Appearance standards for ROAR Nationals

Official U.S. and Canadian RC Car sanctioning body ROAR has set body appearance standards for ROAR national events to avoid racers from using body shells without headlight, grille or taillight decals or painted representations of them in full-bodied classes. Bodies with no such details will not be permitted to compete.

Competing at a National Championship has always been a crowning achievement for many aspiring racers. ROAR National Championships have been some of the most competitive events in the history of RC and the “higher level of racing” has been a time-honoured tradition that separates these competitions from all others. The Acronym “ROAR” stands for “Remotely Operated Auto Racing.” “Auto” is the operative word, which implies that we race some form of vehicle that loosely resembles that of full-scale vehicles. As such, ROAR will require that competitors entered in full-bodied classes (e.g. Touring, Short Course, Truck, On-road, etc.) run bodies that have at least a minimum level of headlight, grille and taillight decals or painted representations on all bodies where applicable. Bodies with no such details will not be permitted to compete.

Some may view this as an unnecessary distraction, but doing so presents our hobby and sport in a more organised and professional manner, and it only requires a very small effort on behalf of the racers. Please just make use of the decals included with the bodies that you’ll run on the track and help to present the RC community in a more positive manner. Then, when people who see high level competition for the first time, who might otherwise confuse these as blobs, might actually recognise these as cars and trucks.

Source: ROAR [roarracing.com]

Categories - National, Racing

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Comments

1. P1 Brand - June 25th, 2011 at 07:01

Really ROAR? The sanctioning body that governs organized racing in the United States should be more concerned with drawing entries of both new and returning racers, not with who is or isn’t running tail light decals on their sedan.

2. unknown - June 25th, 2011 at 07:08

fully support !

3. Roelof - June 25th, 2011 at 12:36

I do like this. With the short life some bodies have moste people do not make work of it, most of them just use a spraycan white and do nothing more. In the 1/8 the driver is also painted with the colour of the body and afterwards with a marker they try to fill in some details on the outside while using some paintmarkers coloring the driver before painting the body is giving a much nicer looks.

4. ROARshocker - June 25th, 2011 at 12:41

what a silly rule. It does not define what a “headlight” “grill” or other detail is, so it’s up to personal interpretations. Ie if you have a boring SOD runing an event, then it’s possible that any body with anything but the sticker pack headlights will be disqualified.

5. Kevin - June 25th, 2011 at 12:44

If they call the bodies blobs already why not only allow real scale bodies of real cars. The field would look much more interesting and “…people who see high level competition for the first time…” wouldn’t have problems to know what sort of things are racing the track. If that is the problem.

6. Dane - June 25th, 2011 at 16:35

I agree P1 brand. This is dumb.

7. Steve - June 25th, 2011 at 18:33

I like this. The touring cars especially do look a lot sharper and more professional with the front and rear end details.

8. fraz - June 26th, 2011 at 07:19

I’m a painter (who does custom head/taillights) and longtime ROAR competitor and I must say ROAR has many more pressing issues to handle before worrying about this nonsense. Seriously, even non-ROAR series events run by Tamiya or Kyosho whom are known for much more realistic bodies do not have such a lame requirement. While this does not affect me in the slightest, I feel that adding more of these restrictions just add roadblocks and deter some from attending bigger events. Now if the appearance rule was you can’t have beat bodies that are cracked and ShooGoo’d all over and have not been replaced for a long time… then I might see the ruling have some more merit.

Big fail ROAR. Better start looking out for the future to grow or at least maintain our sport’s membership ranks before you have scared everybody off.

Oh and last time I checked ROAR body approvals did not require head/taillight sticker sheets. Maybe the cart is before the horse and you should think about implementing that first!!!

9. Brenden - June 27th, 2011 at 16:01

Hey there: I can see ROAR point of view to make bodies more realistic which will make then more attractive to the casual RC fan, but I also agree with what one reader wrote and that is improving participation in the RC hobby/sport should be ROAR main goal. Finally I think anything that Can be done in the RC hobby both on the racing side as well as the hobby side should be done to improve the viability popularity of the RC hobby/sport. Thanks