Breaking the rules, Bending the rules, or 100% Legal?

[92hatchattack]

Hey guys, This year I used John's Nitro wheels. Below I will post the rules for wheels in our pack and I am interested in seeing if you all think that we were inside the rule set. This will help shape my decision to run these wheels again next year or not. Here are our rules:

WHEELS:

Wheels and axles must be as furnished in the official kit.No one-piece axles, washers, bushings, bearings, or springs are allowed.Wheels may be sanded to remove the flashing only.NO reductions in width or diameter, or changes in shape are allowed.All four wheels must contact the track.

What do you think?

 

[TRE]

i would say you broke the rules

 

[92hatchattack]

i would say you broke the rules

On which specific point if I may ask?

 

[92hatchattack]

And how the heck do I all the sudden have a custom avatar? I'm so confussed! lol

 

[TRE]

well it says you cant reduce diameter and if you put dynasty nitro wheels on there ..they are 1.3 grams stock wheels are 2.7 grams..i dont know how you get away with that even the naked eye can see that

 

[TRE]

i got the same custom avatar from the avatar fairy i guess

 

[IAE Racing]

Congrats on the avatar guys! Change in width of thread from ~8.3mm to <7.9 Change in OD from 1.184 in to 1.17. I would also say a change in shape happened due to weight also removed from inside. But it doesn't say you cant take from the inside. I admit, I'm a hard ass, but vague rules like this suck and then suck some more. I would encourage people to move to a Mid America rule for wheels (Nitros) or a rule with a min weight. For example, 2.5gr you will find out of box wheels in the 2.5s which leaves room to square up. Or 2.0 grams like SS class. It's hard to "lightly sand" like some rules read to 2.4 grams because at least in my attemps, it's hard to sand evenly in the inside.

jm2C

 

[92hatchattack]

well it says you cant reduce diameter and if you put dynasty nitro wheels on there ..they are 1.3 grams stock wheels are 2.7 grams..i dont know how you get away with that even the naked eye can see that

Have you seen the Nitros in person? All the weight is removed from the inside of the wheel. From the outside of the wheel you couldn't tell they were not stock BSA wheels. All markings retained. Even the inside markings still remain. The weight is taken from the inside of the tread thus not drastically decreasing the tread width or outside diameter. You would have to specifically look at the thickness of the inside edge of the wheels to ever even consider these wheels were modified.

Congrats on the avatar guys! Change in width of thread from ~8.3mm to <7.9 Change in OD from 1.184 in to 1.17. I would also say a change in shape happened due to weight also removed from inside. But it doesn't say you cant take from the inside. I admit, I'm a hard ass, but vague rules like this suck and then suck some more. I would encourage people to move to a Mid America rule for wheels (Nitros) or a rule with a min weight. For example, 2.5gr you will find out of box wheels in the 2.5s which leaves room to square up. Or 2.0 grams like SS class. It's hard to "lightly sand" like some rules read to 2.4 grams because at least in my attemps, it's hard to sand evenly in the inside.

jm2C

IAE, in the first thread I ever started here you asked me what do our rules state for the wheels. At that point I went back and checked my emails and found the statement, (The axles, wheels and body of the car must be official BSA parts ONLY ), which at that point was the only info I had. A few days later after I had already ordered the Nitros only then did an email come through with these more defined rules that I stated at the top of this thread.

In fact, it was the vagueness of these rules which confirmed for me that these wheels were legal to use. No mention of not being able to reduce weight. For starters, that's great info on the Nitros and stock wheels, where did you get it? As you can see by those numbers the differences in width and OD are fairly negligible. Lets get real for a second. The rules say you can sand the wheels to remove flashing. Lets not pretend that the dads chucking up these wheels in their drills and going to town with 120 grit sandpaper aren't taking way more off of the OD and width than John is by just squaring the wheel up. I tried this last year and when I got done I looked at the wheels and decided they looked like crap. This year I planned to use a wheel shaver but thanks to you guys I learned that that was a poor choice. Am I any worse for using a set of wheels that I know through time spent researching are going to be fast then the guys that are sanding down their wheels which is stated to be ok? I can assure you I saw sanded wheels that had changed the shape of the wheel 10x more than the Nitros and I just shook my head, because I know from this board that what they have done simply did not help them.

I'm not really trying to defend myself. Maybe I am a bad person. This is just how I interpreted the rules and I thought I was 100% legal. Its why I refused to use a pre drilled block. I wanted to win within the rules.

 

[92hatchattack]

i got the same custom avatar from the avatar fairy i guess

Haha, very strange. I wonder who it is that does these. They are very nice!

 

[TRE]

92hatch

the rules are too vague, but what they are trying to do is stop people from using machined wheels..what they need to do is make rules like the league rules and say wheels must be certain weight width and diameter..we dont care how you get there by machine, sand or whatever..it would be lot less problems for them and easier to in force..instead of all these dumb vague rules they have

 

[TRE]

but ya i guess you were ok.. your rules didnt state that you couldnt remove from the inside, so on second thought you were probably within you vague rules

 

[92hatchattack]

92hatch

the rules are too vague, but what they are trying to do is stop people from using machined wheels..what they need to do is make rules like the league rules and say wheels must be certain weight width and diameter..we dont care how you get there by machine, sand or whatever..it would be lot less problems for them and easier to in force..instead of all these dumb vague rules they have

Your most likely right. Thing is I guess is once again nobody in my pack knows anything. The rules maybe havent needed to be exact because maybe I'm the first guy thats crazy enough to join a pwd forum and start learning the real tricks of getting faster.

To be honest, our check in is a joke. Pretty much as long as your under 5oz your in. Our rules state that you have to have 4 wheels touching as well yet I watch terribly constructed cars with wheels 3/16th of the ground cause all 4 axles are crooked one way or the other direction pass right through inspection. If that passes inspection, should I be caring at all if my wheel is 1/32 off the ground so I can rail run? If the rules arent enforced are you really even breaking them at all?

The reality of the situation is I could show up with 92x axles running LiteSpeed wheels and oil on a pre drilled block and no one would know the difference. I choose not to.

 

[IAE Racing]

'92, Hopefully, I did not offend, that was not my intent. TRE summed it up

the rules are too vague, but what they are trying to do is stop people from using machined wheels..what they need to do is make rules like the league rules and say wheels must be certain weight width and diameter..we dont care how you get there by machine, sand or whatever..it would be lot less problems for them and easier to in force..instead of all these dumb vague rules they have

If other cars were running something similar, and no one got called out, I'd say you're good. Admmittingly I don't have the guts to try that. I'm one to attempt to correct rules first. Our pack is not super competive and I am like you in the fact fact of being here and knowing the difference.

Volunteer to help, make positive changes. It is possible you will have to start at district or even council and work your way down. Maybe you can change the pack and work your way up. In my case I should have started three years ago but I didn't know better then.

I also like you could as you:

The reality of the situation is I could show up with 92x axles running LiteSpeed wheels and oil on a pre drilled block and no one would know the difference. I choose not to.

As far as where I got the info, I had both Out of box and nitro sitting in front of me when I was typing. If I honeslty thought someone were running something else, I'd sure as heck run it too in a vague area.

BTW how'd you do?

 

[TRE]

if you use slots it hard to get all the wheels to touch anyway... last years awana race we used the slots i couldnt get one of the cars front wheel to touch messed with for an hour finnaly gave up

 

[bracketracer]

Your rules read "NO reductions in width or diameter", Nitros are both smaller and narrower. Your rules don't say "only light sanding" either. They say "Wheels may be sanded to remove the flashing only". I don't see a grey area there. I don't think John takes a gram and a half of flashing out of the inside. But maybe he does! /images/boards/smilies/smile.gif

 

[92hatchattack]

'92, Hopefully, I did not offend, that was not my intent. TRE summed it up

the rules are too vague, but what they are trying to do is stop people from using machined wheels..what they need to do is make rules like the league rules and say wheels must be certain weight width and diameter..we dont care how you get there by machine, sand or whatever..it would be lot less problems for them and easier to in force..instead of all these dumb vague rules they have

If other cars were running something similar, and no one got called out, I'd say you're good. Admmittingly I don't have the guts to try that. I'm one to attempt to correct rules first. Our pack is not super competive and I am like you in the fact fact of being here and knowing the difference.

Volunteer to help, make positive changes. It is possible you will have to start at district or even council and work your way down. Maybe you can change the pack and work your way up. In my case I should have started three years ago but I didn't know better then.

I also like you could as you:

The reality of the situation is I could show up with 92x axles running LiteSpeed wheels and oil on a pre drilled block and no one would know the difference. I choose not to.

As far as where I got the info, I had both Out of box and nitro sitting in front of me when I was typing. If I honeslty thought someone were running something else, I'd sure as heck run it too in a vague area.

BTW how'd you do?

Hmm, interesting. You seem to have an opposite opinion of many people on this board. While others are angry that they cant run oil and or groved axles, you are saying we should try to restrict the ability to build fast cars in order to level the playing field?

And no, I do not think other cars were running purposly lightened or machined wheels. What I was saying was that when it comes to not reducing OD, that many dads, just by sanding, most likely removed far more of the OD than John has by just truing the wheels. Do they know they have done this, probably not. Are they doing this to remove weight and purposly reduce the OD, probably not. When they see that the wheels may be sanded to remove flashing they figure thats going to help them, so they do it. Point was, even if by accident they are most likely more out of spec than the Nitro wheels. Does it make me more wrong to knowingly use good wheels than they are for accidentaly reducing OD?

As far as how we did, our car, having only polished bsa axles that god knows if they were straight, running as a straight car (not rail ridding) with 0 tunning mopped up. It wasnt even close. In our age division we ran a combined time (4 races on a 32" track) of 10.078 to 2nd places 10.296. If the finals we ran 10.144 vs 2nd places 10.263

Did the wheels help? Probably. But when you consider that the 2nd place car wasnt even using polished axles and didnt even have the castings marks removed they stil wouldnt have had a chance against us if we ran stock wheels. Not to mention I think we are the only ones who know what COM means and If I mentioned tungsten to anyone they wouldnt have any idea what I was talking about.

Im going to add that this is not the first time we have done well. Our first year we placed 1st in our age group and 3rd overall. Last year we took 1st in our age group and 2nd in our age group at district. Changes for this year include much better axle polishing..... not running the car in reverse, using tungsten cubes to get the com back to 3/4" and the wheels... oh, and john's graphite instead of the crap at the hobby shop.

 

[92hatchattack]

Your rules read "NO reductions in width or diameter", Nitros are both smaller and narrower. Your rules don't say "only light sanding" either. They say "Wheels may be sanded to remove the flashing only". I don't see a grey area there. I don't think John takes a gram and a half of flashing out of the inside. But maybe he does! /images/boards/smilies/smile.gif

Ok, so in your opinion are any of John's wheels within my rule set?

BASX, RAGE?

I want a true wheel. If I had the equipment to do it myself I would, but a decent lathe is not cheap.

 

[sondo007]

Congrats on your win. I've been helping a few different families from different packs in our area and from what I'm hearing, that a majority of the people they race don't know what COM is or sanding of axles or weight placement or canting, or tire truing. I think it just depends on how competitive the pack or den is.

 

[92hatchattack]

'92, Hopefully, I did not offend, that was not my intent.

PS... of course not. It takes A LOT to get on my nerves. I'm an easy going guy. The information you and other provide is extremely valuable and I thank you all.

 

[TRE]

I would use rage if i had your rules