Historic Saloon, Vintage Sports and Restricted GT classes

[Luke]

Stevo it seems like you have nothing much to hut up ur head to type all that "this and that" bout FRC racing.

I almost went and get a ruler to (not that I did) read line for line with your post replies... but really, you dont think it will be much easier & effective if Gordon have a meeting and then come up with an overall conclusion?

Its the simple solution we looking for and not all these million and one words on the Forum?

My son would say - "Doh beat up yuh body nah boy"

Luke

[arden100]

Guys,

I understand all your comments and concerns, however we must be cognisant of what this is all about.
It is my impression that this is a private track developed for the fun and enjoyment for a group of friends. If this is the case then we are definitely going down the wrong path.
Your rules are quite good with the only exception being Vintage. That is the interior should be in the car only because of the downforce in the GT40. We can discuss this further I have some more ideas, however let me stay on point.

If one individual wants to cheat, bend the rules, regulation creep, call it what you want this is not the place for it. This is friends and comraderie.
If someone wants to cheat and profess to be better than another this is not the place. Leave them and eventually they will realise this is not for money or fame. We share information and have good clean fun.

I suggest fix the vintage alone. Leave all other class as is and move forward. If you stay in this mode you will have alot more to adjust for clarity.

Arden

[gordon]

WOW! I never dreamed I'd stir up a such a hornet's nest with this. Let me explain my logic as briefly as possible.

Of all thirteen FRC classes, which ones do we appear to enjoy the most? If we were to vote, I'd bet that our IROC classes would win. Why? Because the cars perform very close to one another. They are by no means the fastest classes and we have to "drive" the cars, yet we seem to have the most fun racing these classes.

Now let's jump to HS and VS (I'm leaving out RGT for now). My concept when I introduced these classes was to have stock cars (similar to our Mini Class) but from a range of manufacturers, thus providing a variety of models and have them running like our IROC classes do - close but not super-fast (stock). We were partly successful with this but of late we're getting large differences in performance between the cars in these classes, particularly VS. This is largely because of the variety of chassis designs, motors and magnet settings of the different cars and manufacturers. On one extreme, at our last event we saw the Bhola boys run away with the class and on another extreme, we have cars like Steve's Porsche 910 which is no longer competitive and he feels he has to retire it. Steve's car comes stock with a MRRC "Sebring" chassis and a single bar magnet, yet there are several cars with this same "Sebring" chassis that come stock with two of these same bar magnets (my Ferrari 275P and Chaparral 2 are examples). The way the rules are written, Steve cannot add a second magnet. Is this fair?

So, I thought and thought about what could be done to get back to my initial concept with these classes. I started going through our results to identify every car that ever ran in them and began to make a list, identifying the stock magnet setup for each. It soon became apparent that I was wasting my time when I saw the variety of different magnet setups that these cars come with. I then changed course and tried to think of the simplest way to get these cars to all be similar in performance and remembered a phrase Luke once mentioned to me - "Simple Solutions" - and it struck me. Why not simply have these stock cars set-up so that they all had about the same magnet downforce? I then measured the downforce on all the cars in the list I presented earlier in this post and came up with what I felt were realistic downforce limits for stock cars and based on the relative performance of "saloon" cars and "sports racing" cars of the era. To finalise trying to get the cars to perform similarly, I put an RPM limit on them.

That's it. Set the cars for the same downforce and motor RPM. Nothing more.

Regarding RGT, the class is not an all-out open class, it is a restricted-modification class. We already had an RPM limit on this class so I'll just talk about magnets/downforce. As with HS and VS, the stock magnets in these cars can vary dramatically from one model to another (some just have button magnets). The same logic applied when I set what I thought was a reasonable limit on downforce. That's all. Nothing complicated.

Having said all of this, I have to close by agreeing with what Arden said about the "atmosphere" of our racing at FRC (including a long and fruitful conversation with him half an hour ago). We are friends with a common passion for slot car racing. We are not pros. I would hate to do anything to change this and feel that we can come to an agreeable solution to the issues which brought up the regulation changes I proposed in the first place. Perhaps we can have a "pow wow" before our next event, or just have a test session where we make it a point to discuss this so that we can all come to an agreement.

Gordon

(PS: I've got the flu from Zoe and am feeling quite awful, so we'll skip racing this week)

[steveaca]

Hi Gordon,
sorry to hear that you're not feeling great. Jonathan and I both have this cold which has been lingering since Carnival. I agree with you on the new magnetism rules (I wouldn't say motor rules as these are not new, although the idea of measuring /checking them for conformity is) but it seems like some further discussion may be warranted. I would suggest however, that the next event (Lambos, Mod.Prod and F1) be run as usual and maybe we could have a discussion re the VS and HS classes at that time.
Steve

[Luke]

I knew it..!

Gordon, I told Arden yesterday that - after we all have our say on this subject, you are going to come up with a good solution...

Three things I would still like to point out here though - One for you, one for Steve & the other is general.

1. GG, We now race fourteen classes with the Mini "IROC" Challenge...

2. Stevo, The next FRC event is in this order - Lambos, F1 & Mod Prod...

3. The RGT Class - One "stock" bar-magnet & still put a limit on downforce?

I think could be going the wrong way... You already have the option to change out the rear axle set-up...

The HS & VS classes are looking fine with the new directions.

Luke

ps. GG, I got the 2013 Scalextric magazines in the mail yesterday and hope you feel better soon.

[gordon]

Guys,

Since we're planning to have a discussion on this at our event next week, here's another angle for you to think about to be prepared for the discussion. I had a phone conversation with Ramesh today and to cut straight to his point, what about we consider the following system which they have started to use in south after talking with some slot car experts in the US:

Set a target fastest allowable time ("Target Time") for each of the three classes. Once you don't go under that time, fine. If you go under it in qualifying, the car cannot race (in that condition). If your fastest race lap goes under it, you're demoted to last place (like not serving a stop-and-go penalty).

I've looked at the qualifying history in the FRC database and taking into consideration the different cars, drivers and times, I've come up with the following initial Target Times to consider for the three classes if we want to go in this direction:

Historic Saloon - 7.0 sec (fastest is 6.690; average is 7.820)
Vintage Sports - 6.5 sec (fastest is 6.014; average is 7.328)
Restricted GT - 6.0 sec (fastest is 5.514; average is 6.858)

These can be altered if necessary, they're just starting points (although I think they're what they should be).

On the negative side, the main issue I see is that we will have to use the computer at all events for any of these classes in order to get each car's fastest time during the race. This adds to the setup and cleanup process. Secondary issues would be things like performance variances based on the track conditions (eg: clean vs dirty rails, possible climatic affect, etc.).

So toss this suggestion around in your heads for next week's discussion.

Gordon

(PS: Luke... hope this isn't more "information overload" for you!)

[Luke]

Nah GG - where did that come out from man?

That was a low blow

To tell you the truth, I found it very interesting and FRC could do well with this new type of driving style.

Dont you think so? The only thing is (as you said) its more things to prepare for racing like this...

BTW I didnt need to go get a ruler

Luke

[Luke]

Gordon ~ I agree with having a discussion about "set a target for fastest time" at our next event, but here's another angle to think about when we are having this discussion.

If we G2G with setting a target for fastest allowable time in the VS & RGT classes... Which is sounding very interesting but will have to use the computer at this event for for these 2 classes for it to work - we might as well include the SC class

After all - These 3 FRC classes (VS, RGT & SC) are all in a night's racing event

Sincerely,

Luke

[gordon]

Gordon ~ I agree with having a discussion about "set a target for fastest time" at our next event, but here's another angle to think about when we are having this discussion.

If we G2G with setting a target for fastest allowable time in the VS & RGT classes... Which is sounding very interesting but will have to use the computer at this event for for these 2 classes for it to work - we might as well include the SC class

After all - These 3 FRC classes (VS, RGT & SC) are all in a night's racing event

Sincerely,

Luke

Luke,

HS and VS are stock classes but allow a large range of slot car manufacturers and models. Were it not for this and all the cars were from the same manufacturer and used identical components, there would be no need to include them in this topic. RGT is similar in terms of multiple manufacturers and models however its not a stock class, but one which allows restricted modifications. If you go through all the FRC classes, it is these three (and possibly F1 since technically all manufacturers are allowed) that we may want to look at in the context of this discussion.

Slot.It Challenge on the other hand is a stock class for specific cars (they are listed) with a specific set-up (inline Slot.It motor pod with stock magnet in a standard position and stock 21,500 RPM motor) from a single manufacturer (Slot.It). I do not believe that it can be lumped into the same category as the others. These specs by themselves police the class and are easy to check. All these Slot.It cars can be made to perform similarly with a little tuning, which is allowed (eg; gear ratios, non-magnetic weight, hubs and tyres, etc.).

The fact that VS, RGT & SC race at the same event simply means that the computer information will be available for all classes. It does not mean that we should automatically put a target time on all classes just because this info is available.

Gordon

[Luke]

Very nicely put ~ but I'm still not in agreement..!

I will leave my opinion for discussion when we meet at next race event

Luke