I think I can make this clearer!
Most of the buggies were designed around NiMH cells (heavy). The setups we learned on these cells we then need to make work with lighter lipo cells. An easy way to do this is to add weight to bring it up to the same weight as with NIMH's.
I have run indoors on carpet both with and without weight. In all honesty, the car will be quicker without weight, since it can accelerate, turn and jump and land both faster and better. The problem with this is that it can give the impression of a twitchy car, leading to more mistakes and a slower time.
With the heavy rear end of the B4, adding weight over the nose can actually make it handle better (esp with Lipo), since it can generate more power on steering (which is needed indoors with 2wd and the B4 esp). It also makes the car safer, and we dont need to change the shock setup as much to deal with a lighter car to fine tune it as much with the lighter cells.
Overall, I would say I am faster with a slight amount of weight in, it just makes the car easier and more consistent to drive.
Hope this helps the non F1's out there!
