Racing: Cars are better / faster ... increase race duration?

[drbelleville]

I was thinking about this for some time. When I raced - years ago (lets call that era the 90's) - it was mainly about preserving the Tires, Battery to get the 5 min, and a bit of strategy. Now that the cars are more reliable / adjustable, the batteries have more power - last longer and motors are more efficient why not change the race duration? Now its more or less who has the most "power" (for the most part, I know setup plays a role) so with a longer race the equipment has to hold it together a little longer, and chances are the person may or may not have to make it through the field another time perhaps. There is now a little more stress placed upon the driver, which may make things more interesting, and the chances of making a mistake or crashing have been raised as well.

For example increase the current race times by 50%.

Just thinking out loud thats all...

Maurice

[Coelacanth]

Maybe it's a lack of patience on my part, but I find races longer than 4 or 5 minutes to be too long...at least for 1/10 scale. I find myself clicking the YouTube player slider to the final minute more often than not when watching race vids. Probably just me, and I probably wouldn't notice it if I was actually driving.

[Charlie don't surf]

We run 10 min mod A mains, and 5 min heats....and I am always way better the longer the race goes on, but I always have faster single laps in qualifying- go figure

[CAT3K]

I've talked about his with other racers at my local club. I'm all for 10 minute finals, but others don't want the meeting length to increase... I think they lack attention span

With Lipos and brushless a 5 minute heat/final only pulls about 1500ma. I'd manage 15 minutes easy, i'd love finals that long

Paul.

[kaiser]

we run 6 minute heats and 8 minute mains in 1/10.

back when i raced as a kid everything was 4 minutes.

[YZ-10]

5 minute heats and 10 minute finals gets my vote, I race rallyx a while back and the long heats/finals were very tiring.

[Coelacanth]

5 minute heats and 10 minute finals gets my vote, I race rallyx a while back and the long heats/finals were very tiring.

Even moreso if you're on the sidelines watching. It gets a little tedious.

[LTO_Dave]

I haven't raced in years, but it would probably depend on how many classes there are at each track as to how long the races would be. There were only 5 or 6 classes when I raced, and the day lasted from about 10 a.m to 6 p.m or later with 4 minute heats and mains.

Factor in modern day tracks that have 8-12 classes and who knows how many heats per class, and you could imagine how long it would take if the races were 6-10 minutes each. I remember when 4 minutes seemed like a lifetime.

[Bongo Fury]

Many of our local tracks run 7 or 10 minute mains on club days. Don’t think it changes the running order much in most cases, but obviously understand the more value concept.

Added to the warm up laps, which still make me chuckle, really quite a bit more than the 4 of the day. With nary a practice start even. (Ready: buddy turns car on. Set: buddy sets car down. Go: hope!)

5 minute heats and 10 minute finals gets my vote, I race rallyx a while back and the long heats/finals were very tiring.

Even moreso if you're on the sidelines watching. It gets a little tedious.

Don’t forget the marshals. Wait, maybe I should only speak for myself on that one. Umm, no comment on why I’m so concerned!

Cheers,
Dave

[fredswain]

When I raced in the 80's, heats were all 4 minutes and we worked hard to get that 4 minute runtime. I had a battery go dead on the last lap a couple of times. With the batteries of today you see people out running around the track for several laps before lining up for the heat. Many of these guys will run 2 heats on the same battery charge and then just top it off for the main. I used to have 3 batteries and once I had it plugged in and turned on, I wanted the car set at the start line and I didn't move it. I preserved every little bit of battery that I could. No way I'd run a lap before a heat!

The qualifiers here are 5 minutes. The mains are either 7 or 10 minutes long. A mains are 10 minutes. B mains are 7.

[tim.sanderson]

Here, we often run 5 minute quals, 6 minute mains. Sometimes 6 minute quals, too. Once in a while we run 7 minute mains, but not too often. I'd be happy with 8-10 minute mains in either on or offroad. (time permitting. no one wants a weekday club race ending at 1 in the morning!)

However, a couple of years ago we ran a 1000 lap M-chassis endurance race. It took about 4 hours. That was fun!

Believe it or not, at the finish, the number one and two position cars were only separated by about 5 seconds.

[vwjuice]

We do 5 min heats then 6 min mains. I am also the type that does better as the race goes on. I have to settle in to a rythym even if it's the fourth race that day. Alot of the other guys (except the sponsored guys, they're just good) start to fall back a little bit by the 4min mark, so if we went 7-8 minutes then I could really start to make some moves.

[soniccj5]

We started out with 4 minute races, qualifier and mains back in the 80s, but changed to 3 minutes.


Today I am still blown away with the amount of run time we get with new technology. I don't like to win/loose a race because someones battery died. If they ever decided to extend it, I would like to see the length be 3-4 minutes shorter than the battery could last.

ED

[fredswain]

I'd love to see an endurance race. Perhaps only 1 or 2 yearly. It could be much like the 24 Hours of LeMans race except I think 24 hours is a bit excessive in r/c! Even a 2 hour enduro would be pretty cool but do it in offroad to make things even more difficult. You'd really have to be careful with the car as you'd have to manage motor, battery, and esc heat over the distance. You'd also have to account for pit stops to change batteries and with today's very hard tracks, a tire change may even be in order. You also stand far more chance of breaking something so have your pit crew ready with spare parts. I'd love to do it. You'd have all qualifying done the week before with only one 10 car main so if you don't qualify, you don't race. The worst job would be the corner marshalls so even they would have to rotate. I need to pitch this idea locally.

[tim.sanderson]

There were at least Two 24hr races over seas, very recently. Here's one of them:
http://www.msuk-forum.co.uk/topic/114552-hpi-sprint-24-hour-race/