Magnet or Non Magnet...

Carrera are now covering more bases with their cars and that's a good thing.
They definitely appeal to a wider variety of driver preferences and skills than they did.

Where is the logic?
It's the same logic that says it takes more skill to walk a tightrope than walk a plank.
The same logic that says, no matter how skilled you may become at riding a bike with its outriggers, when you want to further develop your skills, you take them off.
But no one is making it compulsory to do that.
Although I probably would if I could, just because I am a latent sadist!

Hi Jim and so pleased to see you here with us.
I don't disagree with your assessment of the old Carreras.
But most of our club races have quite draconian definitions of box stock, so much so that a Carrera race excludes anything but Carreras! I'm still not sure whether I entirely like this, but I have to admit that it does, in the main, produce fairly argument proof racing for fairly equal cars.

Also, Carrera cars are in a smallish minority at my club - probably the same at most clubs - for now.
I believe the REAL reasons for this have little to do with our guys making informed choices, but have much more to do with lack of knowledge and availability in the first place, followed by a conservative fear of the unknown and fear of being 'different'. Most of our guys have been around for quite a long time, living and racing in a very small community without a great deal of exposure to the internet and have become brain-washed with, first Scalextric (naturally), and then Fly and Ninco. Limited budgets and limited publicity and VERY limited stockists for makes other than these, all tend to pruduce a narrow range of only the most well-known products in the members' stables.

Strangely enough, although I am the oldest member by age, I am the newest by joining date, and my more adventurous and experimental inclinations have alerted them to a greater variety, naturally including Carrera. So they are beginning to appear more frequently at our meetings, if not necessarily raced formally. I eventually managed to have the very first Carrera only race organised, but, ironically, was not able to attend myself when it took place!

In a sense, the new Carreras could further fragment the club racing classes, but my intention is to work towards grouping more and more similar makes and models together. This will take some doing, as it's very hard to get much agreement from a group of varied individuals! But this won't stop me from trying.

QUOTE The last thing I need at this point is to again be told that I'm a slow developer.
You think big mags might be the equivalent of long bonnets, Moo?

QUOTE Tropi
I'm a little perplexed. How do you guys that run box stock manage to find time to run all the classes if you separate mfgrs cars?

Hi Jim
Yes, it is a problem! This is why I am not too fond of this arrangement.
It takes around six months to be sure of running the majority of everyone's favourite cars.

A typical race day would consist of just four classes, generally two with, and two without magnets. hardly ever is there a class for anything but box stock. We always arrange to start with the no mag cars and no mag original Minis are amazingly popular! The program then works throught to the highest mag cars - it's incredibly difficult to adapt driving technique quickly enough to run the high mags first!

The classes for the following meeting are generally chosen by the lowest two losers in the current meeting. The purpose here being to ensure that the losers have influence in ensuring that THEIR favourite cars are raced next time. I have to say it doesn't make a lot of difference to the actual results, but it does stop them from complaining about the choice of cars!

It can be quite difficult equalising cars, no matter what method is chosen and it can also be difficult to gain agreement from a bunch of guys with widely varying tastes. The one-make method seems to do the job, though I repeat, it's not my favourite, partly because it involves me buying quite a few cars that I would not normally want, simply to ensure I get a race every time. We simply don't have enough members to ensure a good sized core of agreement and make it stick. Not helped by the fact that quite a lot of us travel a long way to the meetings - I am the furthest away on a 140 mile tround trip!

Incidentally, the NO magnet events always and without exception, produce by far the closest racing and by far the least damage, for the reasons you mentioned. Smashing cars to smithereens through a single split-second of indecision does not make for huge popularity! High powered mags may be appropriate for little home circuits but certainly not for our long straights, broken up by standard low radius home track curves. If it were not for having to cater for those guys who very naturally want to see their recent acquisitions doning full blast, we would probably get the magnet races reduced to almost zero and that might yet happen - I hope!
In the meantime, we try to satisfy everyone as best we can.