2017 Winter Meeting Input

[dna4engr]

Hey guys, it's time for the winter meeting.

Time to get all our ideas on the table and make plans for another year of great crawling next year.

Please use this thread to give me two things.

1. What dates DON't work for you if you plan to attend? It'll be in early December most likely. On a Sunday around lunch time at Davannis in Richfield...just like every year.

2. Here's your chance to hit me up with your ideas/questions/input for next season. The thread is not to debate what we do and don't do, just to put ideas out there so we can talk about it at the meeting.


Idea's:
TTC input
Scale trucks - are we just right with our rig rules or are we getting too far away from what is "scale"
Comp classes - sporty and pro were great this year. Anything else to consider/change
What vehicle rules did you like/dislike this year
What competition rules did you like/dislike this year
Course setup - we ended up back at difficult courses after we said we wouldnt in scale. It's fine by me but I want all your feedback
Locations - are we mixing it up well? It seemed like we were on the road a lot for "local" comps
Scaler events - Attendance/type/frequency Give me some feedback

Remember this thread is just to give feedback. Not to decide ANY changes. That is all for the meeting. Also, we need to know the timings that DON't work for people.

I'd really like to get some feedback from some of the newer guys like Aaron and Mark.

thanks guys!
Dana

[KCCO]

I think the rear steer point system should be changed

Rear steer penalty point should be a penalty from gate to gate!! Maybe a +2 penalty points So you can use it as Many times you want in between start gate to gate 1 would be +2 points and gate 1 to gate 2 +2 points so on and so forth if you use yay if you don’t you don’t get pointed for it


I do also think we stepped away from scale course and we are running sporty courses in scale classes

Any Sunday works for me I’ll be there

[Orange58Crush]

On the subject of TTC's, my place is still open to host the spring and fall events. If Adam or someone wants to host one of them, I'm cool with that. Second, I would like some planning and construction help to A) make new elements, or at least change them up some. The revisions for the fall event, especially the pallet incline/dropoff was fun, and some of the elements need repair/modification to make them more challenging or make them work correctly.


Off topic slightly, but I will not be hosting a winter Snowcrawl series this year. The band is getting busy and, sorry, I like rockin out more than driving toy trucks. Shoot me. Seriously, I'm gonna miss doing it up in the garage with you guys, gals, and kids, but I just have to many irons in the fire.

IDK if I can get to the meeting, I'll try.

[Nicklepimp]

Do we want to continue to require that 2.2 Trail rigs weigh 8lbs in order to be allowed to have rear steer? Or should we adopt a more similar rule to out of town events like Crawlapalooza, where they did not have a weight requirement?

Scaler events: What type of events? Seems like interest in G6's has declined.

I'm available any Sunday as well.

[KCCO]

I don’t think 8lbs on 2.2 A.W.S should be a requirement anymore. but stiffer penalty like I was saying should

[Ryan78]

1.9 courses were pretty brutal for those not using "cheater" rigs. I don't know how you change it though, to be any challenge to alot of regulars they have to be. 2.2 was a blast and I didn't feel like my mostly stock Wraith was overmatched by the courses like my Ascender and Hammers were in 1.9

[Etype R]

Kevin asked me about removing the 8lb restriction on the 2.2 class for rear steer in order to keep the trucks more in line with sorca.

Maybe we should just adopt the SORCA rules and run class 2 and class 3?

Here is a short list of rules that would affect some trucks in our club.
-There are no rim size restrictions
-Dig is allowed in class 3
-No carbon plate style rims with exposed foams
-No bolt on or stick on external weights on the axles/knuckles
-All vehicles must have the motor, transmission, and electronics covered and hidden when viewed from the top
and sides. Batteries must be chassis mounted and should be hidden from view.


As for scale points, I would like to see a minimum point restriction, but not include the scale points in our scores.


On the winching we need to set rules for when it is ok to stop the time. In my opinion it should only be stopped to grab the club winch and make sure its plugged in. Also if the club winch breaks, stop the time to repair or replace it. The time should not remain stopped while the line is being spooled out and hooked up. Its proven to be faster to use the club winch vs your own onboard winch. I do like the current 3/5 point system.

On rear steer, we are using the sorca point penalty which I feel is fair, especially if we end up using the sorca rules.


G6 events,I feel that we need another location on private land to hold these. And if we can get a location worked out, maybe only 1 or 2 a year? It takes a fair amount of time to setup the courses, as well as collect the markers at the end. And we are fairly limited as to what we can do on public land using hiking trails.

[dna4engr]

To be completely honest. The only reason I won in 2.2 trail this year is three things. Adam broke too many times early in the season, Nick didn't get his rig dialed in until late, and Aric missed 2 of the 2.2 comps. My performance tapered off as others got better. But it is a whole season and you have to perform the entire time (luckily I had a good finals course). Point being, I don't know that rear steer is the pure advantage all the time. And I know for a fact there were times my heavier rig couldn't pull lines that the lighter trucks could. Plus I'd like to keep scoring as simple as possible.

Yes I did really well at crawlapalooza with Nick and Aric, but I actually drove well. They used the SORRCA ruleset for vehicle rules, but not using the points (like Mike suggested). I actually did like that you had to have scale items on your vehicle. It didn't taper off all the "cheater" rigs but it could make a difference. A great topic to discuss at the meeting.

I know that Sorrca is looking at outlawing dlux knuckles overall. Not sure where that will go. It's a bit of a debate and I really don't care. There are plenty of brass knuckles out there now that are machined like a 1/1 knuckle so the pure value of dlux isn't fully there.

We definitely need to talk about winching rules and on course time usage. Don't want to debate here, just agreeing with mike that we need to discuss.

I think course setup needs to be a key point for our discussion. Josh is right. We are making some courses with insane gates. Perfect on pro/sporty, not on scale. I know we need differentiation between the better drivers. Can bonuses do enough??

[nerby149]

As far as the 1.9 rigs go, I think moving to having to have a minimum of 10 scale points is a good idea, any rim size in 1.9, dlux knuckles should be ok as lots of 1:1 rigs have similar, Sorcca is being dumb. As far as the courses we definitely need to make them easier but make the bonuses tough and not allow winching on a bonus. Make the course more of a trail 1:1 course, we all know we can set them up that way, we just don't lol. 2.2 trail I think any weight with rear steer is ok and make it a 1 point penalty between each gate. Also no winch on bonus gates. As far as the winch goes clock should not ever be stopped for the winch and winch should always be on the ground and not moved when in use, driver picks where they want it and that's where it stays, if it needs to be moved its a 2nd penalty. Also if you use your own winch we should have to use a pull pal, but change it to a 2pt penalty. Pro and sporty I see no need for change of any kind.

[Etype R]

On winching, if a pull pall was required, nobody would use their own winches. With the speed and power of the club winch your already at a disadvantage with your own winch. Hindering the use of your own winch further would make them pointless to have. And I feel the current point system for winching is fine, its just making sure the time is only stopped if there is a problem with the club winch, or it needs to be moved to the area.

Rear steer should follow the same rules as sorca for simplicity. And if we run sorca rules, than you could also run dig in class 3.


I've never heard the argument that dlux knuckles are scale, and simlar to 1:1 rigs? Do you have pictures showing a full size knuckle that resembles a dlux knuckle?


Part of the trail class problem in my opinion is having trucks that are built closer to a sporty rig than a trail rig. We than have to build courses to challenge those rigs, so the top tops do not all finish with perfect runs and tied scores. And its parts like the dlux knuckles, hybrid axles, knuckle weights, and carbon rims that help create these rigs. So if you can restrict the use of some parts, and keep the builds in the spirit of being scale, than the courses do not need to be as hard as they have been.

At this point I would prefer to keep it simple and use the base sorca rules now, with our method of scoring. If sorca bans Dlux, which hasnt happened yet. Then that would also affect you if you bring your truck to a sorca event out of state. Also if we run with the sorca rules, thats a lot less arguing that we have to deal with in our meeting

[diesel kawboy]

I think sorca rules could apply. That way no one has to get their undies bunched. Basically if sorca makes the rules, we just go with it and don't have to bicker about this every fall. But I think we should also allow rocket boosters because sometimes 4s just isn't enough

[diesel kawboy]

Oh yeah, Thanksgiving weekend doesn't work for me, we will be at Notre Dame watching a hockey game

[Runfrcover]

I do plan to make the meeting and sounds like I will have to read up on SORCA ruling!

[colombiapunk]

I like the idea of private land for g6s. I've been excited to do a g6 and I'd hate to see them go away. For me it's distance. All have been too far from the cities for me to go. I get that or club is for all MN, and that have the fun of this is seeing the beautiful outer reaches of the state, so a certainly don't expect anything to revolve around my location or limited schedule. That said four to five hour round trips knock me and the family out of most events for now while I'm in the early baby years. Might be worth looking if that's a factory for other members participation and or potential members to grow the group.

Coming from 2wd buggies my experience with RC comps was they were always skill based. Sure there was stock and modified, as we have scale vs sporty, but the classes were divided into novice and pro. Coming to rock crawling it was odd to see it defined not by skill but by wheel diameter (and not even tire diameter... Weird...)

This doesn't address the scoring issue or club seems to have, which is we've got a few 1.9 drivers that can tackle sporty courses and a bunch of drivers that struggle to finish the very difficult 1.9 courses that are made.

Why not at the beginning of the season build a qualifier course. It gets progressively more difficult as it goes, to the tune of knocking out all 1.9 trail rigs by the end. Make it all run what you brung, and what class you are put in is based on how far and how fast you made it through the qualifying course.

Then at events you build courses to accommodate the number of classes (5-10 people per class) you have and the varying skill sets. It's always competitive because people are matched and grouped by ability.

Just throwing it out there as food for thought that I've seen work and draw in newbies to comping

[Nicklepimp]

There is an indoor event on Dec 3rd. So it looks like the available Sundays are either Dec 10th or 17th.

I'm leaning towards the 10th. Any objections?

[Etype R]

The 10th works for me, I would rather have it sooner than later to help guide winter builds.

[diesel kawboy]

The 10th should work for me as well