New Event Proposals...
How about some input?
By Bob McDougall

...At the January dinner meeting, Bill Greger passed around a signup sheet in an effort to determine whether or not there is sufficient interest among TCRCM club members to try out one or two new events this year. Specifically: are you interested in getting involved in informal pylon racing, or perhaps RC combat?

Since this is a somewhat uneventful (no pun intended_ time of the year for most newsletter editors, I thought I’d throw in an extra page this time and give you a little background and some personal opinions on these two prospective happenings. This month, let’s talk about racing.

As many of you know, full-blown pylon racing is a high-mortality, high-pressure, big-bucks event, wherein the task is to squeeze every last mile per hour out of an engine that is designed strictly for the purpose and usually costs upwards of $300. This is NOT what we have in mind, folks. If we did, I’m sure the level of participation would be very low.

The biggest problem with ANY kind of racing event is to come up with a set of rules that is acceptable to most of the prospective participants.. THIS IS WHERE YOUR INPUT IS NEEDED! There are a number of alternatives to consider, and this is where your input is most helpful. I’ll briefly run through one or two options:

— Handicap racing, wherein you can fly anything you want... you first establish a ‘handicap’ time for 10 laps, and that time is used to establish a staggered start based on the difference between your handicap and that of your opponents. For example, if it takes you 2 seconds longer to fly 10 laps than "Joe Slow", you take off 2 seconds before Joe does. That way, everyone (in theory) should cross the finish line at the same time. If you make any changes to your plane at all, you must establish a new handicap time. Oh, by the way: if you fly a 10-lap heat in less than your handicap time, you lose the heat, and your elapsed time for that heat becomes your new handicap time for future heats.

Advantages: you don’t need to build or buy any certain

plane or engine to compete, so it’s quite easy to get started.. no ‘preliminary rules committee’, no arguments about what’s legal or not, no waiting for everyone to decide what to fly, buy it, and build it. Also, the staggered start tends to level the playing field.. the slowest plane has the same chance of winning as the fastest plane. Consistency is more important than getting the most speed out of your plane.

Disadvantages: you need two stopwatches (or one really good one) for every pilot in the heat, and all pilots must help out with other duties (timing, flagging, etc.) while not actually racing. Also, a permanent ‘race coordinator’ must handle the admin stuff.. recording and maintaining handicap times, looking out for recent changes to planes that have already established a handicap time, etc.

— Limited-equipment racing ...the idea is to determine ahead of time (PREFERABLY, WITH EVERYONE’S INPUT!) either a single plane/engine combo, or a short list of planes and engines suitable for the event. Once that’s done, everyone builds/buys/borrows the needed plane/engine and we start racing. No handicaps, no staggered starts, and if you can gain 2 MPH by switching fuel or props, so be it. In this type of racing event, alterations to the plane or engine are usually prohibited or severely restricted.. but the basic idea is that if your plane is faster, you’ll usually come out ahead.

This is the type of event currently being promoted by one of our neighbor clubs.. the Yakima Valley Aeromodelers over in Zillah are promoting a racing event using only STOCK Sig "Four Star 40"s powered only by STOCK OS 40 LA engines. According to their latest newsletter, they now have twelve in progress or ready to go.

Advantages: Everybody starts off even, and it’s a fairly low-cost event if the preliminary work is done right. Also, it’s a bit more of a "racing" event— it’s to your advantage to go faster. Once the rules are set up, the admin work is minimal.

Disadvantages: not everybody is willing to build a certain plane or buy a certain engine. Startup is longer because a list of planes and engines must be determined beforehand, and time passes while the prospective participant builds/buys/borrows the right plane/engine. Also, it’s sometimes difficult to please everyone when determining the rules, and the rules are frequently complained about after every race... "Why can’t I use my BelchFire .40?? It turns the same RPM as that O & R .23 over there..." Yeah, right!

OK, guys, here comes the "personal opinion" stuff...

I have been involved with, and participated in, several types of racing events... GLH races, Honker races, Handicap, One-design, Warbird racing, and true Formula 1 and Q-500 (the last two as a race worker but never a participant.. too expensive!). In every case EXCEPT Handicap races, the rules kept changing, and the changes ALWAYS made half the people happy and the other half furious... "Next time, no delta wings allowed", or "Next time, no more scratch-built planes". The best way to eliminate these hassles is either the Handicap approach, or a SIMPLE set of rules based on input from all interested parties. Rules changes are almost inevitable due to the variety of new planes and engines each month. The best way to avoid such problems is to provide your input NOW... my personal recommendation would be either to ‘test the water’ with a Handicap race, or go with the Four Star 40 / OS 40 LA combo, which would allow interclub competition.

Anyway, if you think it might be fun to try racing again, let somebody know.. call Bill Greger, or Email me, or talk to any Club officer. As I said earlier, YOUR INPUT IS NEEDED!

Next month, provided there’s space and enough interest, I’ll ramble on a bit about RC combat.

This page last updated 07/04/99 16:45