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Consistency competition.

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GromRipperBaker

GromRipperBaker

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Hello all! Long time R/C fan here, loved racing at different periods of my life but now I live in sort of a remote area in Panama. I don't think I have ever even seen someone driving anything here. It seems like I'm not the only one who wants to get connected with others to get together for a rip session or something but I feel like it's realistically hard for people to physically meet up and drive. Lot's of us out in the world with the same passion but with distance, scheduling and everything it's just a little bit of a tricky thing to share with others.

So I have an idea that I want to share with you all and lets keep this open for suggestions or just tell me you think it's a silly idea..

Consistency Challenge! The idea is simple:


  • Pick a track or even a spot in your backyard or local park.
  • Set up a small course with cones, chalk, or whatever works for you.
  • Time yourself for 10 laps and see how close your lap times are to each other.
  • Post your best results in the forum to share with others!
This isn’t about having the fastest car or the most technical track—it’s all about having fun and improving your driving consistency. Whether you’re bashing or practicing for the next big race event, everyone can join in!

Don’t have a fancy track? No problem! Use a flat dirt patch, a parking lot, or even a backyard track you design yourself. You can use a stopwatch, a timing app, or even just count seconds out loud. This is all about having fun and sharing your progress with the community.

Also, we could have stunt challenges or whatever people come up with, I just thought it could be fun to try and collaborate with each other on what we actually do with these cars. I am just so happy to get back behind the wheel. Picked up a Typhon Grom for my Christmas present and love building tracks in my backyard and timing them with a free video feed stopwatch app I found. Even if it isn't real racing it's pretty fun!

Let me know what you guys think!
 
Welcome to RCTALK.COM!!! 😎👍
Your idea is a fun way for ppl to improve their driving skills!
Its a shame we are all so far apart. How fun it would be to get us all together at a nice beach or fancy complex for a little of every r/c genre!!!
We would have to be near an ice cream factory of course... 🤔
I'm building about 40 cars right now with hopes that at least one will eventually get some track time! 🤣
I hope we get to see some vids of your track runs!! 😁👍
 
if you run any tracks and they use the live rc scoring system you can go online and it will calculate your consistency percentage for each lap, it will also give your your fastest 3 laps times 5 laps times and 10 laps times average
 
Welcome to the forum, Baker. Think your idea of a Consistency Challenge is great. I'm in like Flynn, mate.

1min:16sec for 10 laps on my backyard grass track. This was June 2024. Backed it up with a 1m:27s running 10 laps the opposite direction. Gave me an 11sec Delta on consistency.

For comparison Ran the same track with the same truck earlier this month for 12 laps twice. 1min:39sec and 1m:35s. An improved Consistency Delta of 4sec.

Timing system is up timer on my radio transmitter. Looking forward to seeing your consistency numbers and pictures of your track.
Cheers. -AC

20241026_170401_resize.webp


20240601_120204_resize.webp
 
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Nice job! That's a big improvement! I was busy at a local kite festival with my daughter today but tomorrow I hope to set up a fun track and I might even try to get some drone shots. Should be a sweet Sunday if the weather is good.
 
I made a little running video of my back yard track for today, had a little rain interrupt my fun for a short time but good thing these cars aren't scared of a little wet grass! Still super clean inside, gotta love that snap on body! Still fresh memories of roosting some snow when I picked it up in MInnesota... so fun and not a drop on the electronics. Super fun Sunday here at the house, check out my track!

my lap times were as follows, 11.5, 11.59, 10.68, 10.52, 10.68, 11.06, 10.5, 11, 10.72, 10.46, 11.06, 10.43, 12.5, 10.93, 11.18, 10.5, 10.76, 10.5, 10.76, 10.44, 13.59, 10.75, 12.76, 10.43, 10.7, 11.18, 10.39, 10.67, 11.95, 11, 10.38, 10.63, 10.95. Please help me make some calculations to show the race metrics like fastest lap time, total time raced, average lap time, deviations etc.


Here are the race metrics based on your lap times:


  • Number of Laps: 33
  • Fastest Lap Time: 10.38 seconds
  • Total Time Raced: 363.15 seconds
  • Average Lap Time: 11.00 seconds
  • Lap Time Deviation: 0.73 seconds
  • Consistency Percentage: 93.40%
This data shows that you're quite consistent, with a high consistency percentage and a low deviation relative to the average lap time. Let me know if you'd like any further analysis!

Please keep in mind, I don't count marshal time or interrupted laps or anything, I highly suggest the same to anyone out there. Just relax, have fun count the good laps. I would love to see if anyone has other ideas for what they do with other vehicles of all kinds, crawlers on courses would be cool to see or smoothly landed flips with bashers or big air contests, anything r/c! Let's just share what we like to do and have fun together!
 
Great analysis on an excellent multi-surface track. Maximizing available space, for sure. Overhead shots by drone? What are you using for data collection? Timing system or telemetry?

Wanting to contract a drone for overhead shots of one of my events. But don't know what to ask for regarding what is required to get good shots. Looking into a purchasing a timing system. iLaps at first look seems adaptable. Any suggestions or recommendations?

Looking back through my records did come across some 2sec consistency Deltas on couple of my runs back when it was a longer true grass track oval instead of the shorter tri-oval it is now. Professional timing system should narrow the Delta. Fumbling with radio up timer switch on either of the radios is giving less than desirable and consistent numbers.

Thanks for the in-depth analysis of your runs. Your ~6min of run time really gives the telemetry an opportunity to provide an accurate recording of consistency. -A
 
I'm just using a free app on my iphone SE called Lap Timer but I did see that they have a free app on android that looks a little better, seems to work good if set up properly but all it does is time stamp when the camera sees the car quite accurately.

I'm actually curious if this idea could gain some traction and I could gather feedback on an app that I am designing. For now I just plug my times into ChatGPT and get my answers that way but I think it would be so cool if there was an app that would show race metrics after recording the times and maybe give suggestions on tracks for different cars and get people connected all in one place.

I just feel like it would be fun if there was something between bashing and racing, something we could create together and make our own fun challenges and things do with other r/c enthusiasts around the world but from the comfort of our homes or local parks, on our own schedules and circumstances.
 
As for the drone, I have a DJI mini 2, it does better quality video but for this, I didn't want to deal with big file sizes just to have the quality reduced on youtube anyway. I would suggest that if you have an event and you may want to do this again, it might just be worth picking up your own drone, might cost less than hiring someone and high up overhead shots are so easy, I just had the controller sitting on the table next to me but the drone just sat there nicely over both corners of my yard without a touch on the controller. Wasn't too windy but definitely some, no problem.
 
RetroThutmose said:
Interesting thread. I went and looked up some recent oval track days and it's almost always the best consistency wins the race.
Click to expand...
that is very much true, The higher your consistency is the better you will do. I've seen guys that are blazing fast for a couple laps then wreck or need marshalled. This causes them to lose multiple places, then I've seen guys that are a little bit slower but controlled and hit their marks every single lap. These guys are the fastest and the hardest to beat in oval !!! I say this as I'm walking out the door to head to the track
 
Consistency is everything.
jimdavis577 said:
I've seen guys that are blazing fast for a couple laps then wreck or need marshalled.
Click to expand...
I need to work on that. Thanks for the suggestion!
That turtle was right. Slower is faster.

Well in my case, sometimes consistency isn't everything because setup, tires, tire cause, motors, that all comes into play too but the driver is like 90 percent of the car so.
 
I once won a Slash A-main with a motor that half died on me into the race a bit and I just kept truckin along super slow. Always hitting my marks and never crashing. It was one of those memorable times in R/C for sure, just laughing as I did it and everyone who was catching up or getting ahead at all just kept crashing at some point and somehow I limped my way to the end in one piece and still in 1st. Fun times!
 
GromRipperBaker said:
I once won a Slash A-main with a motor that half died on me into the race a bit and I just kept truckin along super slow. Always hitting my marks and never crashing. It was one of those memorable times in R/C for sure, just laughing as I did it and everyone who was catching up or getting ahead at all just kept crashing at some point and somehow I limped my way to the end in one piece and still in 1st. Fun times!
Click to expand...
I watched someone last year after they landed funny; broke a hub and lost a front wheel. Could barely turn and still managed to kick ass. I was marshaling and when I went to pull it off the track he yelled, “leave it there” and the greatest thing I’ve ever seen transpired 😂

I can’t remember if he won, but he definitely podiumed. It wasn’t a slow race either, lots of fast guy were on the track. I still don’t know how he held it together. I want to say it was an associated buggy? I can’t remember though. Would’ve made for an awesome commercial 🤣
 
Glad to hear you did good racing! Keep up the good work! I imagine in oval racing there is so little margin for error and negotiating traffic. I never really even saw much oval racing but I did get a chance to try it once on carpet, I think with an old AE RC10T. I didn't do so great and the races made me kinda dizzy or something.. So much harder than I thought it would be.

Dirt oval looks like it would be way more fun to me and I love seeing the strange (to me) cars, super cool!
 

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