I tried

I've always had great luck with the Rev.5.

Go with the BMI car, great on carpet and asphalt. Plus Jason provides excelent customer service and the car comes complete with just about every possible hopup in the kit.

Speedmerchant makes a nice car but their customer service is a bit lacking imo.

I agree - the Speed Merchant REV 5 is a great car. http://www.teamspeedmerchant.com/sho...l/smr1412.html
The car is so good I'm thinking about selling all of my BMI DB12R stuff for good (probably real cheap in case anyone is interested).

and if you have any doubt, just look at who won 1/12th mod back to back at vegas...

Any of the top brand cars are great cars and can be made to work quite well. If you don't want setup hassle I'd stay with something with a solid rear link or t-bar setup. The CRC, 12R5, and BMIDB12R all have non-adjustable rear links which make setup just a bit easier in the long run. I'm sure the Rev5 is a great car too but you've got 6 suspension links to adjust on that car. Of the mentioned cars I'd have to put in my suggestion for the BMIDB12R as well. On our local outdoor asphault track it is dialed. It's hands down better then any of my previous cars.

I’ve just put Novak 6.5L (Blue one) in my L4. What roll out should I be using on 100ft. straight out door track with low-mid grip?

The reason for the 12R5 and the Gen-X is the parts availability. I'm leaning to the Gen-X

Good to hear you're coming back, Ophie. I ran an old CRC (Dave's old car) at DTP. It was a joy to drive after Kelly solved a minor problem which was my fault. And it's possible that KARZ may be running 1/12 in the winter...only minis at the moment.

Everybody is going to tell you to buy the car they have, hence the lack of an answer to your original question. Gadget is right of course, all the top cars are capable of doing the job.

some thoughts:

GenX has been around for a bit and has evolved into an even better car than when it was introduced. It has a proven track record. Parts availability is very good even if your local track doesn't carry them, but if there are GenXs running there, they probably do.

12R5 is new, and since it hasn't been run for very long has not much of a track record. AE has done lots of testing, and considering the lineage I wouldn't be worried about its performance. There are some nice ideas in the front end and shocks that are rather new. Parts for AE cars have always been among the most available of any brand so once the car is out there in some numbers, shops will be carrying the parts.

Both are link cars so they will be similar to set up and run

Parts availability is always something to consider. If you LHS carries the parts that's great. The GenX has been around a bit but unless your LHS carries parts in stock for it you'll need to order them. The 12R5 is still new on the market and I imagine parts availablity will be good for them in the future but it's probably a bit light right now. One thing to consider though is both of them use very little standard parts. That being parts that are based on the older 12L designs. So there isn't much cross platform support except for maybe the rear axle. Many of the other companies like BMI, Darkside, Diggity and others, still use the AE Dynamic Strut front end, AE style rear axle, and in many cases even the rear pod plates. This makes parts availability a bit easier. I guess it really boils down to what parts you local shop carries.

News is alot better than the last time we talked. So I'm back. I might go to the track next race day.

Thanks for the help guys. I'll stop by the LHS this week and see what to get.

One thing I like about CRC is their intense Rand D development. Don't get me wrong, all the other companies do great R and D, but literally, every month there is a new option part for the Gen X. BMI you might see something new every other month. As you can see I am not very biased. I have the DB12R and it is great and have no complaints. Just giving my opinion based on my observations.

We try not to do too many changes so we put more time into R&D initially to avoid constant changes. This in return saves the end user or customer some money by taking our time in the developement stages. Making changes along the way shows the mistakes we made or things we missed.