Model Forum / Radio Controlled / Land Models / July 2004

ok....a small bit of backround....been into this hobby for about 3
years now....i run electric 1/10th scare touring cars....i use about 2
packs a day....yeah.....2 packs....thre are lots of parking lots with
gravel on them near my house...on stock Tayima silver cans....i'm
getting like 1 hour run times....and while you might think that the
car isn't fast....you're right....my interest isn't in
speed.....having a car that goes 40 doesn't do me any good since i
can't control it....and i have no interest in driving an RC car that
does 40....besides...competition hold not a single, tiny bit of
interest for me.....

except in this case....

myself and 15 other rally nuts (10 of the group have raced extensivly)
took our cars down to the local shop that has a really nice track....

we all packed onto the track and proceeded to have a hell of a
drive....everyone in our group of 15 ran silver cans....everyone a
rally nut so no clean lines...lots of drifting around the corners....a
few crashes....but all in fun...all tamiya cars so everything was
looking scale accurate....we're all into the scale looks.....it was
great....lots of thrills from cars trying to hold position in the
tight corners....and too add a new element of challange...no car
contact was allowed....all passes had to be clean...it made for some
really tough but challenging passes.....and we kept the bodies from
getting ripped to shreds....the winner was the guy who's battery was
still well juiced at the end of 1 hour....

anyway.....my question is.....

even on a very high driver's stand the portions of the track at the
back were hard to judge at times when evassive manuvers were
required....i couldn't tell how close i was to the red and white
borders and the real apex.....most of the guys who raced said they'd
become used to it.....

i though, why not raise the driver's stand higher?  but any higher in
this case and the cars would be reduced to miniature looking
cars.....and the feel of being "in the action" would be lost.....as it
was...the cars seemed tiny already....

so has anyone figured out a way to address this or is it just
something that's accepted?  the drivers stand was 15 feet up....is
this a standard height?

the other question is realated to the above....if changint he track or
the stand will require too much effort....has anyone worked on some
reliable way to mount cameras on the cars so that each driver could
get his choice of views of the car.....then i realized....most drivers
might not want extra weight after working so hard to remove it....

so how about some cameras dedicated to each car on some wires or
tracks or something.....cameras that would always stay with each
car.....also...the driver could select how close or far....or how wide
or tight of a shot of the car and track they'd want......

you could still opt to end up on the driver's stand just in case for
some sections or as an option....

anyone?