It seems that touring car racing is making a comeback.
The popularity of touring car racing has certainly waned over the past several years to the point that most tracks no longer offer on-road racing. Hobby Central hasn't hosted an on-road race in over 2 years. But, that may be changing. When we first started racing in 1999/2000 racers would show up with a mix of chassis', with the majority using the HPI RS4 or RS4-2 4wd touring chassis. We also had some racers using Taimiyas, CEN (they were unheard of then) and Losi Street Weapons and believe it or not the Traxxas Nitro 4-Tec Pro was the front runner car. Early racing at Hobby Central was mainly nitro racing, but eventually the TC3 came out and electric became popular as well. For the first year or two no one body style dominated. Most racers showed up with the body of their full-size dream car. We saw a lot of Dodge Vipers, Porsches, Lamborghini's, BMW's, Vettes etc.. The majority of racers used HPI belted X-Pattern tires and every imaginable spoked rim from HPI, RPM, and Pro-Line. But, eventually the racing at Hobby Central became more sophisticated and anyone that raced on a regular basis used a Stratus body, dish racing wheels or foams. The ready to runs (RTR) cars gave way to Serpents, Mugens, HPI R-40's and other expensive touring chassis'. The only RTR that showed up in large numbers was the Team Associated Nitro TC3. I believe this contributed to the decline of touring car racing. It was somewhat boring to see a bunch of multi-colored Stratus clothed touring cars with little resemblance to their full-size counterparts run around the track. At the buyers end, unless you were a dedicated racer, the options/choices had declined. The inventory at Hobby Central like a lot of hobby shops that sponsored racing reflected what was being raced. Instead of coming in and seeing 20-30 different styles of bodies and the same number of rims and tires. The customer was greeted with a lot of Stratus bodies and few other bodies, pegs full of 35-55 shore foams and couple of variations of rubber tires and scale rims. In hind sight this was not good for on-road racing and the rc hobby in general.
Decreasing turn-outs at on-road races was seen as a problem at a lot of tracks. A lot of tracks just closed or turned to the new revitalized off-road racing. But a group of racers in Southern California didn't want to give up their on-road touring car racing. They've created a new class of racing named RCGT. See the value of this return to the roots of rc touring car racing, HPI has jumped in and aggressively backed this class. HPI has added it as a sort of exhibition class at the HPI Challenge Races. It is an obviously win for HPI, as HPI is one of the predominant manufacturers of touring car bodies and spoked rims. The new class only allows HPI X-Pattern tires to be used. Incidentally before foam tires were allowed at Hobby Central's racing, X-Patterns were the tire of choice. Why is the popularity of this class growing rapidly? Because, it has brought it back to a hobby instead of a pure racing pursuit. You can buy the body of the Viper or Porsche that you always wanted to drive and paint it to look real and then bring it to the track and have a chance at winning. Sure, the really expensive purpose built race cars will have an edge if properly set-up, even with a poorly handling body. The fact that you are limited to less neutral handling bodies and rubber tires will bring down the cost of the racing. When you are racing with rubber tires and power limitations, your driving skills will matter more than your wallet. The best way to improve your driving skills is to get out and race.
The main rules are as follows, some locations vary the rules somewhat:
1. Any 4wd electric touring car chassis.
2. 27T stock brushed motor or 17.5T stock equiv. brushless motor (some tracks only allow brushless).
3. Body must be a body used in actual full scale touring car racing, specifically no Stratus, Mazda Speed 6 etc..
4. Tires: Only HPI X-Pattern rubber tires are allowed. Each track can decide which X-Patterns can be used , I believe there are 4 styles.
5. Wheels: any spoked rim, no aerodish or other solid dish wheels are allowed.
This has certainly peaked my interest in reviving racing in Pensacola and FT Walton Beach.
Bill
Hobby Central