Winter rules - Mardave / Supastox
 

Question: Do we run Supastox with Mardaves or do we run them seperate for the winter series?

Answers: Yes together
Answers: No keep them seperate

Oooooo well it depends initial thoughts are combined by depends on how many and how regular people turnup

Keep it simple
 

At the moment I cannot see any performance difference between the SuperStox and Mardave CE edition… however the old slab Mardave “May” have a performance disadvantage… Having said that I do not think that will show up at Gloucester…
I personally feel we should allow all in one class and then just have two motor settings
Blinky – Up to 13.5
Timed – Up to 17.5
It will be interesting to see how the Blinky 13.5 get on at Chippenham..

I raced mine at Chippenham Tuesday (13.5 1s). It's very manageable. Personally happy with the initial proposal Shane. Not sure others will be. Needs to be considered re batteries and fixed timing on motors. A 17.5 timed will blow a 13.5 blinks out of the water.

I believe motor power has been established as not a controlling factor over who wins at Gloucester. With this in mind I see no point in controlling battery cell count or motor wind. I think any combination should be allowed - 1S, 2S, 4 cell, whatever. I certainly think Supastox and Mardave should be considered as the same class, race together and score points together. No distinction. The biggest problem with racing at Gloucester is the excessive class count, giving rise to many many heats each containing 2 or 3 cars. We should be racing touring cars and GT12, in my opinion.

I agree with LongRat, no restrictions, run Mardaves and Superstox together, scoring points together. My experience of running them both over the past couple of weeks is they are very very similar in terms of performance over 5 minutes with the same motor/esc/battery combo.

I dont think its a good idea to force people to buy more esc's and motor's that will not benefit them

Mardave / Supastox
 

As much as I understand the annoyance of “May Be” having to buy a different motor there needs to be some thought at where people go from here on… a very good example is the Chippenham winter series this is a fantastic race meet and I would champion anyone going to it.. What became clear this year is that the Gloucester Club has strayed too far away from the BRCA rules which put many of us into a spin trying to get our cars race ready… Many clubs follow the BRCA rules and we need to aim towards them… This is our guide book remember and everyone should have one. I am not saying we need to Ban anything and I am not saying we all need to go out and buy new but there are a number of new drivers who we should be helping on the right path…. And the right path is not to say “Just run whatever you like”
Chippenham this winter will be a good opportunity for quite a few of us to experience the Lock down approach and take the best bit of this system to our benefit… I think already the 13.5 Binky may have been poo poo’d as it’s just too dam slow…
Yep LongRat… We could shut down some of the classes and just have the Touring Cars and mini/mardave/superstox… but that has never been the Gloucester way.. not to say that may be a good change…

Shane - I agree, having decided to run at Chippenham, I was quite shocked how far my car was away from the rules and I'm still waiting for parts from Hong Kong :mad: grrrrr!

LongRat - having bought a buggy and an F1 this year only to see the class disappear overnight, I think other classes should be allowed but should run together if number are too low. Buggy vs F1 nice!! :p

GT12 and Touring seem to be the constant.

In the Mardave class we certainly would have enough runners who would comply with the BRCA rules, just to be clear we are talking about these rules yeah?

http://www.gt12.co.uk/p/brca-gt12-rules.html

I think we could easily split the class (for point scoring) between BRCA and Open Class BUT still have all cars (Mardave and Supastox) running together in the heats as currently. I don't think it would make any difference to what happens currently every week!

Mardave / Supastox
 

I raced Supastox at Chip on Sunday. As previous comments I was surprised how far from BRCA rules we are in Glos. 1c 13.5t or 2c 21.5t is the Chip classes. Last Christmas at Glos we had a long debate about 17t for Mini class. I have been using 17t but not even listed at Chipp. Don't think many others bought a 17t for Glos. Then there is the 1 or 2 cell issue and hard cases for safety and not helicopter packs. I think we need to be clearer what we do. Fully agree motor does not make much diff at Glos as down to driver but we should folow some class or some rules.
I wish to use 1c 13.5 t Supastox for the Winter series at Glos. Anybody else? of course I also now have option on 2c 21.5t from a defunct F1 could give it a go in Supastox.

I would like to see more competetive racing, weather it be 1c 13.5t or 2c 21.5t, we should be trying to follow the BRCA standards.

With such a small venue that we have, I cannot see the point of us running things like 13.5t and 10.5t motors on 7.4v. It just a case of horsepower overkill and doesn't really help on setting up or learning to drive a car. So much more could be learnt if we tried to follow some of the standards set out by BRCA and would probably make for a lot more enjoyable racing.

I would prefer to race to rules closer to BRCA's. Last week i raced at Bedfordshire that follow the rules and it was great close racing throughout all the abilities.
I also think it would be a benefit to the club as more people may join.

On the question of splitting the classes i think the cars are fairly evenly matched. I cant see the point in physically splitting the classes further as we only tend to have two sets of "Mini" heats at the moment.
A alternative if required would be to split championships but run them in combined races (this may have been the intention of the origional question :)).

Mike

Yes, this is what I am trying to say too.

All cars run together, as currently, but split the championship - BRCA and Open.

In practice nothing much will change though :lol:

Some thoughts on how we run it, I thinks Mardaves and Supastox's should run together. We dont have eough members to seperate the classes, so we should carry on as we are, heating drivers on their ability and not their chosen drive, as the Mardave in the right hands is more than capable of winning.

Also as we are a small club with a relaxed approach to racing and we don't want to have to police everybody cars, so we only follow the BRCA rules as a guidline.

Motor/Cells, may I possibly suggest something around the lines of the following, which would give a little more choice on configurations:

1c 13.5t blinky
1c 17.5t non blinky or 2c 17.5t blinky
and 2c 21.5t non blinky

No seperate classes, we all race together and hopefully have some fun as we normally do.

Mardave / Supastox
 

I agree we should run Mardave and Supastox together in the same class. A few Supastox are already creeping in and running at Glos but in reality a well driven Mardave handles well on our limited and tight track space.

Let's go back to the BRCA regulations which say:
Cars with 13.5 Brushless Motors will be powered by cell/s with a maximum nominal voltage of 3.7v
Cars with G2 Brushed motors will be powered by cell/s with a maximum nominal voltage of 4.8v
Cars with 21.5 Brushless motors will be powered by cell/s with a maximum nominal voltage of 7.4v.

I can see nothing about 17.5t brushless and think we are just adding confusion here. Do we know how many current club members actually race Mini and use a 17.5t motor in the club ? Anybody a view ? Why not encourage "Mini racing" and in the main sticking to the three choices above.

There will need to be a degree of honesty about "blinky" mode as this is difficult to police. The only other combination is 13.5t or G2 brushed motors using a 7.4v battery. But only the most proficient will not just slam in to the barrier and others will have the accelerator turned right down to compensate anyway.

This would probably provide a more level playing field then we give ourselves credit for.

I ran a 13.5 1S blinky with motor timing at CWIC, as per BRCA rules. Although I won my heat, I qualified fifth in the A - a full two laps behind 21.5 2S BLINKY without timing. In the finals I was truly outpowered. 13.5 1S will be fine at Gloucester but allowing 17.5 or 21.5 timed is just silly.

BRCA all the way I'm afraid for me.:yawn:

Just to confirm running BRCA 13.5 OR 21.5 is fine.

As Chris said brca rules only really anything with timing will be far faster than blinky setups BUT it dose make cheating easy so honesty will be important

I can see there is a (surprising) love of the BRCA specs. I can respect that, but, I have to say we must definitely not subscribe to the body shell rule:

The following is the list of approved bodies for the GT12 class.



Mardave Lotus GT1

Mardave GT2

Mardave / Kamtec Ascari GT3

Mardave Porsche


This ridiculous state of affairs would serve to improve nothing about the GT12 class whatsoever. The only thing I can say I'm happy about here is that the Mardave Mazda shell is not allowed.

Mardave / Supastox
 

Basically I want to be able to run a hot rod shell in this class. Why any governing body would specifically go out to disallow this is very hard for me to understand. In fact, the shells on the list are actually amongst the least realistic in the entire range of shells that fit the GT12 chassis, a list which numbers well over 50 now I believe. Let's have the choice.
In touring, it's done partly as an income generator because you have to pay to homologate your shell. Then that shell will be stocked by retailers preferentially. So while I still hate the rule, I see why it is in place. In GT12, only a couple of manufacturers produce the shells, so the same can't apply.

Mardave / Supastox
 

Just some further thoughts and observations. One of the true assets of the Glos Club is the friendly nature and relaxed attitude in the way it is organised. It is a welcoming club open to all regardless of ability or age. However this has allowed people to run almost anything they bring with no limits. As Shane comments in an earlier “post” we could chose to change this and make racing a little more competitive. My thinking is that currently we do have a growing number of younger members and perhaps it is our role to be more directive in what they run and chose to buy. This is not to exclude anything that they run currently but perhaps it is our responsibility to be more encouraging to follow certain options. Some of the youngsters have cars which are fast and uncontrollable. ( Yes I will take on the chin any comments about myself ) But seriously we have an opportunity with the winter series to lay out our preferences and future direction.
Fully appreciate younger members will in the main already have 2 cell lipo or stick packs and multi cell ESC so perhaps we should encourage Saturn to a certain winding or brushless 21.5t motor limit? Those that want to / can afford go 1 cell 13.5t.
As far as other rules go we can retain the RWYB run what you bring approach to bodyshells, bumbers and the like. Only other thought and this has probably been discussed to death on other forums, safety around non-hard case batteries ? BRCA are still of the view that Lipo’s should be hard cased. I see few to no battery charging bags at Glos when charging lipo’s and even the youngsters using soft lipo batteries. Appreciate battery technology moves on but is this now considered safe ?

My only reason for throwing the idea of 17.5t 2c non blinky into it, was it was a happy medium between the two classes. I realise its outside the two classes put down by the BRCA, but my thoughts were more aimed at what members may have already. They may not have a 17.5t or a 21.5t, but then they may have a 19.5t, it just opens the choice of what motors they have available to them already, without having to purchase a new one. But this is all probably academic and until you see what all members, have available to them and what they want to race, we won't really be able to make a final decision. So would probably be a good idea to bring this up on Friday night and see what they all want.

Whichever way we go, it will probably mean members having to purchase something to comply with the classes, weather it be a motor, speedo or battery and some members may find this difficult, especially some of the younger members.

2c 7.4 is probably what most members run down the club, which means they would need a 21.5t motor, otherwise if you have a hotter motor this would mean purchasing a 1c battery pack and running in F/B mode. Full blinky mode may well be difficult to police within our club and would rely on the honesty of the members, but it would only take one to take advantage and others would follow. Hence my reasoning of using motors up to 17.5t, it gives a bit more spread of motors members may have, 2c 7.4v batterys which probably most members run and you don't have the problem of policing F/B mode.

The last thing we want is to be to strict on the rules and people not been able to race because of it, I don't think we're that kind of club, but we do need some guidelines to run too. I guess we need to go through this more with the members that race on Friday nights and see what they have available to themselves and what they are wanting to race. We don't want to lose drivers by restricting what they can and cannot race, but it would be nice to see the class on a more even keel. Perhaps if we can't all agree to change, then possibly we can find a happy medium in the short term.

I'm happy to go either direction, weather it be 1s 13.5t or 2s 21.5t, but whichever I decide I too will have to buy a battery or motor to race:)

In the meantime any ideas thrown on this thread, may well be helpful to the club. Apologises for it's a bit all over the place, had to go off and do something half way through writing this.

1cell 13.5 and 2cell 21.5 are very evenly matched so both would be allowed depending on what you currently have it wouldn't be one or the other.

I see the theory in having 17.5 2cell but then you could allow 1cell 10.5 as that would be a match for 17.5 2cell and as a lot of people hav 10.5 it would make sence. But everything would have to be blinky or the speed difference opens again

Good points made all round. I would have to buy a 21.5T to race because 1 cell just doesn't make sense, but I'll not go over that again. Regarding so called 'soft' LiPos, here's the way I see it:
Hard case packs are harder to puncture. The BRCA views this as making them safer. However, LiPo batteries almost never fail via this method. They fail by internal shorting while discharging or over charging, which has NOTHING to do with encasing them in plastic. The problem is, when they DO fail, a lot of hot gas is produced. Personally testing the release of this gas I can confirm that it is spectacular in soft cells. Containing the gas in a hard case though, creates a bomb and that's not something I am keen to play with. The best compromise is a hard cased shell with gas vents, and that's exactly what I use in my Mardave - and lots of other club members are using the same thing.

Any decision made on the rules for the GERCC mini class? Regardless, I'll probably stick with the 21.5t 2S Blinky so I can optimise it for Chippenham.

from my last visit to Glos, we were maintaining teh Summer series rules during the winter series. But migrating to BRCA GT12 rules for next summer series (circa April 2013)
Hope this helps

So no Supastox?

Interim rules
 

Hi

We do plan to have an interim rule set to get us ready for next year but trying to stick close to what we have so as not to cause any immediate expenditure. I will have a chat offline with Ashley and Gordon and see what we are doing with the superstox.

Interim Rules, Supastox / Mardave
 

I think by doing nothing as a club we are failing to set a clear direction to aspiring club members. We have a number of Supastox and Mardave successfully running at the club and we have seen a well driven Dave is a match for Supastox on our small track area.
If you talk to club members some are in a quandary as to what to invest in and take the next step up. My (may be a controversial) view is to provide a wider driving experience for members that Supastox needs to be allowed and stated now this is the intention. These can then also be run at BRCA events such as Chippenham where as a Dave can’t.
As has been said already motor setting can be decided later and perhaps a good start would be limit brushless to 1C 13.5 and 2C 17.5/ 21.5 ( and the already agreed brushed motors ). However at present we need to agree chassis format regulations.
Understand the thinking behind the heats on Friday in separating out Dave’s and Supastox and interesting in the finals they were back together again and I think a Dave may have won. What was the general feeling ?

My 9 year old nephew will be going to gercc this Friday to see what you guys do. I will have to get him everything he needs to race and was thinking about the supastox. Can somebody please advise as to whether this is a good idea and exactly what motor/battery to buy as I only want to buy something he can use for at least his first year. He is very keen to start racing and the sooner he can get up and running the happier he'll be.

The regularly supported classes are Touring and Mini. Mini used to be the Tamiya M-Chassis (M02/M03/M05 etc) but has now evolved into a Mardave V12/CE/Carbon class with a splattering of Supastox in recent months. Both the Mardave and Supastox are performing at similar levels. There are a number of younger drivers all running Mardaves. I've run both Supastox and Mardave and found the Supastox easier to build and setup but I'm strangely addicted to Mardaves :wub

There are usually 12-15 Mardaves running every week and last Friday there were about 6 Supastox.

Hope this helps!

Paul - I'm pretty sure we ran separate all night including the finals, didnt we?

We should just run them all together, GT12 Class. Dont't get the separation at all :mad:

Yeah it was split throughout the night.
I agree, I know a lot of effort went into splitting the class but i prefer to race with people of my ability (its no fun getting constantly lapped :P).

Another in agreement here, Mardave and Supastox should all be raced together. By seperating the two it meant we were racing against others with vast ability differences, I certainly didn't enjoy Friday night having to pull over all the time and I'm sure the better drivers would prefer it, if we wern't in there way.

I only bought a Supastox, so I could race against other GT12 cars and not 1/12 and Pro 10 cars.

Please can we get something sorted with the classes.

Paul,

we separated the finals on friday between Supastox and Mardaves.

All,
In all fairness, race control split the classes as instructed by the commitee members. I run a Mardave and I prefer to race with people of similar ability as pointed out in a previous post. I suspect newcomers joining in with the Supastox heat (one heat only at the moment) will find it very difficult and intimidating as most of these drivers are established racers who look to race at BRCA events so take the hobby that little bit more serious.

To any aspiring newcomer I would advise on going the Mardave route for your first year. Simply because they are cheaper (standard aluminium slab chassis), easier to set up (tyres = 95%) and are very durable. Installing electrics etc.. is also much easier. However later investment is needed if you plan on taking the hobby further afield than the Glos club.

Just my 2ps worth

Si

My advice to Ian H would be, get either a Mardave or SupaStox depending on preference - personally I would go with SS as the package is more complete for the same price, and instructions MUCH clearer for a newcomer. However, with regard to the rest of the equipment you probably can't go far wrong with a 2 cell LiPo/21.5T setup as that would be BRCA legal everywhere and I am sure would always be legal at Gloucester regardless of the final ruling on equipment. It might not have the ultimate pace of the cars many of us currently run, but that would actually be a good thing for a young newcomer. As we all know, learning to race is never helped by having a stupidly fast car.
As for the racing format, everyone here seems to agree. GT12 is GT12, we should not distinguish between the car manufacturers. Hopefully, more manufacturers will bring out cars for the class which can then also be raced without the need for specific chassis homologation. This would also allow the inclusion of home built cars, something that hasn't been strictly race legal for years and holds back RC racing too much...

Thanks, I'm leaning towards the SS mainly because I am a factory sponsored driver so brand loyalty is important to me, however as I won't be racing it, it doesn't matter really. The package I was going to advise my nephew to get was the SS with Pace esc 13.5 speed passion and core rc 1s lipo. The whole lot now available from Schuey for just under £200. Seems reasonable as long as he will be allowed to run it. Ideally he needs to be running with beginners though so if that means him getting the Dave then that might be the right option.
http://www.racing-cars.com/pp/Manufa..._RC/CR175.html

13.5/1S would be legal pretty much everywhere so you should be fine going that route, but it is a dead dog compared with 21.5/2 cell. Although I can't deny I carry a heavy technical bias against 1 cell, I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see it completely gone within a couple or three years.

13.5 not so good
 

I would not recommend the 13.5 1s system as it has proved to be troublesome. It is hard to get the full speed, servo's do not like running at 4v they are slow to respond. And if you have a PT then there isn't enough power to run the servo car and PT so you end up loosing laps. The 21.5T is surprisingly fast in blinky mode so will be more than adequate for club needs