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Tamiya Championship Series

Old 12-10-2010, 10:30 PM
  #14761  
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Originally Posted by FMW
If we’re not selling kits/spare and option parts why have a race series.
how about open mod for GT1 ?
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Old 12-11-2010, 08:44 AM
  #14762  
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What ever the rules might end up being, and what ever spec motor/esc/tires/battery/chassis/body/hop-up/battery plug/motor plugs/rpm limit/# of fans/# of capacitors/types of rear wing/screws and locknuts is decided, lets make sure it carries over into the nationals so we don't have a whole different set of rules (read: more $$ required) just for running the nats

Steve
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Old 12-11-2010, 05:01 PM
  #14763  
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Anyone know if the in-car video that was taken today is posted somewhere?
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Old 12-11-2010, 05:28 PM
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Originally Posted by teamstrc
What ever the rules might end up being, and what ever spec motor/esc/tires/battery/chassis/body/hop-up/battery plug/motor plugs/rpm limit/# of fans/# of capacitors/types of rear wing/screws and locknuts is decided, lets make sure it carries over into the nationals so we don't have a whole different set of rules (read: more $$ required) just for running the nats

Steve
Yes please!!
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Old 12-11-2010, 08:11 PM
  #14765  
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Interesting day at Aliso today. Saw the M06 on it's maiden runs. Let's just say it was more stable than the old 04.
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Old 12-11-2010, 09:44 PM
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TCS is designed to accomplish three main objectives. In no particular order they are:

1. Provide the TCS host site (Hobby shops) marketing and sales tools to help and better promote their racing program that supports TAMIYA based products.
2. Provide Tamiya brand awareness to new and existing customers that patron the hobby shop.
3. Provide the fairest and most economical racing structure to TAMIYA customers.

fingers crossed.... few more days....
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Old 12-12-2010, 09:02 AM
  #14767  
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Originally Posted by swarb
TCS is designed to accomplish three main objectives. In no particular order they are:

1. Provide the TCS host site (Hobby shops) marketing and sales tools to help and better promote their racing program that supports TAMIYA based products.
2. Provide Tamiya brand awareness to new and existing customers that patron the hobby shop.
3. Provide the fairest and most economical racing structure to TAMIYA customers.

fingers crossed.... few more days....
It seems like #3 has been ignored. Maybe it should be written as "3. Provide the fairest and most economical racing structure for TAMIYA USA."

I don't see other than dumping Tamiya esc's much improvement. You cannot run your old tires, cannot run silvercans in sedan and are stuck running BL for FF03, talk about wheel-spin. It was great seeing the rules early, although the changes left many upset and packing away from the series.

People say it is a free race that is a thank you for Tamiya customers.
How many local races can you just show up, pay $10-$15 and can expect to run what you have. Usually local racers are in touch with what their area tracks are running. I know my buying for local racing has not been anywhere extreme to what Tamiya wishes you to buy. If I want to buy something, it is for the improvement for my racing, for many races, not for having just for 1 race. Sure you can run your Tamiya tires at other races, don't expect to be as competitive compared to other brands of tires.

Good luck to you guys, hope your series survives the mayhem.

Coop
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Old 12-12-2010, 12:29 PM
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Tamiya's races are a bit nicer than just another club race.

Nice swag for the podium guys plus a decent raffle for a few other lucky ones.

Nationals Final, well, a lot nicer than a club race with the Trip to Japan of course.

Spec stuff, tires, motors etc. is for us cry babies.
He's faster cuz he has (your input here).

Tamiya cars, bodies etc. is cuz it is Tamiya's race, duh.

The brushless combo purchase was definitely a scarey thought tho but there has always been the silver can Mini and F1 classes available.
Brushless solutions are in the works and coming immediately.

Rest assured that Fred at Tamiya is always trying to do the best for us all and if you doubt that then you are not paying attention.

The rules go up, never set in stone, reactions heard and reasonable solutions are always attempted and usually well received, by most.

There's the response to objective #3.

We'll know how that feels in a couple days.
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Old 12-12-2010, 03:29 PM
  #14769  
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Originally Posted by gcooper
It seems like #3 has been ignored. Maybe it should be written as "3. Provide the fairest and most economical racing structure for TAMIYA USA."

I don't see other than dumping Tamiya esc's much improvement. You cannot run your old tires, cannot run silvercans in sedan and are stuck running BL for FF03, talk about wheel-spin. It was great seeing the rules early, although the changes left many upset and packing away from the series.

People say it is a free race that is a thank you for Tamiya customers.
How many local races can you just show up, pay $10-$15 and can expect to run what you have. Usually local racers are in touch with what their area tracks are running. I know my buying for local racing has not been anywhere extreme to what Tamiya wishes you to buy. If I want to buy something, it is for the improvement for my racing, for many races, not for having just for 1 race. Sure you can run your Tamiya tires at other races, don't expect to be as competitive compared to other brands of tires.
I think you're missing some of the points to all this, sir. The TCS rules have changed over the years to require spec motors, tires, bodies, and such in TCS to A) increase the enjoyment of competition--sorry, but watching race after race of touring cars with the same Stratus body and roughly the same paint scheme was pretty boring, so different-looking cars running at different speeds draws more fans as well as new competitors; and B) decrease the unfair advantages gained by either locals accused of extra knowledge of a track or those tinkerers always playing at the gray edges of the rules.
Frankly, I think those conditions are what club races are for. And I love them for it, and go run them when I can. I usually find that the locals who spend more time there than I dialing-in are faster, and I spend the evening trying to find speed and do better. And if I do, it's a great night of racing. And if not, I got beat. Simple. If I ever get mad, it's almost always because of either some bonehead move I made as a driver, or some bonehead thing I did as the mechanic.
But, RC car racing is an expensive hobby. I don't think I even want to tally up the value of the bodies, tires and parts I have stored at home, much less how much I've spent over the years. Everyone is suffering right now because economic conditions are bad. Understood. Everyone wants to use the equipment they've already spent money on, for some other track or series, so they don't have to spend more money to run this one. Understood. But I wonder if it's also understood that if Tamiya America relented and went with the "run whatcha brung" philosophy some fans have exhibited here, Pandora's RC Box would be flung wide open with people tuning their favorite stuff to find that unfair advantage that so many complain of. The unfair advantage, in fact, for which TA's rulesmakers have striven so mightily to compensate.
So just like in so many other fields of life, we have to make a choice. Do we want cheap racing with whatever you got in your closet or garage? Or do you want really close, competitive racing time after time? Unfortunately, right now those two aspirations are competing rather than combining.

And as I have stated before when posting on this string, Tamiya are a business. They sell products. I know of few businesses in the world, in any market, that offer their customers a chance to buy their product and try it out against others with the same product, for fun and gamesmanship. Any expectation that they will sell us some product out of public-spiritedness is at best misplaced. If we don't like their attitude about that, it's still as far as I can tell a free world and you can go run someone else's product. Good luck finding another company in the RC business that is any nicer to its customers.
Tamiya America's staff, headed by (admittedly) my friend FMW, ought to be credited for doing what they can to create rules to minimize or even eliminate the concerns of so many, so that the racing is as close as possible and guys win or lose by their driving. However, I suspect I'll get a lot older and grayer before I hear guys admit they lost because they got flat out-driven.

We are increasingly running spec tires on these cars to defeat the spectre of guys complaining that they got beat by the killer tire insert or the killer compound or the killer rim. We are increasingly running spec gears to defeat the spectre of guys complaining that they got beat by someone's optimal gearing for just what their motor does. We are increasingly running spec motor RPM limits, and soon spec motors--whether DC or BL--to defeat the spectre of guys complaining that they got beat by someone's superior motor tuning or trickery or outright cheating.
In every case, it's because we're complaining that we got beat by something we didn't have, that others did. How seldom have I logged in to this site to hear people admit they got beat by someone out-driving them.
I'll offer one up and see if I can start that dung ball rolling. I got beat and left out of the A-main in FF at this year's Nats, qualifying 11th because my friend Craig flat-out outdrove me. We had the same equipment, the same tires, the same car bodies, same motors, all of it, and he just was faster. He sympathised with me after qualifying, and I told him that was okay, though, because he beat me, and I feel no shame about being beaten by friends. (And sometimes, by strangers!) It makes the day when I might beat them just as sweet.
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Old 12-12-2010, 04:09 PM
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Tom, well said.

I have also said and will repeat that I too was outdriven in F1 at this years Nats by the better driver, Danny Hua, on equal equipment and even equal time on track to dial that equipment.

But not by much!
I think it was about 2 tenths of a second that decided the TQ and 4 seconds difference in the tiebreaker for the Japan trip!

Best racing of my life!
Couldn't have been more fair.
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Old 12-12-2010, 05:23 PM
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Tom,

Well said my friend!

Craig, to quote Maxwell Smart, "Missed it by that much". That is exactly how I felt when you simply "just out drove me" at the regional qualifyer in F-103.

After 14 years of visiting my now good friends at the Aliso Tamiya track, I am proud to say I have been out driven by some of the best! (Craig, 127 days and counting)
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Old 12-12-2010, 05:26 PM
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Oh yea,

Any reports from the last weekend of motor/speedo testing at Aliso?

Allways looking for the "unfair" the information advantage!
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Old 12-12-2010, 05:47 PM
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Originally Posted by 414MPH
Oh yea,

Any reports from the last weekend of motor/speedo testing at Aliso?

Allways looking for the "unfair" the information advantage!
I think I'll let our mutual friend Craig "Cuda" H. report on the state of play in F1. He was testing and even managed to do some impressive work on his front wing.
Minis are getting better and better with the spec tires; only issue there is when it's cold. It sure wasn't this weekend. I managed to dial-in my M05 with some help from Granpa, and my M03 long is a barrel of laughs. FMW did as promised bring out an M06 and run some hot laps; it's a little loose on-power (he did run spec tires on it) but he did admittedly run it almost stock-kit setup. It definitely appears though to have licked two perennial M04 problems: tracking straight, and keeping aligned/trimmed after the first time it hits a bump.
FMW ran it with a Miata body; worked OK, has to be mounted higher than I'd like for tire clearance. Also, we figured out that bodies like the Suzuki Swift and the "new" Mini Coopers won't fit it; not enough rear bumper overhang to clear the motor. So, for now it looks like it's gonna need the Alfa, the Miata, the S800, and the Alpine to fit over it.
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Old 12-12-2010, 06:41 PM
  #14774  
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I want to thank FMW for posting on here. I think it helps all of us understand their goals and point of view.

It's Tamiya's show. Obviously, they can do what they want to meet their goals. To eliminate GT3 is one decision I don't get. For a lot of us, we bought the minimal number of parts, tires, etc. and ran the races for fun and camaraderie. Others are more serious, which is also fine. I don't see had that step helps them meet their goals.

I also think the a spec class for a car like the TT01 with a few specific hop ups gear limits, and tires I think would be in the best interest of Tamiya to attract more drivers and to get new customers hooked on the quality of Tamiya products.. The TT01 is one of the best handling, less cars out of the box that you'll. This kind of class has been successful other places.

I think an open dialogue is great.
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Old 12-12-2010, 07:57 PM
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This is not a slam or bash on anyone, but I think it's a very neutral statement:

If you feel like the rules don't suit you or if the racing is too expensive to be involved, then don't race it, because you're not going to have fun. If it's no fun, then why do it? No one is forcing you to race, and never forget that Tamiya's number one priority will always be the well being of Tamiya. Running a series that puts them in the red (negative) does not make sense from any business stand point. The series is to promote product sales first and foremost.

My personal opinion on the new rules is that in terms of technology it's a great brave step forward towards further leveling the playing field, but as far as being economical, the selected brushless system and the fact we have to run pre-mount tires is two steps backwards (but it does support the #1 priority stated above)

Good luck to those running the series this year...I'll be coming by and watch as I always enjoy hanging out with the guys at Aliso and the atmosphere there (it's Orange County!)

Steve
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