Winter rules - Mardave / Supastox

[Simion Wabs]

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

[ChrissieL]

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

[RCMadShane]

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..

[ChrissieL]

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.

[LongRat]

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.

[grayslick]

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.

[grayslick]

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

[Paul Bristol]

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.

[ChrissieL]

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.

[ChrissieL]

Originally Posted by ChrissieL

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.

Just to confirm running BRCA 13.5 OR 21.5 is fine.

[Gunter]

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

[LongRat]

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.

[J'MM'N]

Originally Posted by Paul Bristol

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 ?

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.

[Gunter]

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

[LongRat]

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.

[ChrissieL]

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.

[Paul Bristol]

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 ?