Last Saturday I had a chance to put a few laps on the new
configuration at Craft World Jamestown. The new D shape is
a nice refreshing change of pace for driving. It looks like there
will be some good passing in the turns. Also opening up the pits
alot more, gives us more room and looks alot neater.
I'd like to congratulate the new owners, Thanks for the new shape
and new style walls.
I think with the new starting times that he will be implementing
will be helpful for the folks who travel long distances in getting
home after the race.
Also would like to say Thanks to the previous owners for starting
the track. Especially when it was completely new to them.
Not being racers or track owners previously, they did a great job.
Hope to see you all in the fall.
Ron McD

Tri-oval......ahhhhhh haven't run a tri-oval since running at P.R.O. Raceway up in Cattauragus NY. THAT was the greatest track I've ever run at and Mark was always a good guy. I hope to make it up a few times this year to try out the new layout. Sounds like the new owners are trying a few things different. Did I see it posted? What time are they planning to start on race day? For those of us that live close to 2 hours away (or more) the 3-4:30 start time kept me from coming most of the time. :(

I must have had a senior moment when I said I practiced
on Saturday.................it was Sunday.
Also, as far as I know - track will open at 10:00am and
racing will start at noon. Nothing set in stone yet.
Ron McD

Hey Ron, do they practice most sundays there? If the big cars rain out i'd like to get some laps in so i'm not so rusty the first 1/2 of winter. Jason Ore

Troy showed me pics on his phone...looks pretty cool. I'd like to get down there and give it a try sometime. I'm already getting my stuff ready for carpet season and it looks like I'll be running way too many classes once again this year. :freak:

If anyone's gonna be around Friday I'd come check it out.

Matt

No they don't run every Sunday, they just were there working on the track.
Troy said before that they would be there that day & we could come try it
if we wanted to. But normaly they aren't there.
You'd have to ask Troy if he was gonna be around.
RonMcD

Hey guys, Thanks for noticing all the changes to the track. I had alot of help. Can't thank everyone enough, who has put their time in and give me a hand. We have a little more to finish up, but just about complete.
Have been practicing on rainy days. When we get enough guys who want to go , we call them , if its going to rain on that sunday. Been getting enough people to run for a couple hours, plenty of time to make several of laps.
So if anyone has any questions or would like to be at our next pratice? Let me know and I will try to answer or post our next pratice.
Troy

Hey Troy-

Are Lipo batteries going to be allowed in any classes this year? I'd like to know because I'm going to be making a big battery order soon. I'm either going to get one lipo or two 6 cells. I know it's early, (3 months) but I want to get everything set before I go back to school.

I don't think the classes need to be split to have a lipo-only class like with TC last season...as long as weight rules are kept the same it's not a big deal. Yes, they're 7.4v nominal and NiMH are 7.2v nominal, but when you're buying matched 6 cells, a good NiMH pack will be over 7.4 volts.

Matt

Matt, the problem running NIMH with Lipo is not the voltage, the 2 different chemistries have totally different discharge curves, as well as performance chatacteristics due to different resistances. Not discouriging lipos, just saying in my opinion they need to be kept separate from NIMH.

Jeff.......without knowing much to anything about LiPOs. In the case you talk about above, which has the advantage in your opinion?

Well, if I can make it to a practice sometime before the season starts maybe we can do some testing just to see the difference. I'll do a 4 minute run with my SMC 5000 lipo pack and a 4 minute run with my Ener-G 4600 pack and we can compare the results. If it turns out one has the advantage over the other, a decision can be made from there. I'm not lobbying for lipo for performance reasons, just ease of use and number of packs I need. Making the jump to lipo could really help out people who run a bunch of different cars like the Wallaces with their 8 cars. Anyway, we'll see.

Matt

Lipo has the advantage, the discharge curve is really, really flat, meaning that the voltage drop off from 0 to say 300 seconds in very minimal ompared to a NIMH, plus the Lipo's have a much lower resistance by nature. I amgree, brushless and Lipo is are the wave of the future, but then the problem is do you make people go out and buy new motors, chargers, and batteries all at once.

Yea, the more I've thought about the brushless deal, that wouldn't be fair to make everyone switch...at least not in classes other than pan car. The jump to brushless is awfully expensive. People can swear up and down it's cheaper in the long run, but unless you're putting new brushes and springs on every run, brushed is still WAY cheaper due to the high initial cost involved with going brushless. The battery situation though, I think LiPo really is cheaper for people in the long run. Like I said, especially for the Wallaces who have to have so many batteries. But anybody really. If you have 3 good NiMH packs per car, you could have one good lipo for probably 2/3 the cost. Yes, there's the need to get a different charger too, but it'll still end up better than when one of your NiMH cells decides to die. Plus remember A LOT of people at Craftworld don't have any sort of discharge trays, so with batteries as finicky as the 4200's, I'm sure some of them can ruin a pack pretty easily without a tray. Or worse, blow them up like your cells did at Butch's.

Whatever is decided is what I'll get for batteries...I just wanted a chance to be a bit lazier and run lipo I guess. lol.

Matt

Hey guys, going to have a meeting the middle of AUG. will post a date by the end of july. We will dicuss what classes , battery, and motors that will be used. So will have plenty of time to get the cars together.
Troy

Ok, that's cool. Hopefully I can make it to the meeting or a practice sometime.

Until then, I'd like to kick a few ideas around...

I think there should be less classes than before, and I'm sure you guys do too. No more "flavor of the month" classes. Anyway, here's my take on what there is to run:

1/10 4 cell stock- HCOT spec
Crate Late Model- Rules already in place (as far as I know)
EDM- HCOT spec
Novice- Rules already in place
Intermediate Stock Truck- Rules already in place
Stock Truck- rules already in place

The only other ones I can think of that might be legitimate good classes (besides touring cars) are a brushless pan car class (13.5 or 17.5 4 cell or 21.5 lipo) and a box stock Losi Mini Late Model class.

Touring cars... There don't need to be 3 classes. 2 would work. The stock class would be like "intermediate stock" and the mod class would be like regular stock and Butch's lipo class rolled into one. The stock class would be for people who want to run an "out of the box" touring car. The mod class would be for guys like Larry Edwards, Me, Trever, Andrew, Ralph Wallace, etc.


Matt

BUMP

What's up?

Sorry it took so long to post again, but going to start pratices the first saturday in sept. Also that day , we will hold a meeting on classes and set ups. So please everyone try to show. times for pratices will be 6:00 pm till ? Then have pratice every sat at that time till the season starts in oct. Any questions please call me. 716-569-3647

Thanks Troy

Lipo has the advantage, the discharge curve is really, really flat, meaning that the voltage drop off from 0 to say 300 seconds in very minimal ompared to a NIMH, plus the Lipo's have a much lower resistance by nature. I amgree, brushless and Lipo is are the wave of the future, but then the problem is do you make people go out and buy new motors, chargers, and batteries all at once.
If you perform a digital discharge test between a good Nimh 6-cell pack versus a LiPo 2S pack of similar capacity, you will see discharge voltage curves that are very close, with the advantage going to Nimh. LiPo is lighter, LiPo is easier to maintain and LiPo can (but not always) have lower IR numbers, however LiPo does not have a flatter discharge curve under load. Again, this holds true when comparing packs of relatively similar capacity.

Yea but I am used to racing 4 cell not 6, and with the 2 less cells is where the voltage curve drops off at the end.

If you perform a digital discharge test between a good Nimh 6-cell pack versus a LiPo 2S pack of similar capacity, you will see discharge voltage curves that are very close, with the advantage going to Nimh. LiPo is lighter, LiPo is easier to maintain and LiPo can (but not always) have lower IR numbers, however LiPo does not have a flatter discharge curve under load. Again, this holds true when comparing packs of relatively similar capacity.

please, tom, say it isn't so, i thought lipos were spoda b the savior of the world of r/c

new configurations coming out each and every week, more money to spend every week, no end in sight


please say it isn't so

billyk

Yea but I am used to racing 4 cell not 6, and with the 2 less cells is where the voltage curve drops off at the end.
Jeff - Why would the cell count make any difference? Runtime and voltage drop wrt load is related to cell capacity, not the number of cells wired (connected) in series.