Originally Posted by
miller tyme
Sure, cheating was always around, always will be. I can say this, after being the primary in charge of motor Tech at the US Indoor Champs over the last 6 or 7 years, the average racer does not stand a chance, nor do they even have a clue the extent to which it goes. Your "super ultra premium team works" is $180 and hopefully the next generation does not come out before the next big race, but even that single $180 would buy 6 27t brushed motors and still leave plenty for bulk brushes. All that said the ease and repetitive run of the Brushless is nice, but the can of worms it opened with out a governing body adequately prepared/able to police the situation is the primary reason I step away from Electric racing for a year....... an I'm a mod racer, I was just tired of seeing all the BS and knowing Tech CAN NOT truly say what is and is not legal.
Dead shorting NiMh was easy and safe. Lipo always pose a swelling and eventual fire hazard if not handled correctly. Fewer packs Yes, hell I run the same 2 or 3 packs for mod for 3 years, that part is sweet, but stock is another story but definetly not as bad as it was in NiMh, I just liked the hobby aspect of breaking down packs and re-matching my cells. As for the Runtime, that too is a bitter/sweet advantage, it has amplified the problem with increases in speed since the sky is the limit on available 'juice' and that in turn leads to harder to drive cars that are too fast for most new people and part of the reason they don't stay in the hobby. hell you mentioned 21.5 in your TC, pull up video from ROAR nats in 07 or 08, the last years of brushed, even today's 25.5 are faster than 'stock was back then. Again, pro's and con's.
Stock 12th, I can get about 5 or 6 reasonable runs on a set of tires with minimal wear/ride-height issues. Stock TC probably about 8-10 reasonable runs, by no means peak performance. but that's not apples to apples, the spec lilac 12th tires wear minimum. The Foam TC tires we were using were at best 2 runs maybe 3 or 4 if you started a little big and weren't looking at peak performance. I think Rubber TC is better for the new guy but probably not any cheaper for the fast guy. personally I think the design is flawed, could have been a couple mm smaller diameter and a little wider. would have helped the traction rolling and high axle height, also a larger contact patch to minimize over heating and prolonged the life as well as made the cars handle better.
My disagreement, was geared toward your original statement that "all the changes were for the better". There are many issues with the changes that have side effects that are currently killing the hobby. Changing another key aspect to the longest standing unchanged and in some areas largest class like 12th scale, before the huge issues of Motors, ESC, and general governing issues are addressed, will only serve to drive us old diehards away, and we sure have seen that new blood to replace us ain't happening.
Fix the issues caused by the last 10 years of changes, then talk about the one class that has endured through it all.
I will not disagree with your statement about rubber tc tires could be better. I whole hardheartedly agree that there is a better design yet to be discovered.
But I do stand by my statement that all the changes have been for the better. Maybe they are not for the better at the highest level of racing, I don't know, I don't go there. But for the average joe racer, yeah, it's better. I will agree that "stock" motors are too fast, but that is power creep that would have happened regardless. Technology advances and we build ever more efficient devices, even if we would have stayed with brushed, something would have changed. The last brushed motors I ran were the CO27s, which were faster than the Monster Horsepowers.
Now, 1/12 foam tires (spec purple stripes) with a 17.5 on 1s. Small black carpet track, my front tires wear appx .25 - .3mm every run, generally the right tire wears slightly more due to the right hand turn or sweeper at the end of the straight. When I set my front ride height to 3.2mm, this means a ride height change every run. The rear tires don't wear quite as much, I have boxes of rear tires that have a few runs left in them with no fronts to run. Maybe the spec tire needs to change to a harder shore in the front to alleviate the wear difference? I will say that black carpet is a bit to blame here though. You have to cut the tires smaller and they wear faster. I can only imagine how parma 58s would have been on black carpet, you probably would have been lucky to get through 1 run.
As an average Joe racer I can tell you that what I need out of my equipment is a motor I don't have to voodoo on to be competitive with the other guys at my track, a battery that I can charge time after time without discharging between heats and tires that I can leave on all night without making changes to my setup. As an average Joe racer who races at a track that has low turnout, it is all I can do to run two classes. I don't have time to mess with a comm lathe, brushes, oops I forgot my nimh battery on the discharger (know what happens when you forget your lipo battery on a discharger? Charge at 3c and it's ready in 15 minutes). Between racing and marshalling I get limited time to work on my cars between heats, and I would rather spend that time working on setup changes to make the car handle better than maintenance required to keep going fast. Again, as an average Joe racer, yes the changes have been welcome.
But, I will admit I don't know what is best for the hobby, or the class. I only know what is in my best interest, and sometimes I have to set that aside for the good of all...