying at the same rate as On-road racing, and that's certainly not the case.
One other point from your prior post that has always bugged me, is that people seem to take offense to the whole "beat your best time" scenario. When I started racing my whole goal was to beat my best time everytime I got on the track, that's what made me better. If people looked at R/C from that perspective, they could find it very rewarding, regardless of where they end up in the standings at the end of a given race day. When your opponent is the clock, there's no equipment advantage, because time is a fixed entity. At that point you realize the only person you're trying to beat is yourself, so you don't care that the guy in front of you is two laps faster, you want to beat your time from the last run, and if you keep doing that eventually the guy in front will only be one lap faster, and so on.
Winning is not the be all end all, of rewarding aspects found in this hobby, but unfortunately, that's all anybody who's looking to get started wants to do, and they want to do it by their third heat, or they get discouraged and quit. Part of the problem is that to the average person what we do looks really easy, but when they actually do it, they find out how hard it is, and most people are just too lazy, or lack the attention span to stick with it. It's a result of our culture's "microwave mentality"
It is LIFE, it's not the only thing in my life, and certainly not the most important. It's the old adage, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right". If you're passionate about anything it's part of your life, otherwise it's just extraneous stuff.
One other point from your prior post that has always bugged me, is that people seem to take offense to the whole "beat your best time" scenario. When I started racing my whole goal was to beat my best time everytime I got on the track, that's what made me better. If people looked at R/C from that perspective, they could find it very rewarding, regardless of where they end up in the standings at the end of a given race day. When your opponent is the clock, there's no equipment advantage, because time is a fixed entity. At that point you realize the only person you're trying to beat is yourself, so you don't care that the guy in front of you is two laps faster, you want to beat your time from the last run, and if you keep doing that eventually the guy in front will only be one lap faster, and so on.
Winning is not the be all end all, of rewarding aspects found in this hobby, but unfortunately, that's all anybody who's looking to get started wants to do, and they want to do it by their third heat, or they get discouraged and quit. Part of the problem is that to the average person what we do looks really easy, but when they actually do it, they find out how hard it is, and most people are just too lazy, or lack the attention span to stick with it. It's a result of our culture's "microwave mentality"
It is LIFE, it's not the only thing in my life, and certainly not the most important. It's the old adage, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right". If you're passionate about anything it's part of your life, otherwise it's just extraneous stuff.
07-05-2007, 10:30 AM
#32
One other point from your prior post that has always bugged me, is that people seem to take offense to the whole "beat your best time" scenario. When I started racing my whole goal was to beat my best time everytime I got on the track, that's what made me better. If people looked at R/C from that perspective, they could find it very rewarding, regardless of where they end up in the standings at the end of a given race day. When your opponent is the clock, there's no equipment advantage, because time is a fixed entity. At that point you realize the only person you're trying to beat is yourself, so you don't care that the guy in front of you is two laps faster, you want to beat your time from the last run, and if you keep doing that eventually the guy in front will only be one lap faster, and so on.
Winning is not the be all end all, of rewarding aspects found in this hobby, but unfortunately, that's all anybody who's looking to get started wants to do, and they want to do it by their third heat, or they get discouraged and quit. Part of the problem is that to the average person what we do looks really easy, but when they actually do it, they find out how hard it is, and most people are just too lazy, or lack the attention span to stick with it. It's a result of our culture's "microwave mentality"
It is LIFE, it's not the only thing in my life, and certainly not the most important. It's the old adage, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right". If you're passionate about anything it's part of your life, otherwise it's just extraneous stuff.
ROAR Nats are coming up 
07-05-2007, 10:43 AM
#33
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Last edited by timmay70; 07-05-2007 at 09:23 PM.
07-05-2007, 10:50 AM
#34
bill: A novice will only beat a racer if the racer backpedals, or breaks. A handicap is an artificial means of making someone of a lesser skill level competitive with someone who's actually good. And yes, different shoes, clubs etc. do affect a players game, my point was that in Golf, an individual who sucks doesn't stand around pissing and moaning that he got beat by a better set-of clubs, or shoes, they understand that the club pro is the club pro because he's actually good. If they didn't understand that, golf would be dying at the same rate as On-road racing, and that's certainly not the case.
One other point from your prior post that has always bugged me, is that people seem to take offense to the whole "beat your best time" scenario. When I started racing my whole goal was to beat my best time everytime I got on the track, that's what made me better. If people looked at R/C from that perspective, they could find it very rewarding, regardless of where they end up in the standings at the end of a given race day. When your opponent is the clock, there's no equipment advantage, because time is a fixed entity. At that point you realize the only person you're trying to beat is yourself, so you don't care that the guy in front of you is two laps faster, you want to beat your time from the last run, and if you keep doing that eventually the guy in front will only be one lap faster, and so on.
Winning is not the be all end all, of rewarding aspects found in this hobby, but unfortunately, that's all anybody who's looking to get started wants to do, and they want to do it by their third heat, or they get discouraged and quit. Part of the problem is that to the average person what we do looks really easy, but when they actually do it, they find out how hard it is, and most people are just too lazy, or lack the attention span to stick with it. It's a result of our culture's "microwave mentality"
It is LIFE, it's not the only thing in my life, and certainly not the most important. It's the old adage, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right". If you're passionate about anything it's part of your life, otherwise it's just extraneous stuff.
One other point from your prior post that has always bugged me, is that people seem to take offense to the whole "beat your best time" scenario. When I started racing my whole goal was to beat my best time everytime I got on the track, that's what made me better. If people looked at R/C from that perspective, they could find it very rewarding, regardless of where they end up in the standings at the end of a given race day. When your opponent is the clock, there's no equipment advantage, because time is a fixed entity. At that point you realize the only person you're trying to beat is yourself, so you don't care that the guy in front of you is two laps faster, you want to beat your time from the last run, and if you keep doing that eventually the guy in front will only be one lap faster, and so on.
Winning is not the be all end all, of rewarding aspects found in this hobby, but unfortunately, that's all anybody who's looking to get started wants to do, and they want to do it by their third heat, or they get discouraged and quit. Part of the problem is that to the average person what we do looks really easy, but when they actually do it, they find out how hard it is, and most people are just too lazy, or lack the attention span to stick with it. It's a result of our culture's "microwave mentality"
It is LIFE, it's not the only thing in my life, and certainly not the most important. It's the old adage, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right". If you're passionate about anything it's part of your life, otherwise it's just extraneous stuff.
07-05-2007, 11:10 AM
#36
Nobody is being punished if you actually practice and get good. The whole point of my post is what to do to get new racers involved, and to at least stick around long enough to stay with it.
When I started in r/c (17 years ago- offroad) r/c was booming. You had 6 or 7 heats at every race, so there were people at your ability level who you could race. This is no longer the case. You now have 2-3 on-road electric heats, if that many.
You are right, the mentality or the novice has changed, but we as racers also need our mentality to get the novice to at least stick with racing long enough to get better.
Back to my tennis analogy. If a person just started playing, and instead of hitting the ball back to them, I hit winners every shot, how long do you think they would want to play with me? It is the same in r/c. People come and go, but you have to attract the novices/noobs to replace them, and unfortunately modern racing is terrible at that.
How many of the novices from 3-4 years ago are now a-main club competition? Given the current lack of new racers, what will happen in the next 3-4 years?
This is not about punishing people for not wanting to practice, or keeping the clubhouse closed to those who don't want to devote 9 hours a week to r/c. This is about growing the hobby, and keeping the tracks open.
When I started in r/c (17 years ago- offroad) r/c was booming. You had 6 or 7 heats at every race, so there were people at your ability level who you could race. This is no longer the case. You now have 2-3 on-road electric heats, if that many.
You are right, the mentality or the novice has changed, but we as racers also need our mentality to get the novice to at least stick with racing long enough to get better.
Back to my tennis analogy. If a person just started playing, and instead of hitting the ball back to them, I hit winners every shot, how long do you think they would want to play with me? It is the same in r/c. People come and go, but you have to attract the novices/noobs to replace them, and unfortunately modern racing is terrible at that.
How many of the novices from 3-4 years ago are now a-main club competition? Given the current lack of new racers, what will happen in the next 3-4 years?
This is not about punishing people for not wanting to practice, or keeping the clubhouse closed to those who don't want to devote 9 hours a week to r/c. This is about growing the hobby, and keeping the tracks open.
point# 3: Sports, missing racing because of Baseball Practice? Hell, if someone's practicing baseball, it's probably because they want to learn how to play the game better. So they're dedicated enough to go to Baseball practice to learn to play better, Right? What if they were too busy to go to baseball practice? Does the league handicap or make concessions for a team because they're too busy to practice? Nope doesn't happen. Time is made for baseball, because they decided they wanted to be good at baseball, and the wanted to win. Dedication and desire for baseball.
Now they go R/C racing, their car's a bag of crap because they don't work on it, they can't drive because they never practice, yet it's fair for them to expect to win the A-main? Of course not, they chose baseball over R/C. Seems fair to me.......
If R/C falls too low on someone's priority list, they can accept the performance they're capable of, or they can devote more energy to it, just like every other competitive endeavor on the face of mother Earth.
Last edited by CypressMidWest; 07-05-2007 at 11:25 AM.
07-05-2007, 11:17 AM
#37
... If you made the show in the last 5 years you must run a one-way front and rear for the next 2 years.
... If you made the show in the last 5 years you must run 12th with the motor wires reversed... (rumor has it that Dumas has experience with this... better start practicing).
... If you made the show in the last 5 years you must run 12th with the motor wires reversed... (rumor has it that Dumas has experience with this... better start practicing).
07-05-2007, 11:25 AM
#39
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Last edited by timmay70; 07-05-2007 at 09:19 PM.
07-05-2007, 11:36 AM
#41
The clubhouse is closed by perception. If you have 3 heats of high level racers and a novice shows up and gets lapped 5 times during a race, how many do you think will come back. If the novice sees thousands of dollars in equipment compared to his $300, how many will come back. If the novice is convinced that he will have to spend long hours practicing and a lot of $$ to compete, how many will come back.
Even though the racers are friendly, the world of r/c racing is a clubhouse. The cost of admission is $$ for equipment and hours and hours of practice. Their used to be "fun" classes, which didn't cost a lot of money, or require a large time commitment (MINI, trucks), but those are almost gone at most places, except during "big" races.
Over time r/c on road electric racing has been very specialized, and as a result has become much less popular. What is wrong with letting a novice win in a novice race with a couple of seasoned racers thrown in to fill the heat.
There's nothing wrong with this, we do it in Cooper every week at our LHS, problem is the driver's with more skill still win, unless we throw a race, and the newbies all know when we do "take one for the team" if you will. There's no real morale boost there, believe me.
IR
WAIT, I KNOW, THEIR PRIDE WILL BE HURT.
I know, I just ruin every funny thread with serious questions about the future of r/c. Sorry.
Even though the racers are friendly, the world of r/c racing is a clubhouse. The cost of admission is $$ for equipment and hours and hours of practice. Their used to be "fun" classes, which didn't cost a lot of money, or require a large time commitment (MINI, trucks), but those are almost gone at most places, except during "big" races.
Over time r/c on road electric racing has been very specialized, and as a result has become much less popular. What is wrong with letting a novice win in a novice race with a couple of seasoned racers thrown in to fill the heat.
There's nothing wrong with this, we do it in Cooper every week at our LHS, problem is the driver's with more skill still win, unless we throw a race, and the newbies all know when we do "take one for the team" if you will. There's no real morale boost there, believe me.
IR
WAIT, I KNOW, THEIR PRIDE WILL BE HURT.
I know, I just ruin every funny thread with serious questions about the future of r/c. Sorry.
You're right, On-Road is doomed unless we come up with a class that requires ZERO maintenance, no practice to be king of the A-main, and has a buy-in cost under $300.
If we make it too easy, it won't be any fun any more.
07-05-2007, 12:29 PM
#44
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Last edited by timmay70; 07-05-2007 at 09:18 PM.