Originally Posted by
blade329
You nailed it. Stock has become a joke. I understand that back in the day, Stock was for the sportsman guy. When he got better, he moved to mod. Now, you have experts running Stock (and staying there) and it is just as fast as mod.
Does that make any sense at all? The whole timing advance thing was just nutty. Here you have a 17.5 motor, with ESC timing that makes it just as fast as a 10.5. So, why not just run a 10.5?
That's one of the reasons I like 8th scale racing. Their is no stock, super stock, mod, super duper stock, etc. You run what you want. It's all open and separated by driver experience (Sportsman, Amateur, Pro, etc.) Maybe that's where 1/10 scale racing should be looking at.
This is where things are beginning to go at tracks with enough entrants. I race at WCRC and when someone consitently wins a beginner class they get bumped up into intermediate.
ROAR serves a function but the best people to make the rules are the racers and the track owners. The track owners want you to keep coming so they're happy to entertain what will make that so. I know at WCRC they've been trying to get a 4WD class going so we may just divide it into beginners and pro and keep the specs entirely open. No one wanted to buy new motors just to get into the beginner class (who sets up their 4wd w/a 17.5?) so I think this is what's going to happen.
13.5 is a really good class as it has enough power to ensure that the skills of racing and setup dominate a little more so than if someone simply has just a slightly hotter motor or lighter lipo. Yet it's not so fast as to be too hard to control for beginners.
Sure, someone who maxxes everything to get speed will still get some advantages but these will be much less pronounced than in a 17.5 class.