Pulse_

Hello,

right now I'm running offroad but I might try onroad to improve my skills so I would like to have some feedbacks about drivers who did the switch. Was it complicated? From what I hear onroad drivers are more "serious about racing" than offroaders. What do you think?

The Captain

iTrader: (6)

I made the switch a couple months ago. Defiantly have to pay more attention to your suspension/chassis/tire setup, as you can feel the changes more dramatically. Other than that, its pretty much the same in my opinion. Seems like everything is a little more expensive, though.

Just ask people at the track for setup help. What class are you thinking about running? What chassis? Indoor or outdoor?

markt311

iTrader: (34)

I picked up an Xray for VTA 2 months ago. I run stadium truck and 8th scale on the offroad side. Setup and tire prep are more important. There is also more to do to your car between races, I nut and bolt check my car between every race because you have more short screws and more metal to metal connections. Making sure your shocks are perfect and droop and camber are spot on is more critical because little changes are felt more directly.

Parts prices are higher but Xray cars are tough and really don't break. Bodies are much more disposable. It has taught me better throttle and smoother steering inputs pay off big time.

Wade....

iTrader: (2)

Hey good topic.

I have experience doing the opposite, going from on road to off road, and I would have to say this biggest difference IMO is the driving style required to be fast.

On road is all gas, very little if no brake. On my club on road track, which is on the smaller side, the fast guys are not touching brakes. Maybe letting off on the gas a little to get a little more rotation on certain corners. Otherwise full throttle for 95% of the track... letting up a little is some areas is the other 5%. This is for Mini, VTA, 1/12, basically all of the on road classes.

Off road is different. If you run a 2wd anything you are hitting the brakes on every tight corner to get rotation. The off road driving style requires a very active throttle finger on the brakes and on the gas. For me coming from on road, this was a hurdle. I kept setting my cars up with crazy drag brake to get around it, but just ended up fighting the cars to much. My focus lately has been on getting comfortable using the brakes on the tight corners to get rotation and finding safe setups that are fast to drive as long as my throttle finger can keep up.

Hope this helps.

UrabusDenis

I am an on-road racer, I consider myself pretty serious in 1/10 but I did a bit of 1/8 buggy racing (with sucess) and currently own a Associated 1/10 RC10B4 buggy, so I know something about offroad. Not trying to insult the off road scene, but from my experience onroad is harder. To start with, car preparation is more important then in off road and there are much more tricks to make your car work on different tracks. I remember entering 1/18 on road with a new Xray M18 Pro which I thought (logically) would be good out of the box. In the end I have changed so many parts from different versions of the platform because those are the things the fast guys do. Now my car is much closer to a normal bone stock M18. It just works much better at our track and with our rules than what Xray say is better. Next, factors such as tires and setup play a much bigger role in on road. Of course, in off road you must have a good setup in order to win, but you can nicely drive a car with a moderate setup. In on-road, a car with a setup less than good is very hard to drive and uncompetitive. When I raced 1/8 buggy (electric and nitro) I did barely any work on the car between the races, while in on road that is impossible if you want to be competitive. Furthermore, in driving you have to be much more precise to be fast, while in off road consistency (I repeat, from my experience) is more important. In 1/8 you can win by being consistent and (relatively) fast due to longer mains, while in onroad it is hard to believe you will win by only being consistent (you have to be VERY fast and not crash at all in 6 minutes ), of course this applies only if you have a healthy competition in both classes, with at least 2 or 3 mains. Hope this helps, both on road and offroad are great and have their good and bad sides

Pulse_

Hi Captain

In a dream I would like to run 1/12 pan cars. In the reality it will depend on the clubs I can find around here. I would like a simple basis, 2wd, not too expensive and that helps for driving skills just like the 1/10 2wd buggy category does in offroad. It's like a new challenge for me considering I know nothing about onroad.

If it's possible to use some lipos/ motors/ servos I already have (I'm running 2s saddles with my sougar sv2 and have a few motors as well) then it's even better. I just got a mini eight too and the servos used are the same as in 1/12

The Captain

iTrader: (6)

1/12 is def one of the harder classes to run! Do they run F1 at your track? Thats basically a pan car.

Pulse_

I'm ready to learn . Nobody runs F1 unfortunately, most drivers run TC

valk

iTrader: (13)

12th scale isnt that hard. just pick up a slower open stock class to start. we run 17.5 boost, and im starting to dabble in 10.5 boost as well which wasnt nearly as bad as i thought it would be.
i quite like indoor as all we run is 12th. i do maintenance on my cars once/two weeks maybe unless i break something, which i don't hit much anymore so still running 90% of the parts from the car when i received the roller.

tc is always fiddly until you know what the setup changes do. i always tell people to just build their cars to stock and leave them alone. drive the car for a while before worrying about setup changes. and published setups are all well and good, but its a lot to assume you can drive like the person who posted the setup.

I wouldnt bother with slower classes like vta or mini unless your really into the look of the cars. they can be cheap to get into but there will always be the guys who show up with the $1000 minis ect which is kinda rediculous lol.

open stock 12th scale or 17.5/13.5 blinky tc are excellent places to start. and grow even, as you cant use the speed to cover up bad driving. just enough speed to totally mess up your car but still slow enough to see your car ha.

Pulse_

Sounds promising , I really like the design of pan cars. It's been years I want to try them out. Too bad they aren't more popular