I think that it is time for ROAR to consider extending the length of oval races to take full advantage of the newest crop of batteries that are to become legal as of Jan 1st 2006. Modified & 19T races should be extended to 5 minutes and stock extended to 6 min. With 4-cell modified, we are currently running 6 & 7 turn motors, What is going to happen with a 3800 mah cell? 4 & 5 turns?

Any comments are welcome

Eric Dimmick
Owner
Darkside Motorsports

Hi Eric! I think your right. It would make the racing closer at the end. Stock However is slow enough and I don"t think I would want to go slow any longer than 4 minutes. It would be interesting trying two cells And gearing for 4minutes in Open Mod. Let me jump to another subject If you don"t mind. Snowbirds, as you know is a long week of know sleep and enless wrenching. I think it would have given all involved a better chance if we all had 5 Qualifiers and tripple A Mains. It would also better if They spread the whole thing out for two Weeks. They could run on Road the first week And Oval the second week. That way we would Have alot more time to dial in the car . Eric

i disagree totally... with longer races, come more wear on parts , tires batteries. motors ect... If you got to a national event, and there is 100 dirvers... figure 5 guys in a heat, thats 20 heats... 4 minute heats with 2 minute break in etween... thats ..6 minutes..
thats two hours a round.. now add 2 extra minutes to each heat.. thats 40 extra minutes per round added to the time frame.4 rounds thats almost 3 hours.... Imagine if the snowbirds added one or two minutes to each heat .., with 800+ racers.. there isnt enough time in the day...

i would rather see another qual added... then longer races... 4 heats thats 8 extra minutes on the track a day... so basically two full heats of extra wear on my equipment... add that up over a season. it will be more expensive... the new batteries, do NOT have that much more runtime to add 2 minutes to a race...

I have to agree with burbs on this one,I would much rather have another heat than longer races,if I remember right we had three heats and triple a-mains at the spec nats last year and it was a LOT of racing,not to mention the wear and tear on the equipment.A two week race I would think would be out of the question,not many people can take that much time off work to race.If you want to race longer races go nitro.

4 minutes is plenty four 4 cells . If you would like to run longer may I suggest running 6 cells those heats are five minutes.

I personally think it is just fine the way it is.And i agree with pepe.you want to race longer. go gascar.

No thanks, I'll stay with the 4 min races! I don't feel like going thru another battery war!

4 minutes in 4 cell stock. 5 minutes in 6 cell . And in 19 turn and open 4 min. I like they way it is.

Eric,

I'm in the midst of a discussion on this same subject for the South-West Tour Series on our message board.

It's crazy, especially for those of us who have been racing since the mid 80's with the old 1200's to listen to these guys who don't think that we'd be able to make time by adding 2 minutes with batteries that have more than 3 times the run time that we had then.

To get an early jump and have info to back up my future comments, we've started a "Non-Stop Enduro" class this year. We are running different set number of laps at all the "TOURS" tracks this year. We did 75 on the 950 ft Velodrome, 150 at Racers Haven, 170 at Freedom Park, back to 150 at HotRod Hobbies. The race at Freedom Park took nearly 24 minutes. That's 24 minutes of NON-STOP oval racing w/ a 4 cell 3300 battery. So far I've got guys working more on strategy and it's cool to see some guys come out charging for 15 minutes and dump, others take a slow start approach and come on strong with 2 minutes to go, a others just go steady for the entire run.

But, now that I know we can run 24 minutes I'm cutting the length back so the speeds will start coming up to a decent level for the entire run. So instead of INCREASING TIME...I'm kind of decreasing it until I find a good balance of SPEED and COMPETITION.

I'm thinking of most of the tracks in the 250 - 300 ft length that 100 lap mains will work out AWESOME.

...now something I don't understand is "Why MORE qualifiers?" You can win all 3 qualifiers and crash on the first lap of the main...and NOBODY knows your name. Qualifying only GETS you to the race that counts...it doesn't need to be more than a handful of laps.

Now, guys talk about 'Battery Wars' etc., but if ONLY Main Events were lengthened, you would only need ONE killer pack and if heat races were shortened (To balance the added time of the longer main) you could get away with lesser packs for qualifying. So, for instance of 3700's, 3800's, etc. you'd only need ONE of those packs for the main...and 3300's would be plenty for qualifying...(hahaha, yeah right...GUYS complain cause they ARE GOING TO BUY new batteries..then they complain...cause you want to make them USE them...)

At a time in the sport where everyone wants spec this and same that, where cheat codes have ruined video games, Where everyone now complains that they can't win instead of spending some extra practice time on the track or extra work at the work bench. You want to add more time?

So know the people who are losing by 2 laps are now going to lose by 4 laps. Oh yeah that will keep them draging there butts to the track. I can see going to 5 minutes if you turn back the timiing on stock motors to 12deg. otherwise leave things alone

Oh yes, the days of yellow 1200mah packs, Stock motors, foam tires only and 5 minutes races. And then there were the guys who were lucky enough to afford electronic speed controls. How did we do it? LOL

I understand the mod and 19T guys not wanting to go to 5 minute races, but stock not wanting it come on, we have been running 5 minuite 4-cell stock for like 4 years hear at our track in Michigan, nobody here complains.
We have a very 2 large trophy races every year, most of the best Oval racers in the state come up to our track to race with us and they all seem to be able to make it 5 minutes with no problem. As for the Oval nats taking longer get real, in my opinion we should be running all 4 qualifiers on Sat. them the mains Sunday.
I went to the Nats at Scotty's in 2003 and had one hell of a good time, but I think we could have shortened that race by a full day by starting a little earlier and running all 4 qualifiers the same day. That race I think was the biggest nats that anyone can remember in recent history. So by having 2 qualifiers on Friday and 2 on Sat. I see no reason why stock can't go to 5 minutes, for all that matters with these new batteries and the longer run times 19T and MOD could run 5 minutes with no problem all you have to do is gear for it. As for the snowbirds that is not a santioned race so there is no need to change, as stated earlier that race takes long enough as it is.
Just my thoughts, Joel

Time out... backing stock to 12 deg to make 5 min. HUH????? I run in Michigan as well and most tracks here run 5 min 6 cell stock on offroad since the 3300's came out. I know oval is much harder on the cells but struggling to make 5 min with a stock, that sould be a cake walk. Might have to back off on gearing some, but thats just part of racing.

Man if you're struggling to make 5 mins with a stock motor running 3300's your doing something BAD wrong.

If you can get the big races to go to 5 min then I think everyone would. We run 4 min at are track because most of the races that we go to around the mid west are 4 min still. Saying that once the new batteries like the 3700 and 3800 become legal we might got to 5 min heats.

just my 2 cents
Jason Jackson

Some people cant concentrate for 4 minutes, adding another minute could cause mayhem, LOL

Well after 3 or 4 heats. and the mains.Ive had enough racing. Not to count. makes for a long day. let alone if you have to travel some distance to the track.4 minutes has worked for me. and hope it stays that way.

I seem to recall an increase to five minutes in the late 90's being followed by the near death of oval.

yep Roar did make it 5 minutes for a year.... Then they went back to 4 minutes,,

98 nats @ vegas were 5min.

A lot of tracks in this area run 5 min stock, one runs 5 min 19 turn without problems.
Our Region Director made arrangements with ROAR to let us run 5 min stock at our Regionals a few months back. No problems for anyone, all with 3300s.

As far as wear and tear on the cars, the extra minute is not a big deal to me. I bought it to race it, it will never wear out on the shelf. With 3 heats and a main each week, that is 20 minutes racetime. Add some practice and that is how much time on the car? How much time in a season of racing? Clean indoor track or dusty asphalt/concrete?

Maintenence is a big part of racing.NASCAR teams know how long each part on the car has been run,when it will be rebuilt or replaced. How many duty cycles for an associated front end? Most racers I know clean their cars regularly and replace stuff when it is worn beyond an acceptable level. I don't know anyone who is thinking "Gee, 25 hours on these side shocks made the oil viscosity inaccurate due to piston/bore wear, time for some new ones"

Wait. Why does anyone need longer races? No one has addressed that. After 4 or 5 minutes no one is going to catch anyone they haven't already caught.

yep Roar did make it 5 minutes for a year.... Then they went back to 4 minutes,,

True for the oval classes. but the rest of electric is 5 min and 1/12th is 8 min.

Wait. Why does anyone need longer races? No one has addressed that. After 4 or 5 minutes no one is going to catch anyone they haven't already caught.

I guess it's kinda like a Local 1/4 mile stock car track running a 30 lap main vs. a NEXTEL Cup race running a 500 lap race at Bristol. It's not always "BETTER", but it's different. It also takes being more mythodical and you have to be willing to try new things.

The South-West Tour Oval Series in CA has been running "Non-Stop" enduro races this year to test how long we can actually run with decent speeds on a single battery.

The process has been a blast, the MOTOR rule was basically left "Unlimited" Brushed type motors. You can run STOCK, 19t, MOD...and you can be creative too (70 turn DYNO arms for efficiency have been tried...)

We've run as many as 170 laps so far, but the speeds dropped down pretty hard at that pace, but there were 4 cars that made the 22 minute run.

This week on a short flat track we did 100 lap mains, this was to show at 100 laps the cars would still be FAST. The race took just over 8 minutes, and the lap times were only a couple tenths slower than the STOCK 4 minute class. (NOTE: These guys don't find out how long the race is until about 1/2 hour before the start..and have to GUESS at a gearing point...and the WINNER's fastest laps of the run came in the last 5 laps when he quit throttle driving and pulled the throttle)

i run nitro & electric offroad & to compensate for time at larger events. The nitro races have started to run 12-15 car heats instead of 10. Which gives you more time & more racers with out adding more heats. It would probably be more feasable in offroad though.