For practice it's great, as a few of the tracks I go to have roughly 14 steps to get to the drivers stand, so when you get parked into the wall, it's so much easier to just BACK up, I think the vast majority of people here have said they use reverse BUT not in RACING, I run Tekin esc's and I DONT bring my laptop to disable that feature, as I have been racing for years and have yet to get talked to by race director or owner for using reverse during PRACTICE.......just pointing out the obvious on using reverse during practice, so why is it so hard to understand that it's up to the driver to control that feature.....also if your racing bigger events they are going to check everything, but I bet they won't check for reverse

My comment was aimed more at the responses to the rules I run under. Refusing to race here at all just because having reverse enabled during a race is against the rules, is a bit of an overreaction.

I didn't consider the Tekin ESCs as I've never seen one. I'm used to being able to disable it on the fly quite quickly. In that case, yes I can see why you'd be frustrated by having to disable it.

Most people here probably don't realize you are from Australia. This forum is mostly people from America. The hobby in general is much larger in America vs. Australia. How many drivers does Australia have that could make the A-main at the Worlds? One, Kyle McBride. How many world class drivers from the U.S.? Way more than one. I've been racing rc cars for 28 years and have raced at more than 50 different tracks. Does Australia even have 50+ rc tracks? I highly doubt it. What you experience as an Australian rc racer is different from the vast majority of people on this forum.

I can see why they specify that you have to have reverse disabled. Australian rc racers are probably mostly a bunch of bogans, and if they had reverse they would use it.

Tekin esc's can disable the reverse without hooking up a programmer.

That's a pretty arrogant attitude to take. At the last IFMAR ISTC race, the top Australian driver, Ryan Maker, finished in the B main. As far as I can tell, the top finishing North American driver was Rick Hohwart, in the D main. But how is that relevant? My opinion doesn't count because you've stereotyped the country I currently live? This will be my last direct reply to you.

Well, this guy is talking about 1/10th scale electric off-road not 1/10th scale on-road. Go ahead and add up all the Americans and Aussies in the 1/8th scale Nitro Off-Road Worlds along with the 1/10th scale Off-Road worlds. Go ahead and add nitro touring car and 1/8th scale On-Road worlds appearances too if you want, but I still stand by what I said about the scale of the hobby. Look at the numbers of entries at races in America. Does Australia have a race like the DNC (799 entries in 2015) or the Reedy Races? Psycho Nitro Blast, JConcepts INS, JBRL, Hot Rod Shootout, Cactus/Desert Classic?

insulting other members is not allowed.. keep this thread on point or you will have a 30 day vacation.. thank you

busch league. reverse should NEVER be used during a race. you crash and marshal doesn't see you? yeah, it sucks, but unfortunately it's part of club racing. don't crash. where i race, if that situation happens, you have no chance of winning anyway so why soil your reputation by using novice tactics?

i run hobbywing escs (V3.1 stock and XR10 Stock) and have reverse enabled and they blink just fine.

as has been said, reverse is quite handy during practice. if it saves me a trip down to the track from the stand, it's worth it. with that, i've NEVER used it during a race. if you don't have the discipline to not use it during a race, then disable it.

Sorry, no. It's illegal (or should be) because it only takes one mistake to reverse into a car at speed and cause damage to the other person's car. It is pretty unlikely that the sauce in your pit bag is going to leap out of the bag onto the track and damage someone's car.

Having reverse enabled on a track car is hugely bush league and lame. There was a time when it was a universal rule to not have it enabled. the only reason it's not still that way everywhere was the influx of RTR cars in the early 2000's that came with ESCs that didn't have the ability to disable reverse.

I don't really think the "no reverse" rule is there to protect oncoming traffic nearly as much as it being a form of penalty for making a mistake. The time it takes to make a quick reverse correction and space occupied on the track is typically far less risk than having a marshal block the lane of traffic and further increase the risk of more cars getting tangled with the marshal, see this happen ALL the time. Then you also have some overly cautious marshals that will wait until every car has passed and then eventually get to a car (effectively increasing the time penalty for the mistake)... seen this many times where one of the top qual cars stuffs it into a pipe and goes from first to last.... and sometimes I've seen a car blip the throttle into the pipe to get their car to "bounce off the wall"... this is effectively using reverse and not typically called out during a race... go figure?

The no reverse thing is partly an antiquated rule from the brushed motors and forward only esc's... as well as being looked down upon, not hardcore enough, all that mumbo jumbo. Every time I don't have to go get my car during a practice session because I have reverse.. win. At this point, just about everyone has it but people often have a hard enough time going forward under control, all it takes is that one adrenaline fueled time for someone to back out into (full speed) traffic without warning after a wreck... Several years ago in VTA we had one local who I swear would just come randomly flying (full speed and swerving) back onto the track from ANY weird direction.. it was equal parts "where did you come from" and "how on earth did you get there?!" If I had a nickel for every time he'd be suddenly completely in the way, I could buy a double cheeseburger. If he'd had reverse too... wow.

As has been mentioned before, the no reverse rule doesn't apply in practice sessions.

If I had a Hobbywing program card, I would enable reverse. :-)

/@ the club level, as long as you're not winning, does anyone really care?
// @ a ROAR event, probably best just to turn it off altogether.