My wife and I run the track that Doug (badassrevo) runs at. The Open electric format has REALLY helped the turnouts. As he mentioned we get a good mix of NiMH, Lipo, Brushed and Brushless.
We did a study of the laptimes on all 3 of our layouts lst season ans on all but one of them stock was faster than mod. On the layout that mod was faster it was only by about 2 seconds in 5 minutes. THis prompted us to combine the classes and create the Open format. The beauty of it is if you want to run a 5 cell NiMH then you can!!! Want to run Lipo brushless? Go for it!
Personally I have not raced electric in probably 10-15 years until last week. I boiught a Kyosho RB5 and a Novak GTB with a 10.5 Velociti brushless motor and a Maxamps 6000MAH Lipo pack. Had it not been for brushless lipo I would NOT have gotten back into electric. I have to tell ya I had a BLAST running my car!!!! One battery all day just top it off and race!!!!
Anyway, as others have mentioned there is no rule preventing anyone from running a 5 cell pack so why FORCE everyone ot run one? Let them use it as a tuning aid as Rick mentioned. Funny thing is I can't remember any big debate when 7-cell packs went by the way side. If memory serves the rules at that time stated 7 cell max. People just started running 6 cells.
Just my thoughts.
Chris Music
www.medinarcraceway.com