Quote:
Originally Posted by Dez82
For the record Team Chand-a-Cola remained polite and consistent throughout, we didn't change tactic at all, rose to 3rd before our laps started missing (PT problem - it was plugged in backwards) so we proved that remaining on track was more important than fast laps.
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Ah OK, fair enough - never implied that you were anything but perfect gentlemen, it just appeared that you rose to third very quickly and I assumed that this was down to a strategy change. Hard luck regarding the transponder, had not heard about that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SlowOne
Team Doris did a fastest lap of 14.1, and an average lap over 24 hours of 20.something. A body can be worth 0.5 secs per lap, so let's say 3%. For us, that's another 128 laps, or 40 minutes ahead on the clock.
The more you restrict the things you can see, the more costs you add elsewhere. If people want to add a class for more expensive cars then fine, but the proposed Rules on these posts for the HPI cars are adding costs. John had it spot on for both cars, mods he allowed and speeds he selected. I hope that the HPI class stays the same.
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In retrospect there wasnt a lot wrong with the rules, so changing them does seem to be a bit of a risk vs reward thing. I can understand a body adding 0.5 secs if you went from a properly scale Tamiya replica shell to a Protoform Mazda 6, but do you really think that the difference between the HPI shells will be that noticeable - they are all reasonably scale are they not, not warped for aero benefits and surely wont offer much in the way of a performance defecit between them?
My concern is that we are making the cars too robust. Part of the challenge of the 24 hour race last weekend was getting pace out of the car without the expense of part failures. By swapping in UJ's, RPM cups and brushless motors arent we basically guaranteeing that most cars will run for 24 hours straight without any failure, other than maybe diff outdrives and the occasional knuckle? If anything this time it should be more challenging as we will all be better prepared. I echo the concerns about brushless systems also - on paper they cost the same as 7x Saturn motors, but if not absolutely dirt cheap then blowing up a single motor/ESC suddenly doubles your expenses. You could push the gearing with the Saturn as if it popped you were only down a tenner, or less than £2 each. Again, part of the point of the 24 hours I thought was changing burnt out motors in a timely fashion, or running them conservatively to try and increase longevity and avoid pitting - with brushless this element will be all but gone. Most of the battle we had with Doris/Worcester towards the end of the race was down to reliability, as we were unable to pull the deficit back in with pace alone - it got very tense every time a rivals car was pulled off-track and we were wondering if a belt had gone and whether we should dispatch a spy to the rival teams pit area.
Epic video by the way - perhaps include something in the budget this time for the onboard cameras that Dez reviewed in Racer a while back - wont record 24 hrs I'm assuming but would make for some cool footage. Only about £40 if I recall.