Give a pro driver a crappy car experiment

[TokyoProf]

So, I've always had this youtube idea to give a pro driver an outdated or "crappy" engineered car and see just how they would fare around a race track. Part of the test is to see their driving skills and their mechanical ability to improve an outdated design on a race track. Kind of like IRON chef but applied to RC cars (maybe a bad analogy). I never see pro drivers drive a crappy car and it would be a fun to see what happens. For example: What happens when you give a pro driver a bone stock RTR Tamiya Grasshopper or "advanced" Thundershot with a mabuchi motor?

1) How uncompetitive would a local racer be compared to a sponsored IFMAR driver?
2) Then, give them another test. Give them a few tools, or materials, (same for all) and see what they would creatively do to modify and improve the performance of their crappy cars within one hour.

How would they maximize performance and drive it around a track in the shortest amount of time? It would be fun to see what goes on in the mind of a race car driver to improve a very basic RC design and how they adapt their driving with limitations.What do you think will happen?

[RPMfieldtester]

as long as the crappy car stayed together, they would be reasonable competitive. Track time and experience really goes a long way. One time, back in the ol days, I won an outdated Losi "Junior" buggy in a raffle at a local So Cal series race and decided to race it, bushings and all until I won in the pretty stout local stock class. Took a couple of races but I did win with it. Another time, on the ride home from a parking lot on road race, I stopped at a local off road track/ I had an old yokomo sedan that I was racing and a buddy wanted to see it. When I brought it into the track, I was challenged to race the sedan against the off road buggies...had a blast and was able to win with it...and I'm not trying to brag, just using it for context since I was not a "pro driver," I was just a long time semi sponsored club racer that would typically finish at the tail end of the factory and pro drivers at the big races...those guys don't make mistakes and that is worth a lot on the track...

[Dadio]

Grasshopper racing is a thing in Japan ! Look it up on YouTube .

[juicedcoupe]

A Grasshopper or Frog might be extreme.

But say a RC10 Worlds car (1993) against modern buggies. Given modern tires, I do believe a pro driver could win.

[Dadio]

The type of track would also be a big factor , modern jumps are huge compared to old school tracks , a low end car on a modern track would be significantly handicapped .

[1911Colt]

I don't know how those guys resist, to be honest. Give me Michal Orlowski's driving skill, and I would terrorize the locals with my old Top Cat and XLS I guess it is because most of the top drivers are younger than the buggies I like, and therefore have no interest in running one.

But to the original question, I do think a pro level driver could win at the club lever with mediocre car. I think they could "drive around" the limitations of the car. Same thing with real cars. I remember reading an article in a car magazine. At a press event, the magazine guy, who was an amateur racer, was wringing the neck of the latest sports car from whatever brand was holding the event (Nissan, I think, so 300ZX?). Anyway he was tearing it up, quite pleased with himself, until Dan Gurney drove right around him in the company's econobox.

[jwscab]

When the rerelease world's car came out, some of the factory guys were building them and running them and running against the b4.x and b5 buggies and were doing a little too well with them. I believe it was discouraged for them to keep running them.

Great drivers will make anything run better but it's really the lack of mistakes that gets you to that upper echelon.

[Frankentruck]

The motors and batteries would need to be equivalent. Otherwise there's just too much handicap to overcome.

I saw a video recently that was something like this, a skilled driver with a lesser buggy racing with better buggies. I thought I'd seen it on this site, but not sure now.

[Dadio]

Little off topic but kind of not , I fly Micro RC Helicopters as well and when a new one comes out the pilot doing the press release show flights can make em fly like I wish I could ! Even a crappy budget Heli in the hands of a Pro can fly better than any high end Heli with me at the sticks

[JosephS]

So, I've always had this youtube idea to give a pro driver an outdated or "crappy" engineered car and see just how they would fare around a race track. Part of the test is to see their driving skills and their mechanical ability to improve an outdated design on a race track. Kind of like IRON chef but applied to RC cars (maybe a bad analogy). I never see pro drivers drive a crappy car and it would be a fun to see what happens.

For example: What happens when you give a pro driver a Tamiya Grasshopper or Frog or an "advanced" Thundershot? How would they maximize performance and drive it around a track in the shortest amount of time? It would be fun to give them a handicap and see how they compare. The comparison could be between the pro drivers (with the same car and limited modifications) or have a pro driver drive a "crappy" car and see if they might be competitive in a local race circuit (against normal drivers using modern chassis). Or it could be as simple as seeing what goes in the mind of a race car driver to improve a very basic RC design and how they adapt their driving with limitations.

What do you think will happen?

When pro's talk about lap times I hear them talk about .1 of a second, club racers .5-1.0 second, and novice racers 1-10 seconds as significant differences.

It depends on a bunch. If the car is a vintage race car with modern electronics and the car is racing the surface it was designed for. The driver will be competitive. In 2016 Chris Van Air won at Hotrod RC with an rc10T against the 10t5. The track was a dirt track and the 10t was made for that surface. A professional driver level that on a high traction track a vintage racing car could compete at the club level against modern platforms, as driver skill is such a huge part of racing.

You can look at the fast times for vintage championships at a track and compare them to club results to get an idea.

A pro driver with a hornet is going to be at such a disadvantage against a competent club racer that it would be just for fun. Racing against a novice driver the pro could win by simply staying on the track. My lap speed is mostly dependent on how much attention marshals are paying to my upside down truck.

[clm]

I think something like this should be done Top Gear STIG style get yourself a track and have the 'anonymous pro driver' run the 'crappy' or 'classic' car back to back with his modern race machine after giving him half hour to do as much tuning as he can to the outclassed platform and then run it as a best of 5 laps or a number of laps in x minutes. Something to set a standard for the cars to reach. You might even have a before and after 'Anonymous Pro' tunes the car laps to see if there is improvement. Then you could keep a running score of the difference between the pro's car and the test car's laps. Over the series you could end up with a nice leaders board showing which old and outdated cars are better than the other old and outdated cars. You would use the metric of the difference between their pro car and the test cars laps or best time on that day so that if track conditions change the pro car would get the same bonuses or hinderances as the current test car would.....


Sorry for the novel lol.

[juicedcoupe]

This is from a few years ago. Not that I'd call his truck crappy but it was definitely outdated.

https://www.reedyrace.com/ae/spotlight/pages/RC10T_Van/index.html

[TokyoProf]

Good comments. I was really thinking about two things a) how to make the playing field the same; and b) giving pro drivers handicaps to see their ability against challenges. This would be an attempt at pure test of driving and engineering skills.

I agree with the RC10 Worlds Release as being the earliest platform and most interesting handicap to give a pro driver against modern stuff. The RC10T was a nice success story against the modern stuff too. Still, I think Masami Hirosaka with an RC10 Classic with modern wheels would still easily beat some local drivers with an RC10B6.4D.

The following parameters might be interesting:

1) Give pro drivers bone stock grasshopper/frog/thundershot and with the same equipment. See what the outcomes and differences in pure driving time would be.
2) Give pro drivers bone stock grasshopper/frog/thundershot and then allow them to upgrade (within sanctioned rules) to improve their vehicles (on the sameday). Test their individual engineering prowess and modification ability and their time/race results.
3) Give a pro driver a 20-30 year handicap (by giving them a 20-30 year old design RC car) and see if they can compete with local top drivers.

Might be fun to do in the future .

[Toaster]

I always dreamed since first getting into the hobby about what factory drivers could potentially come up with given all their experience and resources if they were all handed a bone stock Grasshopper, FX10, Frog or some other base level model to see what they would come up with. Obvious rules, eg retention of gear box but give them carte blanche to update gears, materials, ratios, chassis, body and wing updates, wheel and tire combo’s. What kind of crazy suspension updates would they come up with etc etc.

Heck, I wonder sometimes given some of the amazing builds we have seen on here what members could come up with working together given the collective resources on updating a six gear RC10 to make it as competitive as humanly possible? Longer arms? trailing arms? larger diameter rims? longer tub or multi plate graphite chassis? Large bore shocks? And then challenging AE to a charity race or something lol oh the possibilities

[Diamond Dave]

ThE Stig?? Michael Schumacher?