ROAR 1/8 ELECTRIC Off-Road class!!!!
 

Looks like some news about to break. Check out the very botom of the page here of the latest ROAR meeting minutes. It talks about the "newly created 1/8 electric offroad class"

It also talks about 4s battery dimensional specs for the new class. Looks like 4s only. Kinda disapointing.

http://www.roarracing.com/downloads/...ng_Minutes.pdf

Leave it to roar to crush our hopes and dreams with only 4s.

This catches my attention though.
• 4S and higher testing equipment approved for purchase for the lithium technology approval lab.

hopefully it means more voltage



Or at least make an Unlimited E-class

I raced in the RC Pro Series and I was allowed to run 6S
I hope they don't see this as "The Rules" now as I just spent $300 on new 6S batteries :diablo:

I have it from good sources that the ROAR rules for 1/8 electric are already written and agreed apon. SHould be published very soon the way I understand it.

I agree with you starscream. I'm hoping RCPro comes up with some more racer friendly rules. 4s will seriuosly hamper this class IMO. I sent RCPro an email asking them about 1/8 electric for 2009 and they said they were working on it but they werent sure what they were going to do yet. This was a couple days ago so if you want specific rules I would say send them an email telling them you are interested in the class and what you think the rules should be and why.

With the 160mm length limit on 4S, it just threw out the most common 4S packs most of use.

Once ROAR finally have the rules out alot more batteries will be out on the market

is it limited to 4s because Novak has limited their ESC's to the same? :whistle:

just wondering...

The HV Pro is actually supposed to be able to handle 5s.

I'd imagine you'd run 2s on the BEC side and 3s on the non BEC side...

I would assume the same.

It is my desire that ROAR doesn't regulate Lipo to hard-cased packs... Otherwise I think we know who would be responsible for that :cough: Losi :cough:

That would be the best way. However, you can run a single 4S or 5S pack but you have to use an external bec and arming the esc is tricky as you have to power up the receiver then turn the esc on and then back off.

I was also told that 5S on the HVPro runs very hot. I only have a single 5S pack so I decided to just run 2x2S packs to be safe. I ran the HV Pro last Sat and it was pretty solid, runs hot, but a solid system. It doesn't seem to have as much torque as my mmm/neu though.

Good luck with that... you can bet the farm that it will be hard pack only.

Its a paranoia rule made to satisfy an insurance company and it has no basis in real world safety, but... its in place now so we will probably have to live with it forever.

Good news for me is my local track doesnt enforce ROAR rules and alows soft pack lipos in the 1/10 classes and in the 1/8 that run there. Funny thing is they will be hosting the ROAR 1/8 offroad natioanls this year.

I'd love to know why ROAR feel they need to limit pack dimensions. They know full well that there isn't yet a standard size for any kind of pack above 2S in voltage, and limiting dimensions is just being difficult IMO. Just slap a maximum capacity on there, and have done with it.
What possible difference does it make what dimensions the packs are, as long as they don't exceed a maximum capacity? Doesn't surprise me that they've decided to stick with 4S, too. I dread to think what they're gonna do about motors...

Trust ROAR to stifle any kind of variety and flexibility in this new class.

This is GREAT news!
I'm impressed that ROAR is accepting 8th scale electric as of 2009!

ROAR SUCKS! and the guys that run the rc proseries are a bunch of dicks also, they wouldnt even let me run in the intermediate class with my xray. if they limit it to 4s and put pack dimensions and hardcase rules they can kiss most of the guys would be a "series" racer because thats not what we run, and nobody in there right mind would waste alot of money DOWN grading their electonics so they and race in ROAR, it should be plain and simple rules or it will never work its actually like they are trying to prevent the class from turning into somthing big.

Very true, I think 5s at a minimum... knowing roar they will only make some high priced- cruddy pack (MA) with a hard case for upwards of 200 dollars which makes all these people spend more money...

i wonder what the Motor limits are?

Yeah and Boo. Feels a bit like a short lived golden age is coming to an end. We were all saying ROAR would go and make rules that would ruin the whole thing. Thankfully I'm not a big racer and the tracks I would run at would not follow ROAR most likely. As if Barnstormers would suddenly tell RCM Mike that his 5S truggy wasn't legal.
4S limit is ghey.
What about the motor rules? Hopefully Novak won't get its way with the rules this time around. I could only imagine if the MMM/Neu was not Roar legal.

Novak is on the board, castle and Neu are not. there is no way Novak isn't going to try to make their setup the standard, they would lose big time if ROAR approved the MMM/Neu setup. Castle will make more with the bashers, Neu makes his off planes (we are a small portion of his revenue) Novak makes almost all their money off racers.

On the 4s rule, I'm not for limits on voltage, but i can see the point of 4s limit. They are looking at the torque, The higher the voltage, the higher the torque. 4s geared right on either a novak or any other setup will best mimick the nitro's, there will be less learning curve for those who cross over. I to hope that they don't do hard case setups as well, but with Losi making one, the writing is on the wall

Thank God nothing I do relies on anything ROAR does.

If I did race or decided to race int he future, you can be sure that I wouldn't/won't do it on a track governed by ROAR rules.

Man, 1/8 scale racing hasn't even got off the ground yet and ROAR is already planning it's death.

Well lutach i feel bad for you.... what are your setups 8s at a minimum :lol:

They should allow up to 10S specially if more of this so called hard cased lipos comes out in 3-5S configurations. You can have good 3200-3700mAh 4-5S packs for a very good price and most good cheap chargers can handle those fine. I like my 8S set up and if only ROAR saw the safety of it, but those fools are looking at their pockets and making BS rules. Some of those guys have no clue what they're talking about when it comes to brushless, lipos and now 1/8 scale electric. It's cool, I'll be just waiting to see how many lipos go up in flames, ESC go up in smoke and motors run just too damn hot to touch due to the high AMP demand a 4S set up asks for in these heave vehicles. Good luck to all that follows ROAR with their rules.

Just noticed that the 2009 ROAR rules are up on the ROAR site. It appears that the 1/8 offroad electric rules are included in it. Dont know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but I figured Id mention it in case it hasn't been yet.

http://www.roarracing.com/downloads/..._Rule_Book.pdf

Is there only going to be a buggy class?

R.O.A.R. = Ruining Offroad w/ Audacious Rules

Why not require each racer to have a battery case to hold lipo's and that's it?? Soft or hard-cased wouldn't matter. 4s? Bah! Whatever voltage ya want so long as you can control your car and finish the race without thermaling or burning a motor.

We can all agree that a proper race set-up requires thought with regards to gearing, voltage and motor kv. That alone will seperate the serious racers from the pretenders.

The battery pack shall not display rapid disassembly

Are they talking about it exploding?

8.3.2.6.2 The fully charged battery pack shall be dropped from a height of 5 feet to a flat
concrete floor. The battery pack shall land flat on the floor during the drop.

ROAR= retards overthinking anything r/c

yeah i wanna see a friggin lipo dropped 5 foot on concrete hard case or not!

Yeah, I can really see myself dropping $200.00 batteries on the floor to satisfy ROAR.:oops: Has anyone at ROAR actually read any lipo care procedures :rules:, or do they just pull this stuff out of their asses? :surprised:

"Open submission for 2S lipo batteries will expire on December 31, 2008. Any 2S pack (stick or saddle) requiring approval after this date will be tested and/or added to the approved product list based on the biannual schedule as per rule 8.3.2.6.1"

So I'm assuming the use of two 2s roar approved hardcase packs will be legal then... This will be good for those who already own them.

I agree with the whole battery issue. They should have allowed higher voltages. I really do hope they make an unlimited class in the near future.

I don't see any rules for 1/8th Truggies so it seems buggies only for now.

Maybe when the Truggies are added we'll see a 6S Lipo limit :wink:

i think there was some fine print in there at the top that stated the term "vehicle" covered buggies and truggies

The way I understand it is these are rules are for 1/8 buggies. Nothing in the book for truggies this year.

Check out RC-Pro Series though. They have rules for both buggy and truggy. Plus the rules actually make sense for what real racers are running in their buggies and truggies.

In reality these ROAR rules are already outdated and I doubt a single race for electric 1/8 will ever be held that follows them. Dont worry. Some day ROAR will catch up to the real world. Either that or they will just fase away from being obsoleete.

The vehicle classes are very specific. 1/8th buggies are included in these rules but there are no rules for the 1/8th truck class specified in this document.

seriously,
why not keep it simple and just call it 1/8 Modified class and anything goes. 4,5, or 6s and any kv motor. this would be so much better. i know for a fact i am not going to go buy a 4s Losi hardcase lipo and motor to suit. that was actually my first conversion. i did a losi 8 buggy with the Neu 1512 1.5d on the Losi 4s hard case. it was nice but since then i have tried a lot of other stuff and have found much better equipment and much better setups. i now run thunderpower, polyquest, and neu energy packs in 5s. anyway, sounds to me like ROAR is more political than practical and its about money more than it is about "safety" or fairness. i dont know, i have a really hard time with authority figures/organizations and rules being imposed, can you tell??

what are the rules? i am not seeing them anywhere?

http://www.roarracing.com/downloads/..._Rule_Book.pdf

1.1.9 The use of the words “vehicle” or “vehicles” in these rules is intended to include both
cars and trucks

Maybe the term vehicle does mean truck and buggy in different parts of the rules. But if you look at the available classes and the specs for the class there is NO 1/8 truck or truggy

Yeppers,
Sec 8.10.11 is for 1/8th buggies only. Maybe the 2010 rules will have a 8.10.12 section for truggies.

I'm with Ryu, let people figure out what works on their own. Bigger motors can accelerate harder and hit a higher top speed but weigh more and need heavier batteries. A smaller and lighter motor can run on smaller and lighter batteries making it more nimble and require less juice.

Yeppers,
Sec 8.10.11 is for 1/8th buggies only. Maybe the 2010 rules will have a 8.10.12 section for truggies.

youre right i must have misresd some things. sorry guys, good thing some of us are smarter than the average lineman :lol