In regards to battery wars and chassis wars... Lets face one sad but true fact. Lets imagine that today we found a great battery that would have great punch, runtime, and reliabilty with a pack staying very competitive for years rather than months. Then lets imagine the same thing happens with one or a few cars where they stay the best cars on the market for years and there are no real improvements made. While this is something that many people think would be ideal for the hobby it could have a very bad outcome. How many hobby shops and tracks do you think would be able to make enough money to remain open in that scenario? Most of them are having a hard enough time remaining open as it is...
Sure, we could go back to the days of trying to rent out a space and laying carpet and hauling the track around every Sun. But, even 15-20 years ago that didn't work out so well. Facilities where that was possible were few and far between, and eventually the relationship would sour in every instance. Plus, with the greater issue of insurance risks nowadays and costs I doubt we could field enough racers to even pay for the rental space let alone purchasing the carpet and boards. This wasn't working back when there was often at least a couple heats of mod and at least twice that of stock, it's certainly not going to work with 3 or 4 mains.
Lastly, in regards to cells racers today call what's going on with cells battery wars now. But honestly, most of you can't even comprehend know how bad it used to be. You practically had to have an in through someone or be sponsored to even consider running mod, and the same was true if you wanted to win in stock racing. I can recall my dad buying 100 Panasonic 1700SCEs in bulk hoping to get a pack or two that would be good for me to race with. Not only did we not get one good pack, we didn't geta single cell that was as good as the hand me down sponsored driver cells or Danny "Danimals" was nice enough to sell us from his secret stash. And you want to talk about reliability... those things were a nightmare, I believe some guys were attempting to rematch their packs after only a few days of racing.
In short, the batteries today provide plenty of runtime for any class, good cells are pretty easy to attain and you can buy packs that aren't a whole lot worse than what sponsored drivers get, and overall batteries have been quite reliable compared to the cells of old.
Jim, you were with Trinity back in the early 90's right? If so do you remember the Temmes? I still have some of their old Trinity Aluminum endbell mods with the super fast 18 triples and 21 doubles
And yes, to you newcomers to the hobby, we still had a hard time making 8 min. in a lightweight 1/12th scale car with those winds.
One last thing... I really think 1/12th scale could help save onroad racing, but for some reason so many racers are affraid of it. You can still be quite competitive with a chassis from 5 years ago. The cars are cheaper. If you're not chunking tires badly (I know, it's a big if) they will stay faster longer than most rubber tires will. The batteries are cheaper thanks to only needing 4 cells per pack. And above all, throttle control and driving skill are the largest part of being good at it. However, as much as people complain about the cost of the hobby, I think most people would rather try to out horsepower and out equip their opponents than outdrive them.
Ike, compare the situation in 12th Scale (same car designs for 20 years, some variations, cheap parts, BR motors and sub-c cells - all the opposite if what we are told "the future is...") and what you posted above. You don't need lots of change to promote people into racing, and it's the same in Off-Road! Actually, participation goes up when classes are stable, not when they change.
A new TC every two months is in response to the drivers changing to BL, LiPo, 5-cell, etc. The problem with shaping the future is that it costs. If we were still happy with 6-cell Stock, Spec and Mod on BR motors, TC would be stable and more popular, like 12th and Off-Road...
Originally Posted by
JtDieter
Ike...You are sooo right. I was also doing the same things. And it was impossible to win with a store bought pack. Now you can because there is almost no difference. I need to work to gain a battery advantage at a race over what people can buy. Then it's only a few seconds. Temmes. sure. My first mod was an orange trinity 28 turn, with 1000 mah GE cells, charged on a leisure timer charger in 1980.....damn I'm old Correct on the resurgence of 1/12 scale too, probably attributed to brushless.
Jim D - think it is more attributed to 4200 capacity. Five (or less) years ago, you couldn't last eight minutes unless you could drive within your cells. People who couldn't do that soon gave up. Today, anyone can get a 19T or Mod (BL or BR) to go eight minutes, and the participation (expecially here in UK) is climbing fast. Still, the most popular class remains 19T BR, not Mod BL! Keep cranking out those sub-c cells, Jim, you're helping 12th Scale!
