WHERE’S WALDO: What exactly are you testing?

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By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com

By my perfectly un-scientific estimation, RC racers have done enough “testing” to cure cancer.

While “big” races have taken over club racing in some areas - leading to social media floods of podium photos and awkward-crouch-with-plaque-and-car-near-crotch shots - it’s not that racers are only going to the track to compete. But it seems that either the RC community has come to revile the word “practice,” or turning laps in order to improve one’s driving skills has been entirely replaced with trying new equipment or crawling down rabbit holes of adjustment envy to make up for any perceived disadvantage.

Have you noticed that the last five new kits/motors/speed controls/tires/setup changes you’ve tried have all made you faster? That’s not a coincidence. Last August, I wrote a whole column on how the “placebo” effect is likely the most important factor in determining your performance: (CLICK HERE to read "Placebo is a hell of a drug.")

Even the best drivers in the world are at the mercy of their emotions, but the effect is much greater for the common hobbyist. At any given RC race, I’d estimate that as much as 90% of the attendees are incapable of driving consistently close enough to the limit of a car’s capability to truly test different items or setup changes. Are you more than a half-second slower, per lap, than others in your class running the same equipment? Have you averaged at least one crash per five-minute run? Do you really need more steering at the end of the straightaway, even though you’re running a well-established “setup” for your vehicle, or do you just need to change the way you’re entering the corner?

I’ve watched world champions waste major race weekends chasing an ideal chassis balance that didn’t exist - and shared sympathetic laughs with their mechanics when they’ve walked away from the tent to vent about trying to minimize the damage. Worse, though, I’ve seen club racers whose cars are so far out of whack because they failed to consider changing track conditions and their malleable driving habits when adjusting shocks, ride height, camber link locations, suspension arms, caster inserts, wheel hexes, hub spacers, roll centers, Ackermann plates, sway bars, motor timing and ESC parameters - or bolting in place hundreds of dollars in aftermarket goodies.

I’ve also heard an engineer tell a customer, when asked what setup change could be done to produce a desired effect, that he “doesn’t do band-aid setup adjustments.” It may not have been the kindest or warmest reply, but the underlying concept - not pushing someone down a rabbit hole in an attempt to remedy the quirks of whatever oddball permutation of tuning options they’ve justified in their own minds - is sound.

The only realistic excuse for venturing completely off the reservation of a thoroughly-researched and time-tested configuration (what RC racers would call a “setup”) is that “the pro driver’s driving style is too different from mine.” But what’s realistic isn’t always reasonable, and more racers would be better off trying to more closely emulate the car control and transmitter inputs of the industry’s best than to attempt to adapt a vehicle to what’s already a flawed driver performance.

The crux of this column is the career of four-time IFMAR world champion and 24-time ROAR Nationals winner Ryan Cavalieri. I’ve spent the last decade covering RC races for different media companies, and not only has he been in contention to win more of those races than any other single driver but his most common response to “what changes did you make from last round?” in post-race interviews has been “I didn’t change anything, I just tried to drive differently.”

Whatever argument you’re formulating in your head is invalid. If one of the best drivers in RC history, with a squad of engineers at his disposal, can feel confident lining up for a qualifying heat or main event with the same vehicle he ran the race before despite identifying any sort of shortcoming then, as a mere mortal, you have no excuse.

Besides, the only way to objectively test something is to remain on the drivers’ stand while someone makes changes to the car and records lap times before track conditions have a chance to change - and without the driver knowing what was adjusted. One out of every two or three pit stops should be a “phantom adjustment,” in which the mechanic only pretends to alter something, to negate the placebo effect and rule out the driver’s inability to distinguish “different” from “better.” If the track changes considerably - such as a 10-degree drop in temperature, a noticeable spike in humidity, and/or the addition or removal of dust, you have to start all over. Otherwise, you’re not actually testing anything - other than your own patience for running on a hamster wheel.

Of course, the only way to discern whether or not an adjustment or option part is to credit for the lap time change - and not simply an improvement in skill or loss of focus - is to ensure the driver is steadily lapping the track at a pace near the vehicle’s absolute potential. If the driver isn’t able to do that, then it’s more practice, rather than more testing, that he needs. And if that driver isn’t comfortable spending a day at the track having fun while trying to advance his skills without trying to make it sound more important than it is, well, then no shock piston or sway bar or three-gear tranny is going to fix that.