Do you feel that? The winds of change thread!
11-29-2014, 06:23 AM
#31
I know in my area we had a good strong onroad following about 5-6 yrs ago and it fell on its face and went to zero onroad racing.
Last yr a carpet track opened in a mall. It started slow but by the end of the season we were averaging about 40 entries.
During the summer they ran one race a month and kept the 40 entry average.
Now that carpet season has really got going we are running a 6 race points series.
First race we had 50-55 entries
Race 2 66 entries
Race 3 72 entries with a handful of reg that didn't run
So it's definetly picking up. There are new faces every week.
There is even a new carpet track that opened about an hour an a half from the one in the mall. The guys there have a 1st class place.
100x48 on a sub floor.
So we went from 0 places and racers to close to 100 racers and two awesome tracks
Glad on road is going strong in my area
Last yr a carpet track opened in a mall. It started slow but by the end of the season we were averaging about 40 entries.
During the summer they ran one race a month and kept the 40 entry average.
Now that carpet season has really got going we are running a 6 race points series.
First race we had 50-55 entries
Race 2 66 entries
Race 3 72 entries with a handful of reg that didn't run
So it's definetly picking up. There are new faces every week.
There is even a new carpet track that opened about an hour an a half from the one in the mall. The guys there have a 1st class place.
100x48 on a sub floor.
So we went from 0 places and racers to close to 100 racers and two awesome tracks
Glad on road is going strong in my area
11-29-2014, 07:05 AM
#32
Tech Master
iTrader: (6)
A few years ago, my home track (which was an awesome indoor carpet facility) decided to convert to dirt. I resisted the change for a long time, but eventually got a buggy since there was just no on-road racing available. Took me about a month to learn how to drive the thing well enough to challenge the buggy leaders. But then, as soon as I could finally drive the car well enough to be competitive, I quickly realized that it was necessary to run new buggy tires all the time if one wanted to have any shot at finishing on the podium. No way I was going to spend that kind of money to feed my hungry new buggy's appetite for race tires. Sold the buggy, and have been driving long distances to find quality on-road carpet racing. I still mourn the loss of the carpet venue that was just 20 minutes from home.......but I find that traveling a long way to run on-road carpet is way better than dropping a whole lot of $$ on buggy tires for an off-road car that I didn't even like much. Long live on-road carpet racing. I tried the off-road thing, but it just wasn't for me.
11-29-2014, 07:09 AM
#33
As an avid(pardon the pun) on road guy I seem to be noticing the inevitable shift back to on road racing. Maybe it was all the drift inspired car sales or maybe it's off road becoming muddied by the too many classes syndrome that all but killed on road but it seems at least to me like the climate shift in rc may be happening again......or is it just wishful thinking?
http://www.rctech.net/forum/12498333-post1.html
11-29-2014, 07:28 AM
#35
I hope Onroad makes a comeback. As it stands now, Offroad tracks still out-number onroad in Socal:
http://www.rctech.net/forum/12498333-post1.html
http://www.rctech.net/forum/12498333-post1.html
(just kidding off road guys!)....I'm just hoping that maybe a few years from now that the shoe is on the other foot.
11-29-2014, 08:41 AM
#37
I hope Onroad makes a comeback. As it stands now, Offroad tracks still out-number onroad in Socal:
http://www.rctech.net/forum/12498333-post1.html
http://www.rctech.net/forum/12498333-post1.html
Be happy you have some great options like TQ, if we want to race carpet it's 12hrs of driving round trip to TQ which is the closest carpet track. The entire on-road scene in this state is a total of two parking lot setups, and while those track do the best with what they have its not ideal. I wish I could say that on-road was making a return here but that is just not true, the dirt burners rule here.
11-29-2014, 08:59 AM
#38
I hope Onroad makes a comeback. As it stands now, Offroad tracks still out-number onroad in Socal:
http://www.rctech.net/forum/12498333-post1.html
http://www.rctech.net/forum/12498333-post1.html
We are very fortunate to have an abundance of On-Road racing in So-Cal right now
If it makes any more of a "comeback", they will have to build larger facilities to hold all the entries
11-29-2014, 09:09 AM
#39
Be happy you have some great options like TQ, if we want to race carpet it's 12hrs of driving round trip to TQ which is the closest carpet track. The entire on-road scene in this state is a total of two parking lot setups, and while those track do the best with what they have its not ideal. I wish I could say that on-road was making a return here but that is just not true, the dirt burners rule here.
I was only making the point that there is still more offroad tracks than on-road tracks. Nothing more.
My first sentence was agreeing with the OP, and not specific to SoCal.
Last edited by RCBuddha; 11-29-2014 at 09:30 AM.
11-29-2014, 10:13 AM
#41
I know up here in Edmonton Alberta Canada, that our club has seen a explosion of membership the last couple of years. We routinely have club races with 100-110 entries. (5 classes, racers can only run 2) We are now running to 12-14 car heats, each class gets 2 qualifiers and a main and we still aren't done till 1am.
11-29-2014, 01:59 PM
#42
A problem some tracks have though is the fight between USVTA and ROAR VTA. Now I do say thats crazy. The only real difference between the classes is motor and limited batt mah. Why not pick one and stick to it. Running both with 4 in each makes the race day that much longer.
11-30-2014, 05:56 AM
#43
I'm surprised at how much I hear from the US about slowed down touring cars (like VTA and USGT) as the "starter classes", considering how expensive touring cars are! And also, how slow they're being made (here, the slowest TC class is 17.5 blinky).
An Associated TC6.2 costs £330 here, while a Schumacher SupaStox GT S1 costs £90! And you get get an ESC/motor/battery combo for £85, which is barely more than the price of just a 2S ESC... GT12 also runs fairly realistic bodies, not the usual 1/12 "wedge" bodies (it'd be cool if McAllister would make some bodies of American GT3 cars for GT12, though!).
So no surprise that GT12 is so popular here!
An Associated TC6.2 costs £330 here, while a Schumacher SupaStox GT S1 costs £90! And you get get an ESC/motor/battery combo for £85, which is barely more than the price of just a 2S ESC... GT12 also runs fairly realistic bodies, not the usual 1/12 "wedge" bodies (it'd be cool if McAllister would make some bodies of American GT3 cars for GT12, though!).
So no surprise that GT12 is so popular here!
11-30-2014, 06:33 AM
#44
I'm surprised at how much I hear from the US about slowed down touring cars (like VTA and USGT) as the "starter classes", considering how expensive touring cars are! And also, how slow they're being made (here, the slowest TC class is 17.5 blinky).
An Associated TC6.2 costs £330 here, while a Schumacher SupaStox GT S1 costs £90! And you get get an ESC/motor/battery combo for £85, which is barely more than the price of just a 2S ESC... GT12 also runs fairly realistic bodies, not the usual 1/12 "wedge" bodies (it'd be cool if McAllister would make some bodies of American GT3 cars for GT12, though!).
So no surprise that GT12 is so popular here!
An Associated TC6.2 costs £330 here, while a Schumacher SupaStox GT S1 costs £90! And you get get an ESC/motor/battery combo for £85, which is barely more than the price of just a 2S ESC... GT12 also runs fairly realistic bodies, not the usual 1/12 "wedge" bodies (it'd be cool if McAllister would make some bodies of American GT3 cars for GT12, though!).
So no surprise that GT12 is so popular here!
Just for fun last year at our parking-lot track, I tried a 1/10 scale pan car with 17.5/1s. I could spin the rear tires out of almost every corner. That's frustrating to many beginners.
But I do agree that the price point for pan cars makes them very attractive.
11-30-2014, 07:23 AM
#45
Tech Master