reenmachine

iTrader: (26)

Super GT Plus (SGT+) is our club's fun, realistic, door-to-door racing class. It captures the flavor of the old RCGT with some changes aimed at low cost, high reliability, controlled speed racing.

After RCGT died amid the ESC wars of ought-nine, different groups in our club went off in different directions looking for that realistic racing fix at speeds that allow the average club racer to run tight lines and engage in close battles.

We've run 21.5 brushless cars, cup racers, and even had some fun running silver cans until, predictably, motor tuning started to ruin it. A handful of us are now racing front-wheel-drive FF03s, which have been running with the 4WD TCs quite evenly while adding a different flavor. Eventually, several of these different types were running together, and the variety of types on the track has been making for great racing, with that "real racing" aspect of multiple types on the circuit at once.

There's a great new class running at WCRC here in socal called Super GT. Super GT is a natural name for a class like this as many of the bodies run on realistic touring cars come directly from the Japan-based 1:1 Super GT race series. WCRC's Super GT rules call for a 1/10 4WD TC with a realistic GT body, 21.5 motor, zero timing ESC, and hard Solaris premounts.

We are basically adopting this class directly, with one twist (the "plus"): 2WD touring cars will run with the 4WD cars under exactly the same rules, but will be scored separately.

Just like many real 1:1 race series, different specs will be on the track at once, battling not just for class victory but for overall honors as well!

FF cars are strongly encouraged to run FF bodies to keep the scale realism consistent and help both drivers and spectators follow the action

• 1/10 scale 2WD or 4WD TC
• Realistic GT body with molded plastic wing or realistic-shape Lexan wing (plastic encouraged), FF cars encouraged to run FF bodies.
• 21.5 motor/Zero-timing ESC from the ROAR list
• Spec tire: Hard Solaris Spec Premounts on the spoked rim
• 2S lipo
• Minimum weight TBD, may be different for 2WD vs. 4WD

Please note that WCRC Super GT cars are 100% legal and compatible in the interest of unity in the region.

EDIT: This is now a straight 21.5/zero class. Silver cans will not be included as originally stated.

EDIT: The Hard Solaris Spec Premount on the spoked rim is now the spec tire.

So dust off your old RCGT car, pop in a 21.5 (lots available cheap used now that USVTA switched to 25.5), get some affordable, long-lasting premounts, and come back out racing!

Feel free to comment, but please keep it civil.

egalsim

iTrader: (44)

I came late to the party for RCGT, so this actually sounds better with the 21.5 instead of the 17.5. I'll see you guys at WCRC in mid October. Seeing these realistic bodies and wheels has really got me back into R/C. I was just tired of the craptastic looking exploding flower so called sedans with wheels that came from 10 speed bicycles in the Olympics. I think this is definitely the right direction for R/C. Maybe you guys will have "special" nights where you run cars with little headlights and driver figures too. The rules are great with "approved" esc's and motors. I think it would be great to also have a list of "approved" tires for this class. I really love seeing stadium trucks that actually look like stadium trucks and touring cars that actually look like touring cars, or GT cars.

kdeselms

Edit - see the West Coast R/C On-road thread for discussion.

Short version - disappointed that Roadrunners has chosen to alter the Super GT rules pretty significantly and then create confusion by naming it essentially the same thing. I understand you guys are mainly just interested in catering to club members, but for this ONE class at least, it would have been nice to have solidarity in the rules, to give it a shot at growing. Your statement that you "don't care" if this variant spreads beyond Roadrunners is a cop-out to allow you guys to make the changes you see fit to the class and it's business as usual in R/C racing, where there's no solidarity because nobody can agree to follow a rule set. Not even for this ONE class, as simple as the rules at West Coast are.

reenmachine

iTrader: (26)

That's a pretty pessimistic interpretation of what's going on here, but if you want to look at it that way, it's your prerogative.

What it is, in reality, is the Roadrunners RC Club making an attempt at bringing some unity to the region, which nobody else at all is doing. It's a little different to accommodate our largest-in-the-region onroad population. The stated goal is to move toward total parity in socal, but we can't do it in one big leap.

reenmachine

iTrader: (26)

EDIT TO THE ORIGINAL POST:

Our silver can guys made it resoundingly clear today that they aren't interested in anything changing about their class. So, they will continue to run silver cans (no rpm limit) and X-Patterns.

So, the only differences remaining between this and WCRC Super GT is the tires and the fact that we allow FF cars.

I am going to push to adopt the hard Solaris premounts as the spec tire.

Maybe we can run 4WD and 2WD together but score them separately, which RC Scoring Pro is capable of doing automatically. It would be like many real race series with multiple types competing for class victory and overall victory at the same time. The speeds are comparable, so it's not like we're running with mod or anything.

kdeselms

Don't get me wrong, I salute you guys for a step in the right direction for sure and I acknowledge that it's far more effort than other tracks have made toward unifying rules (which is unfortunate). It's just disappointing to me as an advocate for this class that the rules that have been established at WCRC couldn't have just been adopted directly, if you're adopting the name. As Ron alluded to there, the same thing happened with RCGT where rules got bent to satisfy a few and you ended up with multiple variants, diluting and ultimately (together with timing), killing the class. I know you're saying you're trying to bring unity to the region but understand that from my perspective, you've taken existing rules and changed them to suit your track, which is quite the opposite. If the goal is to eventually conform to the WCRC rules that have been set and are being used with success, that's more encouraging. Ultimately though, I'm not familiar with the politics of the RR club and how you may have to handle things like this, when considering the membership.

But I applaud you guys for making the effort, so I don't mean to come off as negative about a positive thing. I just think if the interest was truly unity, the established rules would just be adopted and enforced...not changed to suit an individual track.

reenmachine

iTrader: (26)

Nail, meet head. YGPM

JohnWinn

Reenmachine,

As of your last edit, the rules you outlined are fine...I'd say to mix 2wd and 4wd together, it makes no sense to score them separately. If someone can campaign an FF successfully against 4wd's, then more power to them.

If you adopt solaris as your spec tire, just make sure you have a few sets on hand for those who may not have them, and might need a set.

kdeselms

I've just always operated under the assumption that the FWD cars would be at too great a disadvantage to the 4WD cars and it wouldn't be any fun for them to race together...but if the FWD guys actually WANT to compete with 4WD and they actually can hold their own, maybe there's middle ground between the two tracks, there.

From what Ron said in the other thread, though, he was taking a pretty hard line against any motor other than 21.5 brushless.

JohnWinn

You know what they say about assumption...it's the mother of all f*ups....

An FF car can hang with 4wd's, especially in the hands of a good driver. So long as they meet the rest of the rules, just let them run. FF can also have their own class as well, but if someone wants to run in SGT+, let'em...

I agree to separate the silver can from the 21.5's...

reenmachine

iTrader: (26)

But have you actually tried it, or even seen them run together? We have. The funny thing is, it may be the opposite -- I fielded a complaint today from a 4WD racer that the FF03s were too much of an advantage. Never mind that the FF03 driver would have won in a 3-wheeled TT-01...

Silver cans are now off the table. 21.5/zero is it.

kdeselms

LOL...well if the FF03 can actually compete, then it's worth looking at including those at WCRC. I know a few of the guys at the track are talking about getting them but opinions seem to be split, whether they should run together with the 4WD or not. I think Ron is keen to look at them and see, though - if he feels they can be competitive, I'm betting he'd be willing to integrate them.

reenmachine

iTrader: (26)

It looks like WCRC will see its first FF03 tomorrow night, and I'm curious to see how it goes.

There's also another discussion going on about what the FF03 rules should be in the region, and it will probably remain a silver can class to stay on the TC spec.

Soooooooooooooo, we may end up just running straight-up Super GT after all.

I just ordered some Solaris spec premounts from Speedtech, and I'm going to test them on both my FF03 and 21.5 TC (IFS-R) to see how they perform on our surface at CAM.

silverhkswrx

iTrader: (10)

I thought that 21.5t brushless and silvercans were on the same "field"...

are the issues because they want to mod theier motors?

The reason Im asking is because im venturing into F1 and am torn between a 21.5t brushless and silvercan. the silvercan will have capacitors and the schotsky diode only, the 21.5t will be most likely the tekin 21.5

reenmachine

iTrader: (26)

In my experience, silver can and zero-timing 21.5 run together fine as long as everyone involved is there to have fun. Once people start to get too concerned about being super-even everywhere on the track the complaints will come.

I would still permit silver cans on a limited basis for people to try out the class on the cheap, but it wouldn't be in the official rules.