"Future of team racing or survival of the past"

For about 2 years we’ve heard talking about F2C team racing flying speed and aggressivity. Here is our point of view:

Reducing speed by flying 17.69 m long lines really sounds impossible because of the circles diameters.

Reducing speed by flying 0.40 mm lines sounds like the easiest way, but it for sure would kill the game by reducing its interest : my brother and myself took interest in team racing because it is fast and a sportsmen event.

Who does like flying lines ? Piloting sensitivity and feeling would get lost. By increasing the lines/model drag ratio, the real modelists would loose the reward which comes to better building of the models. Indeed the model’s quality would be less determinant.

For the teams currently flying sub 18 per 10 laps, what pleasure and satisfaction could they find in flying 19 or 20 ?

Flying real sub 18 didn’t show to be a real problem at last 2000 WC, where most of the semi-finalists handled it nicely during the semis.

The real problem is : who does need to reduce speed ?

Beginners, who should first consider flying beginners’categories, like French diesel good year, and only then come to F2C with a progression in flying’speed. The tabler difficulty for beginners is to adapt the speed to the pilot capacity. Our experience was after 2 to 3 years of French good year racing (air speed 21 to 23) we started F2C late summer 1995 to gradually reach the level of 3’29 in 1996. It took us 3 more years to gain 10 to 12 seconds. This was possible by flying real international competitions to collect experience.

Pilots getting too old or loosing physical training and velocity. Shouldn’t they stop flying and invest their passion and knowledge in helping new younger teams better than ask for a change of the rules to keep flying a couple of more years ? Time will always catch up.

Some people think that we could reduce the pilot aggressivity by taking a 2 times average to get qualified to the semi finals and finals.

First it goes against the actual attitude that gives more chances for the teams to express by flying 3 heats.

Second it wouldn’t reduce aggressivity at all : just imagine a 3^rd heat where teams need excellent times to improve their average…

Third, what sounds better and more exciting : once 3’15 and once 3’45 or twice 3’30 ? This question is very odd to us.

Next : the result of averaging would lead to a faster consumption of good equipment.

The only proven solution to reduce pilots’ aggressivity is good juries, as being shown in well organised international meetings and championships.

Georges and Pascal Surugue