Tuesday 27 May 2014

The "Crisis" In Our Sport...

or - Why I appear to disagree with almost everyone in RC land

There is a thread on RCTech at the moment with the same title as this post - minus the quotes. Its been started by a well respected and demonstrated intelligent thinker in RC in Australia (someone I'd like to meet in real but ultimately I think would end up being at odds with). Its been started with a view to trying to come up with ideas to counter the aging of our hobby/sport and the general lack of numbers that seems to be more and more the norm in many places. So far there has been some interesting discourse and on the whole its probably not a bad discussion to be having. However, I have a few issues with it.

1) We've had this discussion innumerable times before. Glibly I'd estimate about once ever 2 years or so to my awareness. I will admit that at the moment it seems to be more of a concern to RC overall, whereas, in the past, its been more about a particular sector - Off-Road, Nitro, On-Road etc.

2) The supposed causes are exactly the same as they have always been and will probably always be - cost, time, inconvenience, noise, attitude, unsupportive hobby-shops. There is nothing new being mentioned in the current thread that I have not heard mentioned in the past. So, what does that tell you?

3) Ultimately, will anything change because RC is currently too niche and self-centered to have enough people create a movement in a single direction that will instigate REAL change?

I want use my own experiences with a different niche product/activity to expand a little on how I feel about these points. Now, bear with me as it may not seem to connect at first. The particular activity I am speaking of is Car Audio.

I became involved in car audio just before it exploded in car accessories stores around the country. A small (by American standards where it really started) group of enthusiasts had been beavering away for some time, attending car shows and self promoting their products until a more general public became aware of it. What followed was a roll-a-coaster of brand debuts, car shows and competitions that kept a large number of people gainfully employed for some time. Pretty much everyone who had any interest in cars had some aftermarket audio gear in their car, from simply getting the option 6 stack Alpine CD changer put into their Ford Fairmont through to $50,000 custom competition fit-outs in show cars.

Then the bubble burst.

Big brands started realising there was no long-term profit in such a niche market. They began to force shops to do what was called volume selling, which was something the smaller car audio shops just couldn't do. There was no way a custom car audio shop could sell $75,000 worth of product a month to maintain an account, while at the same time taking, up to, 2 or 3 MONTHS to finish one custom fit. Car Audio became the domain of the volume sellers, the Supercheap's and Autobarns. Certainly some of the niche custom shops, that flourished during the boom times, have survived but they are not the industry powerhouses they once were. Also the OEM's clued in and new cars came from the factory with better and better audio systems with big brand names like Bose or JBL involved. It became less and less necessary to have an audio system changed or upgraded. The car audio industry that I fell in love with just after school and spent so much time involved with now is nothing like what it used to be. Every now and then I see faint glimmers of it in individual stores etc but it fades again pretty quickly.

Now I am sure you are almost throwing things at your computer screen wondering what the F#*k this has to do with RC and I'll get there I promise.

It is my belief that RC car racing has reached the same point or perhaps even gone a little past it. The main bubble has well and truly burst and we've manage to survive on a few of the smaller bubbles that were created, but, they too continue to burst. We can either continue the ride down the bubbles into oblivion or we find a way to create a new bubble. Not for a moment do I think this will be easy but unless we can approach this issue with a completely different mind set, the bursting will continue. As the thread on RCTech is demonstrating perfectly, the standard list of causes for the problems facing RC car racing is being dutifully presented and, just as dutifully, debated.

Its for this very reason that it will become, inevitably, pointless. The RC industry is an incredibly small niche market and activity. While I was studying business and management I did, approximately, 6 months research on the RC industry and I was amazed at just how small it is. We are talking an estimated 1% of 1% of the worldwide purchasing market. It is also very slow to recognise potential issues and work to preempt them. As an example, way back at the beginning of brushless motors and ESC's there were a few quiet but earnest voices warning of the potential contained in the technology. Several years later we reached a crescendo of disquiet over timing adjustable speedies and dynamic timing that has never fully settled despite its eventual banning from most mainstream classes.

Ok... lets try to mold this into some form of coherent point. Yes, many of the issues raised such as costs, time etc are important but the fact of the matter is they have ALWAYS been there. People have always thought RC was expensive (rightly or wrongly), there are always people who don't have the time to commit to a whole days racing etc.

Basically - there have always been people who don't race RC because of (insert reason of the week here) and there always will be because there is NOTHING that can be done about that for the majority. We might manage to entice a few by introducing a new spec beginners class or by shortening race days to keep people from getting bored, but past experience has already shown that those spec classes rarely last and almost anything else you might think to counter the other potential problems always brings with it a risk of driving existing participants away. This stems back to the inherent self-centered nature of RC that flows right through back to the manufacturers.

Unless we are willing to look past the obvious, and entertain the potential of ideas that may not seem as obvious, nothing will change.


For a view on something less obvious - Why appearance matters...

Why appearance matters


The RC car forums are filled with threads debating the whole "Scale Appearance" issue. The views range from 'car must only resemble real race cars' to 'don't care what it looks like as long as it wins'.

Now, fundamentally, I don't have any particular issue with either end of the spectrum, but I do think that the appearance of our current crop of racing bodies is not helping involve new people in the sport. In an era where TV is more important than ever as well as more and more racing classes available to watch on live streams, I don't believe we can continue to ignore this in favour of a "performance is everything" attitude. Our current international rule set still contains references to super touring and touring cars even though none of the currently raced RC car bodies bare any resemblance to any modern touring car racing formula. The current bodies being foisted onto us by body manufactures rarely even refer to real cars and IF they do, they are seriously bastardizsed versions. The new Protoform Mazda 6 GX is a perfect example of this in my view.

This version of the Mazda 6, built to compete in the Daytona Prototype series' Grand Tourer Experimental class was, IMO, one of the sexiest 4 door saloon racing cars to hit the track in a decade, yet the version delivered by Protoform simply fails to deliver and why? - because it has been reshaped and re-styled to deliver a particular type of performance rather than look good.
Compare for yourself -



Ok, there are just enough original styling, mostly in unimportant aspects like headlights and wheel arch moldings to get away with calling it a Mazda 6, but it is also different enough for those with a less performance biased eye to go "that isn't the car I've seen racing on TV".

Now I don't want to go on about scale appearance because I don't think that helps anyone but I think RC does need relevant appearance (see what I did there). This is, potentially, more important for on-road, because it really doesn't matter to much what you do to an off-road body, the rest of the rules ensure its still mostly looks like an off-road car. To my mind this counters those that argue one of the most popular off-road cars in the late 80's and early 90's was the Tamiya Manta Ray. Yes it was a futuristic body with styling cues based on the form of sea creature its named after but it STILL looks like an off-road car and it doesn't try to call itself a Toyota Tundra or Hilux, which is what we do to on-road bodies. 1/12 and 1/8 Nitro on-road take this to ludicrous levels.

Just to punctuate this a little - Protoform is rumored to be producing a special body just for the 200mm nitro worlds. Teaser photos show a nondescript body with little moldings and lumps all over it to, supposedly, increase down force. I shouldn't be too naive about it because the current crop of 200mm nitro bodies look like someone chamfered the front into a wedge shape so they could serve a 2nd purpose as a door stop.

Ok... lets try to mold this into some form of coherent point. How do you market to people, who's main exposure to motorsport comes from the TV or internet, a form of racing that supposes to be a scale representation of real racing when none of the cars LOOK like recognisable cars? 

For example, why doesn't someone re-market VTA as Touring Car Masters which is currently experiencing a decent amount of popularity here in Australia (the bodies are almost identical)?

I am not arguing for strict scale appearance but I do believe in making the bodies more representative of what people see BEFORE they come racing.

Sunday 4 May 2014

Latest Mi1.5 modification

I've been working hard in my spare time on my backyard milling setup to learn how to make the parts I've been drawing in CAD. I'd love to be able to just load it into a CNC mill and watch the fun but that's not likely to happen for a while. 

Its taken a bit of time to set up everything to be accurate enough and learn what can and can't be done. Its been rather annoying to learn that the X-Y vice I ended up having to buy isn't anywhere near square and I am having to make up ways of overcoming this. Despite this I've managed to get it to 0.03mm accurate which I can't complain about too much, all things considered.

First bit made was the long planned mount to fit a Mi5 spur/belt pulley to my Mi1.5.  It was a pretty simple design with a piece of 6mm aluminium with a 5mm steel shaft made up from an old M03 Mini gearbox shaft. It took a bit longer to get the shaft right as I had a few issues drilling a hole in the center of it and then I broke the thread tap trying to cut the thread for the mounting screws. However it all came together - 






First impressions are that the fiberglass (sorry - S1) chassis may flex a bit too much with the original mounts removed. I may have to make a 2nd version with a supporting leg running out to the side to help reduce flex. Also, I may need to move the mounting point for the shaft forward slightly to ease some tension off the front belt to free up the drive line a bit more. 

Unfortunately club racing was cancelled so my intent to get it on the track and running are on hold. I might bite the bullet and buy a 13.5 and take it down to Logan in a couple of weeks.