Yes, they seemed to prefer them, and so did Hara. I ran the HPI stratus, but I had some difficulty getting it to pass tech when I tried to wedge the body. Art Carbonell gave me his mazda to try out and I liked it enough to put it in the main. The difference wasn't too much noticable during practice though.

I also tried the parma alpha, and it actually felt really good, I just didn't like how it settled on the chassis and the bumper spacing.