62LikesLet's talk modified 1/12
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08-16-2016, 07:42 PM
#95
Ok.... I'll apologize now for anyone who may be offended... I love 1/12 Modified (as it should be) and the rules/direction people are talking is totally wrong on so many levels.
#1 - IT'S MODIFIED... Not another spec'd out, VTA/F1 class for people who are just joining the hobby. This is for the racers that have spent a few years and want to race against the best on the planet. PERIOD. Sponsors and companies have to get some integrity and give NOTHING to races in stock. You want a ride, move up!! That's how it used to be when mod was actually the class everyone watched and everyone wanted to win.
#2 - F1, NASCAR and every other form of racing have tinkered with rules to improve racing. Rev limiters are the WORST thing possible for racing. Drive a great line, get a run on a guy and.... Rev limiter stops the pass onto the straight as it goes into wuss mode.... This is why NASCAR went to low downforce on those large tracks - create lifting, driving/passes with straight speed - NOT DRIVING SPEC WIDE OPEN. F1 added push to pass buttons to aide in overtaking. We want to limit this?
#3 - Folks, what makes Modified hard these days is the bottom end/throttle response being lightning fast. When 1/12 cars can pull wheelies at will, I think it's a dead give away. Taking away boosted speedos will make you tune for a balance of top speed and bottom end. This is a good thing as well as the SIMPLIFICATION of Modified for the racer wanting to move into Mod.
#4 - ELECTRONICS WILL NEVER BE PERFECTLY, IDENTICALLY MATCHED SO IT'S FAIR. If someone develops a system they claim this, they are full of it or it's going to ADD A TON OF COST to the equation of changing from stock or super stock. Conspiracy theories all over the place, cheating and eminent death of the class.
#5 - Modified didn't used to be just about balls out speed. It used to be about driving, precision, race management (tires/batteries). Every time you shorten braking zones (tons of drag brake we use now) and can just jam on the throttle, it turns into what we have now - Only a few guys that can hang on or in spec races, rarely a great show because no one lifts and everyone bounces off walls, each other because they can't give a foot or your done. TRUE MODIFIED IS OVERPOWERED but it limited in another way.... Which leads to....
#6 - Modified TC is being run on the SAME TRACKS with none of this talk!!!!!! Mod TC at the Halloween Classic is 6.5 right? It's maybe 10.5? Why?? Cause it's limited by tire performance and a drastic reduction in downforce vs. the 1/12 bodies. Oh and it's 2s using nearly the same winds and 1/12 Mod....
So... Back to my same comments before, limit the fuel tank or decrease grip (I prefer both).
It's been about 23 YEARS (wow I'm getting old) since I won my first 1/12 MODIFIED ROAR NATIONAL. 14x3 with 6-cells on asphalt in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's so frustrating to watch the decline, small surge, decline over and over again bringing it to this current point.
#1 - IT'S MODIFIED... Not another spec'd out, VTA/F1 class for people who are just joining the hobby. This is for the racers that have spent a few years and want to race against the best on the planet. PERIOD. Sponsors and companies have to get some integrity and give NOTHING to races in stock. You want a ride, move up!! That's how it used to be when mod was actually the class everyone watched and everyone wanted to win.
#2 - F1, NASCAR and every other form of racing have tinkered with rules to improve racing. Rev limiters are the WORST thing possible for racing. Drive a great line, get a run on a guy and.... Rev limiter stops the pass onto the straight as it goes into wuss mode.... This is why NASCAR went to low downforce on those large tracks - create lifting, driving/passes with straight speed - NOT DRIVING SPEC WIDE OPEN. F1 added push to pass buttons to aide in overtaking. We want to limit this?
#3 - Folks, what makes Modified hard these days is the bottom end/throttle response being lightning fast. When 1/12 cars can pull wheelies at will, I think it's a dead give away. Taking away boosted speedos will make you tune for a balance of top speed and bottom end. This is a good thing as well as the SIMPLIFICATION of Modified for the racer wanting to move into Mod.
#4 - ELECTRONICS WILL NEVER BE PERFECTLY, IDENTICALLY MATCHED SO IT'S FAIR. If someone develops a system they claim this, they are full of it or it's going to ADD A TON OF COST to the equation of changing from stock or super stock. Conspiracy theories all over the place, cheating and eminent death of the class.
#5 - Modified didn't used to be just about balls out speed. It used to be about driving, precision, race management (tires/batteries). Every time you shorten braking zones (tons of drag brake we use now) and can just jam on the throttle, it turns into what we have now - Only a few guys that can hang on or in spec races, rarely a great show because no one lifts and everyone bounces off walls, each other because they can't give a foot or your done. TRUE MODIFIED IS OVERPOWERED but it limited in another way.... Which leads to....
#6 - Modified TC is being run on the SAME TRACKS with none of this talk!!!!!! Mod TC at the Halloween Classic is 6.5 right? It's maybe 10.5? Why?? Cause it's limited by tire performance and a drastic reduction in downforce vs. the 1/12 bodies. Oh and it's 2s using nearly the same winds and 1/12 Mod....
So... Back to my same comments before, limit the fuel tank or decrease grip (I prefer both).
It's been about 23 YEARS (wow I'm getting old) since I won my first 1/12 MODIFIED ROAR NATIONAL. 14x3 with 6-cells on asphalt in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's so frustrating to watch the decline, small surge, decline over and over again bringing it to this current point.
I have 7 year old twins. When I bring them to a road coarse day, they are the only two kids there. Granted the place I attend is relatively new, and doesn't see a big turnout, but they are still the only two kids on right turn day. I think maybe that is the problem ya'll need to be thinking about.
A limited modified class is the definition of an oxy-moron, isn't it? So what folks really want is another class? Must have great turnouts at those tracks. Not trying to be a smart-a$$, just discussing. I don't go to big races, and I'm far from a "good" racer. But I love toy cars, competing with them, and I see so few kids doing it these days.
08-16-2016, 11:03 PM
#96
I'm with Josh. It's mod. It's supposed to be hard. I also race stock and super stock and I do enjoy the strategy those classes bring. I've raced mod when it was 4 cell 15quad or 14trip in the 90's. I cut brushes and tweaked springs. Modified transmitter triggers. I've matched cells. I've tested spurs and pinions for best efficiency. I've plotted fast lap to last lap ratios. I get it. You need to be very committed to run mod. Am I good at it? Barely. But I love the challenge. I race spec classes and it almost gets my heart rate up. Race mod against some of your buds with a decent car....that it inspiring. I went to '14 Worlds more or less just to say I did. Got 34th. That is 35 places higher then the guys who stayed home on the couch. That's not actually true, there were 43 competitors in Florida that year.
I've said to a few in response to the 6.5 blinky suggestion, what do I think: I feel it is a plastic coated sealed for my protection castrated version of something I love. Mod is hard. You need to do the work. You get it right, you will be well rewarded.
Society has changed. We need to pat everyone on the back for a job well done. Everyone gets a trophy for showing up. If you try, you win. Ah come on, if it comes easy, it means nothing. Make it difficult, you will remember it and others will recognize greatness. I recognize that Josh, Donny, Keven and others are better then me. But that won't stop me from trying.
I race 2 spec classes already. But mod is something else, it doesn't need to be a 3rd spec class.
Brian
I've said to a few in response to the 6.5 blinky suggestion, what do I think: I feel it is a plastic coated sealed for my protection castrated version of something I love. Mod is hard. You need to do the work. You get it right, you will be well rewarded.
Society has changed. We need to pat everyone on the back for a job well done. Everyone gets a trophy for showing up. If you try, you win. Ah come on, if it comes easy, it means nothing. Make it difficult, you will remember it and others will recognize greatness. I recognize that Josh, Donny, Keven and others are better then me. But that won't stop me from trying.
I race 2 spec classes already. But mod is something else, it doesn't need to be a 3rd spec class.
Brian
08-17-2016, 12:18 AM
#97
There is a problem with numbers with onroad racing of all classes compared to offroad i believe because it doesn't get the same coverage. How many times do you read about onroad race in magazines or even about the products that are available. I haven't seen any but see such evolution in the offroad world in the last few years. I dont believe that the low numbers is solely because the cars to fast i do think that limits of some sort need to be set for indoors where room is limited. Im new to 1/12 onroad but new cars are made basically the same as 15 year's ago but motors and batteries are far better
08-17-2016, 02:52 AM
#98
08-17-2016, 04:15 AM
#99
This is probably a question for Howard: Can motors be detuned with ESC programming in a way that can be easily duplicated and consistent across brands like blinky? Could the idea of a rev limiter, or some kind of performance limiter be baked into ESC firmware? Thinking something like mod blinky that's detuned significantly, but consistently. Perhaps that could open the door to going spec ESC profile but still leave motors and batteries unmolested.
The difficulty is testing and approving the performance. Some manufacturers already have an issue with the test fee for Blinky. I can imagine the response when the fee goes up by a factor of five or more!
An alternative would be to get one manufacturer to do something similar, and then use that one spec ESC.
But I don't think any of these ideas fit the concept of a class called "modified".
I do like the idea of a battery energy limit (probably best accomplished via a maximum battery weight) and much longer races. Making tires and battery charge last for 20+ minutes sounds like a challenge.
Keep in mind, my observations come from a person who could never possibly race modified unless crash helmets were provided for the marshalls.
08-17-2016, 04:28 AM
#100
The devices I speak of are digital, meaning they don't have as big of a tolerance issue like a purely analog device would of days past...
The same could be true of a mAh limiting device instead of the RPM limiter. It would count the number of mAh that pass from the battery to the ESC, and when the amount it is preset to is hit, it would turn off the motor much like a voltage cutoff does...
By the way, most chargers can be set to put in so many mAh into the battery, so its not a foreign technology to put that system into use for the battery output we would want to employ. Its just a discharge meter. When it hits the preset amount of mAh used, it shuts down the output to the motor.
The same could be true of a mAh limiting device instead of the RPM limiter. It would count the number of mAh that pass from the battery to the ESC, and when the amount it is preset to is hit, it would turn off the motor much like a voltage cutoff does...
By the way, most chargers can be set to put in so many mAh into the battery, so its not a foreign technology to put that system into use for the battery output we would want to employ. Its just a discharge meter. When it hits the preset amount of mAh used, it shuts down the output to the motor.
Creating a small, light-weight device capable of measuring with good precision the very large currents we are using is not trivial.
The idea is fine, but the devil is in the details.
08-17-2016, 05:40 AM
#101
Cannot agree with Josh more. Just one correction I'd like to point out. NASCAR and F1 have tinkered with the rules to improve racing, and have failed miserably!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't stock supposed to be a stepping stone to mod? When I started racing stock was where you learned how to race, then stepped up to mod. No one made a career out of racing stock.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't stock supposed to be a stepping stone to mod? When I started racing stock was where you learned how to race, then stepped up to mod. No one made a career out of racing stock.
08-17-2016, 06:18 AM
#102
Tech Master
iTrader: (6)
There would be no need to change the current mod formula if 30 or 40 guys ever ran it at a given event. The qualifiers would sort out the performance differences as they are designed to do and then there would be 3 or 4 competitive mains with some close exciting races in each. Nobody would mind that the top guys in the A went 5 or more laps faster than the winner of the C. Problem is, that scenario just hasn't happened for years. These days only 7 or 8 folks even sign up for open mod (maybe a dozen), and so the mod cars (both the amazingly fast ones along with the erratic ones) wind up on track together. That huge performance delta between the cream and the chaffe makes for lousy racing for everybody. Additionally, the guys watching see the poorer cars driving bad, being multiple laps off the pace of the leaders, hitting lots of stuff, and frequently DNFing. It's little wonder that guys don't step up to try running mod, and so the class continues to shrink as it has been doing for years. The ideas proposed lately are all with the goal of increasing the participation and also the competitiveness of the racing. I totally agree that it is awesome to witness Hebert, Cyrul & Lia display their incredible speed and skills. But what good is it if only 3 or 4 guys can actually put on a good close exciting race? Even those super talented guys are advocating for some sort of change(s) that will make their races more competitive and more fun. I'm super anxious to find out how well the 6.5 mod event goes at the upcoming Halloween Classic. Kudos to those brave race organizers who are showing the courage to try it out. Hopefully their noble experiment will turn out to be a smashing success, embraced by all of the participants. It's also a safe bet that one of the superhumans will win, just as they always do no matter what the formula. The true test will be if the 6.5 guys at that event are able to enjoy more exciting racing and have more fun.
08-17-2016, 06:41 AM
#103
Reduce the number of classes. Not too many options in 1:12, but overall there are too many classes in onroad. I miss the days of stock and modified for TC and 1:12. That's all we had and the fields were super deep and Josh is right - it was a big deal to watch the modified guys. When I first started going to the US Indoor Champs in 1999 I made the K main in stock TC, 2000 D main stock TC, 2001 C main stock TC, 2002 B main stock TC, and in 2003 I finally made the A main in stock TC. Nobody was looking for another class - we were all working to get to the top.
This list is quite ridiculous.......
Stock TC
Super Stock TC
Modified TC
USVTA
USGT
World GT
Wold GT R
235mm 1:10 pan car
1:12 Stock
1:12 Super Stock
1:12 Modified
This list is quite ridiculous.......
Stock TC
Super Stock TC
Modified TC
USVTA
USGT
World GT
Wold GT R
235mm 1:10 pan car
1:12 Stock
1:12 Super Stock
1:12 Modified
Last edited by RBLove; 08-17-2016 at 08:50 AM.
08-17-2016, 08:00 AM
#105
Just for reference...
Mod 12th 2005 IIC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZJeDp8dnlE
Mod 12th 2014 IIC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQnT3RGdkWU
Mod 12th 2005 IIC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZJeDp8dnlE
Mod 12th 2014 IIC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQnT3RGdkWU