Just a question in general. Why are you loosing interest in the class? It might help others or even your local track fix a problem. This would be good information about any class or track.

To me it isn't anywhere near as exciting as my favorite class which is 21.5 TC. Add to that, I can't give the class the focus it needs because I spend that time working on my TC. Basically, a second car for me needs to be a put it on the track and run it car. I have plenty of time during the week to go through the car and maintain it, but track time is mainly spent on my TC. Another thing to add, the SJT rubber tires seem to be slightly inconsistent from batch to batch. I have ran a brand new set of tires and was instantly 4 tenths faster, almost foam tire speeds, for 1 battery. Then put another set of brand new tires on and the car was undrivable. Hmm, maybe more... I am driving a completely new car platform, the A12, support for that on rubber tires gt12 is pretty low. There is another guy at the track who just started running one, but he so far is only making changes I suggest. Eventually he will start tuning, but this is more of a novelty class for him as well. Racing multiple classes when you only have six or seven heats can be taxing when you have to make changes, or fix something, since you spend 4 of the heats racing or marshalling.

The reason I started racing it was to try to keep 1/12 alive at our track. We used to run 13.5 1/12, crazy fast on a small track. Then we dropped to 17.5, then 21.5 fixed timing (bore fest there). But it is hard to get new people into a class where you have to have a tire truer and cut new tires all the time. When rubber tires where announced last year the few guys who run decided we would try gt12 on rubbers this year. Myself, I had sold all my 1/12 stuff early last year. I was done with the tire cutting and buying new foams all the time. So I agreed to run gt12 so they would have more people. But now, I am kind of feeling done again. I'll most likely stick it out for the rest of the season since we only race through the end of March. But next fall I may not run the class anymore.

Hopefully that answered your question.

I have to be honest, the first time I read the previous post, I was like "okay, buh bye" with a shrug.......But after reading your explanation, you raised some legitimate concerns with respect to the tires. Not having an internationally available, commercially accepted, and industrial produced supply for tires will amount to the "rubber" GT-12 concept being nothing more than that. A concept. No dis-respect for SJT, but no doubt he has very quickly discovered the challenges of mass production and quality control. Especially for the raw materials.

If rubber tire 1/12th scale is what people want, then somebody BIG needs to step up to the plate.....

The majority of us 1/12th scale racers I think have accepted the challenges with foam because of the unequalled performance they provide.
And still others have balanced the relative maintenance freedom of the rubber option with less performance.

However, until there is a solid supply of consistent rubber wheels, I don't see the environment changing from the trickle of support/involvement, and ebb and flow of the class.
Additionally, I will continue to support the development of SJT. The concept is just too cool to resist, and the product has so much promise.

Fortunately, the bodies are looking super cool, and the supply is ever growing.

Agreed this is a good opportunity for a major player to jump in. Maybe Schumacher? Their GT12 cars are popular across the pond and they have been on a buying spree with the tire side of things (distributors and buying out tire companies).

Prices for Schumacher Contact brand tires are very reasonable too as the manufacturer. Considering the mold is simple and no foam inserts, the only slightly different part is the mounting and glue.

34 GT12 entries out of 301 for Snowbirds so far.

There on foams at the birds. We had a few testing before they left.

This thread needs more pictures! We don't actually race GT12, it's hard to get a field of any pancars. But the Italia looks so good that I had to have one.

Mounted on a 2016 Roche, Ulti wheels.

Thank you very much for expressing those feelings. I too run multiple classes and it can be a struggle especially on race days when the crowd is a little thin. I will also agree that there has been some inconsistencies with the SJY tires but since our track has been sort of a test bed with them thru Scott we know some of the reasons why. For that version of the class to go that has to be solved and fairly quickly or it will die.
Good luck and keep on racing what ever class you find you like. Myself being kind of old, I prefer the simpler pan cars on rubber so F1, WGTR and the GT12. I have a TC and a FWD car but because of their age they are barely competitive, but when I race them I usually enjoy it. Jumping around makes it hard to perfect any one of them though as you said. Work on one and the other one suffers not to mention the different driving style.
Sometimes we are just meant to run one class and shine at it.

yup. Much of GT12’s appeal is that the cars actually look like cars. That orange one is really nice. Very realistic. Me like!!

I guess I'll make a few comments. Just coming home from the Snowbirds the GT12 class was the single biggest class in on-road. Yes we ran foams and had no problems running them.here in Florida compared to other sections of the country. We run mostly outdoors with one track that is carpet and they race once a month. Foams work great where we can run the foams outdoors and go indoors with the lower diameter tires. yes you can true them. So do the rubber tire guys true there rubber tires Just got the adaptor at the birds..
This is an old argument about foam vs rubber tires. If you part of the country runs whatever do it. So far there is ZERO interest in running rubber tires in Florida. the class continually is growing because of the car bodies availalbe. You race what enjoy racing. you don't like the class go race another class. Me personally TC is not a fun class to me to race. Go to a race and they are constantly working on the cars. KISS is pan cars. Yes formula 1 an WGT-R are rubber but there were also ZERO WGT-R cars at the birds. Race somewhere to keep your place open!

I have been racing a 12 scale for a few months now. I have previously raced TC’s and agree with BullFrog as to the constant maintenance. I used to drive myself nuts and get stressed.

I went to my track today and worked with my Mod TC for a long time and made progress.... Towards the end of the day I put my 12 scale down and I ran a ton of laps. I had more fun with the pan car. Driving is more fun than wrenching for me. Please do not misunderstand me, there is wrenching with a pan car.....just less than a TC....

As a person who would run TC and 12th...I did so always because i knew my pan car was pretty much a charge and go kind of car and my tc was the work vehicle. I like running both but as much as I was an advocate of running TC I could see giving up TC for 12th. I haven't run on a track since feb of last yr so I don't know what the local track runs as far as tires for gt12 but I sure thought the purpose of running it in the us was to run rubber because people didn't want to true foams yet it seems like thats exactly where it is. I'd much rather see 25.5 2s gt12 classes

What kind of tires can you run outdoors?

That body is very nice. It looks like the front wheel wells completely cover the tires, but can you verify?

We run any brand of wgt stripe tires(purple -green and white) out doors and indoors. The body pictured is quite legal as long as you follow the cut lines on the body . As someone was DQed at the birds for not following the cut lines on the body- so I was told. These bodies will not look like slot car bodies slammed to the ground.

The body just covers the tyres, but it's really close. An extra 1 or 2mm of body width would be appreciated (with this car).