A MOMENT WITH MIKE: Spec Rallycross - a way of welcoming newcomers to on-road R/C?

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Mike Garrison

0 July 7, 2017, 10:01 a.m.

By Mike Garrison
LiveRC.com

When it comes to R/C car racing, I am partial to off-road racing. It's not that I don't like other forms of R/C such as on-road or oval, it's just that quite frankly I am so terrible at them it's not as fun for me (Note: I said not "as fun", I did not say they weren't still fun). A lot of it comes down to understanding car setup. Over the years I have learned a lot about car setup in off-road, and for the most part can troubleshoot my way to get the car working the way I like on most tracks. On-road racing relies even more on setup, however, the setups, car designs, and pre-race routines are completely different compared to off-road. I have tried time and time again to crossover into the on-road world, but I have never been able to find a class that doesn't make me feel like a kid lost in the mall wandering aimlessly trying to figure out which way to go next.

During a recent discussion with my friend Erik Voelkle of Viking Design Works, we began talking about full-size rallycross racing. One thing led to another, and the next thing you know we were dreaming up ideas of rallycross racing in the world of R/C. 

"I am super into stage rally and Rallycross. I love the speed, thrills, etc that the sports come with. With all the RTR rally cars on the market, and the Tamiya rally cars, I think having legit RC rallycross racing would be super epic!

Rallycross tracks are typically on and off road, and feature a few jumps. 4-8 cars also race head to head, with a motocross style start. A lot of bumper to bumper racing. Combining touring car racing with off road racing and adding a pinch of short course (rubbing is racing) I think would make a exciting new race platform in RC, and would allow for the aftermarket companies to get creative by ways of tires, bodies, and accessories. Make the racing legit maybe with ROAR involved even," Erik said. "I just think it would be awesome to have a scaled down version of global rallycross. I don't think the "stage rally" R/C version would work very well, plays it would be kind of boring taking the door to door element out of the racing. You could use a carpet track, wooden jumps, maybe some small marbles or bee bees to simulate dirt indoors! Really the sky is the limit."

At this point the gears in my head started turning, and the uncontrollable R/C smile that we all get after a TQ run had set in. Instantly I thought of the VRC PRO Simulator with their new rallycross class. Not everyone is a fan of VRC PRO, but I am. Despite being a fan, I had yet to play the new rallycross class prior to this discussion. This called for all work related responsibilites and duties to be put on hold while I hooked up my radio for a long overdue VRC PRO rallycross session.

(2016 VRC PRO Rally X World Championship Final)

Granted the rallycross class on a "video game" is not going to be exactly what it would be in real-life, however, the idea and spirit behind it was exactly what I had hoped for. The game uses 1/8-scale buggies on big 1/8-scale size rallycross purpose-built tracks. At this point that wouldn't be practical in the real world of R/C, however, based off some of the ideas that Erik mentioned, offering a 1/10-scale (or even a mini 1/14-scale) rallycross class at on-road racing events could be the "transition class" for off-road racers looking to dabble in on-road without feeling totally out of place. 

For those of you rolling your eyes in disgust at the idea, before you start keyboard ranting "no more classes," or "oh great just what we need, ANOTHER class," - let me remind you that this is purely an idea, and an idea with only having fun and growing our sport in mind. The chances of your raceday being dragged down by an overwhelming amount of R/C rallycross racers showing up to pretend like me that they are Scott Speed or Tanner Foust this weekend based upon this article and my hillbilly idea of adding jumps to on-road racing are pretty slim.

You should also know that very little of what I do in life and/or racing is thought out ahead of time. I like to have fun, and if jumping a Vaterra Pre-Runner 4wd Short Course truck onto the roof of a building sounds like fun, that's probably what I'll do today - and write about how I missed and jumped it through the front window tomorrow (been there, done that HERE). R/C rallycars sounds like fun to me, I played just enough of a simulator version on my lunch break to confirm its fun in a virtual world, and now I'm here writing about it because I don't have a real-world R/C rallycar to be out playing with instead. 

(Yes, it is very difficult to explain that the R/C car you were attempting to jump onto the roof of their building is what broke out the front window instead.)

I haven't taken the time to sit down and figure out how you would divide the classes, how you would determine what cars can run and what cars can't, or what exactly would need to be done to make the class, cars, and track changes welcome to on-road only tracks - I'll leave that up to someone else. What I do know is that I am not the only off-road racer who would love to spend some time racing on-road, but struggle to find a fun way to get involved. I also know that some existing carpet tracks run both on-road and off-road classes on the same track, and do so by simply moving jumps and obstacles on and off the track according to what day of the week it is. The same method could be used for rallycross racing during an on-road race program intermission or at the end of each round.

Rallycross isn't big air, double jumps, and whoop sections - that's off-road. Rallycross is mixture of different terrain, elevation, and maybe one to two high-speed jumps that are built for specifically for rallycross cars (usually a long ski jump or very stretched out tabletop). R/C rallycross should be the same. An example would be a carpet on-road track with thin plywood, MDF board, or even rubber pit mats taped down in various corners to provide different terrains, a box built built to provide an elevated corner or two, and one or two very gradual high-speed jumps to place somewhere the cars can jump as fast as they possibly can without getting more than 4-6" off the ground at the very most. 

(Traxxas displays a very extreme version of R/C rallycross racing during their Deegan 38 Fiesta promo - not a practical way of incorporating the class into an existing race program, but a good display of how the various terrains, tracks, and genres all come together in rallycross racing.)

Let's face it, the Traxxas Slash in off-road is what brought, and continues to bring, so many newcomers into the sport. People watch full-size short course trucks on TV, they see an R/C version, they buy one and want to go racing. After racing it for a few months, many of them sell off the Slash they started with and are now hooked for life racing buggies, trucks, and everything in between. On-road racing doesn't have the "welcome newcomers" class that off-road does. Yes there is VTA, but part of what makes short course off-road racing so appealing is the cool realistic look. For newcomers that may not have an interest in classic cars, racing an R/C car that looks like something they've never seen before and/or produced 30 years before they were even born, isn't exactly everyone's idea of awesome. I truly thought F1 would be the "Slash" of on-road racing, however, despite it's large amount of growth in select areas and regions, nationwide it hasn't taken off nearly as big as I had hoped or anticipated.

Could a nationwide Spec Rallycross class, such as Spec Slash is in off-road, be the answer to bringing new racers into on-road racing? Take the poll, and share your thoughts, comments, and opinions below