Harnois Videos - New Releases

[harnois]

I've posted 2 videos on at www.harnoishobby.com. Go to the ah .... VIDEOS page. :D

Only 2 short clips so far, but we are working on more. I will post it here when we post new clips.

No on-car footage is posted yet, but we are working on it!

[homer]

Nice track!...now let's knock out that side wall and widened it for some even better action! :)

[harnois]

which side wall are you talking about?

[homer]

the side wall closests to the transparent bridge...
I think that's an exterior wall or to another unit? :D

[Zeppelin]

I see the Nissan does well:p

And I like the first video best, great acton.:D The track does seem more narrow in the video than in the pics, still probobly the greatest track ever made though.;)

[alfred]

Love the vid, and Penny knows how to spank some a$$ on the track, if you plan on coming here for a day you might need to leave her at home. lol:D

[Zeppelin]

Oh yeah, and sweet site!:D
Still no open wheel videos yet?

[harnois]

Yeah homer this is in my basement, and on the other side of that wall is my garage, which is also in the basement. I spent many hours drawing up various track designed looking for the way to get the most possible area out of my rather irregularly shaped basement. In the end I managed to get basically a 12' x 34' space.

[harnois]

Yeah the track is the narrowest I've ever seen anyone make. I learned when we first started playing around with on-car video, before this track existed, that the on-car action is better when the track is narrower because the shape of the track and other cars are more in-front of the cam car instead of out of view off to the side. Also just that there's more interaction between the cars when passing keeps it interesting. the things like the red-white rumble strip, the dips and rises, and other picturesque items also really help to make the on-car more interesting. Besides I actually looked up the width of full size road courses. The indianapolis road course circuit, for example, the one used for Formula 1, is something like 45 feet avg width, so my 28" width is proportional for 18th scale. As you can see we can still apex the turns and race cleanly. These days though there are more like 4 or 5 or even 6 cars vying for position instead of just 2, so it gets a bit wilder, especially if we're still running in a tight pack going into the last lap!

[Zeppelin]

Love the vid, and Penny knows how to spank some a$$ on the track, if you plan on coming here for a day you might need to leave her at home. lol:D


Yeah she isn't bad. and another question, what is the track surface made of?

[harnois]

Also, the wider the track, the simpler the layout has to be. For example, 6ft wide track in a 12ft wide room, can't do anything but 2 180-degree turns.

Penny is pretty durn good if I can give her a car that's fast and handles well.

[Zeppelin]

It does look pretty cramped in there, amn videos change everything.

[harnois]

zeppelin I have tons of on-car vid and most of that is with the open-wheeled car. In some cases racing with other open-wheeled cars. I have 15 to 20 hours of video (and growing), mostly on-car, some trackside, some like these vids with an overhead camera operator. Anyway, as soon as I find the time and technological resources, which I am working on, the best of it will make it's way to more online postings.

The track surface is flat black paint applied directly to the smooth concrete that is my basement floor. The inclined areas are 1/8th "all-purpose hardboard" aka masonite which is also painted with the same paint. Sheetrock mud smooths out all seams.

[alfred]

Its still a nice track indeed, you might need to invite me over so we could have a day of racing, the only problem is dont tell Penny about it....dont want to leave with tears in my eyes, lol, just joking of course.:D

[harnois]

For me this hobby is no fun without good drivers to race against. I would never have bought the cars and made the track if I wasn't reasonably sure I would have people coming over to race on a regular basis. Fortunately, we have 5 or 6 dedicated racers and that is all ya need. Actually 5 works very well on this track and 6 starts to get kinda nuts. Once we had 9 cars racing simultaneously, that was pretty funny. One of the reasons for participating in a forum is the possibility of finding more drivers, but usually poeple are too far away. So joking or not alfred, do come race with us if you got the time to make the drive. As long as you can stand to get beat by a girl. :D We race almost every Saturday from about 1pm to around 6ish.

[alfred]

Getting beat by a girl is something i dont mind at all.....yeah i would like to participate man......:D

[Zeppelin]

Heck I'd come if I could. lol:rolleyes:

[harnois]

Here ya go, Alfred, you are now added to the "Most Wanted Racers" section on the Racers page:
http://www.harnoishobby.com/racers.html
:D

[alfred]

Haha, thats funny man.....thanks for the add.....I cant help being on the forums man.:D

[harnois]

I just posted 2 new videos on http://harnoishobby.com/videos.html. If you've been there before, you might have to hit refresh before the updated page comes up.

[alfred]

Once again nice vids, way more action this time. So when are you going to post up some vids of the open wheel M18, would love to see that in action.:D Hope you like your avatar man....it's just temporary for now until you send me something that you like.

[Zeppelin]

:D Yeah they're all good videos, close action just how I like it. But I'm dying to see those open wheels man, can't wait to see that one. Still think some company should put open wheelers into production. Like F1 or Champ cars or something.

[adamc]

I'd love to come and race you guys. Only a few things stopping me though.

- I'm not a very good driver
- My micro's are way over powered and would probably only want to go straight ;)
- It's a loooooooong way from Australia

Very nice track by the way it looks like tonnes of fun and you look as though you've developed quite a bit of skill with those little things.

One suggestion for a nickname for Dave, how about "Dangerous Dave" Ali G keeps refering to a mate of his with that name.

I'd love to post a link to a clip on youtube but the one in question is about drugs, which i won't endorse.

found an acceptable link Ali-G and FBI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPtvgP_BZbM) for those playing at home, a guff is a fart

[harnois]

Thanks for the nick name ideas! Our Dave isn't too Dangerous, plus Fajita Dave has such a nice flow to it. I think though we need to retake Dave's mugshot and put him in a sombrero.

[harnois]

Alfred, I just sent you an email with a pic to use as an avatar.

[alfred]

Cool, uploaded it for ya man.......hit the refresh button if you will.;)

[Fajita Dave]

Ok I finally tracked this thread down. You can't change my name now its painted above the window on my open-wheel car! Also you'd have to get me drunk and passed out to get that pic of me with a sombrero :-p.

[alfred]

If i was to race on that track i would really be all over the place....not used to racing on a small technical track.....lmao.....now that would be a site to see. Fajita Dave, why are they trying to change your name bro.

[harnois]

All I have to do is find a pic of a sombrero on the internet, and do a little cut and paste job in photo shop. :D

[alfred]

That would be cool....hehe.:D

[harnois]

If i was to race on that track i would really be all over the place....not used to racing on a small technical track.....lmao.....now that would be a site to see.

I bet you'll be surprised. Like I said before, speed is relative. With the car converted to 4 cells and a stock motor, so the car's speed is adjusted to suit the track size, it is not really harder or easier, just different. We sometimes race with faster cars on bigger tracks and the skill seems to covert back and forth pretty easily for everyone. What makes our racing really hard these days is just that everyone is so competitive. It is really hard to break away from the pack, you always have to content with a car behind you trying to pass you, or a car in front of you that you're trying to pass and not hit, and often both of those at the same time. Now that is fun!

[Fajita Dave]

All I have to do is find a pic of a sombrero on the internet, and do a little cut and paste job in photo shop. :D

I'm sure I can sue you somehow for not getting my permission to do that :p. I think I'd enjoy replacing your head with a bucket that has a face drawn on it with a brain sticking out of the top over doing the first option.

[harnois]

No for myself I was thinking a tin foil hat like in the movie Signs, to keep the aliens from reading my brain. Penny's picture already shows her with a wig. Jason can obvousy just put a tire on his head.

[alfred]

What about me, what about me....lol......i would like to join the club. What would my name be, lmao.:D

[harnois]

Oh initially your racer name will be something like Freak'n Rookie or Freak'n New Guy (FNG) or Road Block, until you are with us long enough to do something stupid enough to earn a more original name. :D

[alfred]

Cool, lol.:D

[harnois]

How's about Alien Life Form (ALF)?

[alfred]

That is nice, but i would really like to earn my name.......even though that is nice.:D

[harnois]

Yeah you can earn a new name at any time. It's just something to start with until you've had earning opportunities. :)

[harnois]

I've added 8 new videos to the harnoishobby.com videos page:

race #5 in the Spring 2006 series (overhead cam)
3 videos onboard with Fajita Dave and no body.
4 videos onboard with me with a roadster body.

http://harnoishobby.com/videos.html

[maxximum attack]

lol you guys look like giants painted on the wall. I'm talking about after the finish on the 2nd vid :lol:

[alfred]

Once again awesome vids....i loved the crash of the F360....now that was cool. And why did you buddy run without the body......

[Fajita Dave]

This was before I did the open-wheeled conversion and the big Dodge stratus body that I ran took away a lot of the view. I know the wiring wasn't exactly pretty but I put the cam on kind of quick when I showed up then we started racing. We have LOTS more on-board fottage that has even better racing and the track even looks better. I also have my body on as well ;).

One thing that we liked watching was how the suspension worked. You can really see it moving especially over the rumble strips on the sides of the track and over some purpose made suddle bumps in the track a lot like a real track has in the braking/accelerating areas.

The funny thing about that F-360 flip (Jerry) is we caught him using a 6 cell cheater pack compaired to our 4 AAs in that shot :D. He always says hes a bad driver but he has some damn good throttle control matching our speed using that 6 cell untill he has a run on us at the finish line.

[alfred]

You should disqualify him for that lol........the vids were awesome. Does the open wheel design take some getting used too.

[Fajita Dave]

As far as driving the cars feel a tiny bit more nimble... atleast the M18 does but the full body cars are just as fast here. The only thing that you have to get used to is you can't tie up your wheels with another car otherwise bad things (but funny) could happen :p. It did actually calm down the wrecks a bit and the racing got better. Recently we took out reverse and now the racing is AWESOME because people will actually race with you knowing they might take themselves out and get pinned against a wall if they get over aggressive.

We don't disqualify him for cheating. He rarly wins because he has to much power and just crashs out. He hasn't ran that pack in a while but now he has this illegal motor that looks exactly like a stocker which gives him a small but just a big enough advantage to get you down the straight away but he still crashs to much.

[alfred]

What motor is he running.:p

[harnois]

Don't know exactly what kind of motor it is.

Jerry can and does win sometimes without illegal batteries or motors, if he has a car that is working properly. For some reason or another that working properly part just does't seem to happen very often. In file HRC-0220 you can watch him win in a mostly clean race.

[harnois]

The open-wheeled cars are a bit lighter and it is slightly noticable when driving. Open wheels prevents people from intentially using the walls in various ways. Mostly they just look cool especially in the vids, they look more like low and wide race cars with the spoiler and open wheels.

[harnois]

As for the no-reverse idea, it was interesting, at first everyone kindof kept their distance from each other afraid to end up stuck, but eventually the gaps closed up again and I think now the racing is just as close as before but cleaner, and therefore more realistic looking, everyone was forced to learn how to be aggressive without going overboard. Makes for better videos. In the vids posted so far though everybody has reverse.

Things are always in progress, the track, the cars, things like the no brakes idea, the racing format, and the cam mounting all gets improved little by little and the videos posted so far are from our earliest recordings, so that is why you see Dave's car with no body.

We have more than 20 hours of footage so far, and the vids posted so far are probably less than 1% of that. The on-car stuff never ceases to be interesting, hilarious, and original.

One of the best improvements we made to the track is replaced those padded barriers on the insides of some turns with wedge ramps. So if someone accidently cuts the turn, instead of just coming to a stop and everyone piling up behind them, their line is disrupted, or they get ejected into the air and sometimes flipped over, all depending on how badly they missed the mark. You can sortof see the ramps I'm talking about in this post:
http://www.one18th.com/GetGallery12396.htm

Those ramps make for better racing and wild accidents including the cam car itself rolling over.

[alfred]

That is a nice track, once again the M18 looks awesome open-wheeled.:D

[Fajita Dave]

The track looks even better after we put all of the sponsorship banners up from last Saturday :D. There are spektrum, A-Main hobbies, Hi-tec, and a bunch of other stuff that Adam got for his sport bike so now it trully looks like a real life scale track. We haven't gotten any on-board footage with the new banners on the track yet. We grouped them together just like on real tracks so you have the "Spektrum hair-pin" the "A-Main shicane" and the "Hi-tec corkscrew."

Oh yeah Alfred if you think the open-wheels look cool in those pictures what till you see the on-board vids of nothing but open-wheeled cars.

Honestly I don't know of anything else we can do to Adam's track to make it any better. Besides make it a little bigger of course... Adam your bike doesn't need THAT much room in the garage does it? :D

[alfred]

Where's the vid of all the open-wheeled M18's, i would love to see it man. I still need to make my way down there and race with you guys.:D

[Fajita Dave]

Yeah you do have to come down here and race! We are planning on having a big race the Saturday after new years I think (ask Adam about it to be sure). Adam is the one editing them and theres 20 hours of vids to look through and I'm sure he doesn't want to spend all of his time working and editing. I have to try and figure out how to work the editing software on my comp and do some myself.

[alfred]

That would surely make posting up vids a lot faster man.......yeah i have his number i'll give him a call sometime tomorrow.:D Just dont be giving me any beers because your going to see a one drunk driver on the track....lmao.

[harnois]

Yeah our next 'big' race day is Saturday January 6. Our last 'big' day was Nov 25th and we had 8 poeple. Everybody raced all the time, so it was lots of runtime for all. There was a whole range of skill level so everyone has someone to race against. :D

More details here:
http://www.team-corr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=433

[harnois]

Yes Dave you should edit some video. Don't know why I didn't think of that. If you've got a DVD reader drive and Windows XP, then you got everything you need. I'll just burn the raw footage to DVD for you. It'll be fun to see what kind of stuff you come up with because you'll no doubt have some different ideas on what to show and how to show it.

[harnois]

http://www.harnoishobby.com/videos.html
4 minutes of me and Fajita Dave drifting our M18 roadsters around Harnois Road Course.

[alfred]

Now that was some nice drifting.......what rubbers were you guys using.:p

[harnois]

funny. :) We just wrapped tape around the stock rubber tires. The tape we used is something one of our other racers gave us, some left overs from where he works, it's some kind of Teflon tape, adhesive on one side and super slick on the other. Electrical tape worked too but it wasn't as slick.

[alfred]

Is this something that you can find at an autoparts store.:D

[harnois]

Sorry, alfred, I forgot to respond to your last question a long time ago. But, I did look at the auto parts store and other stores and haven't found that kind of tape anywhere. I also looked online but it was hard to ever know if I was looking at the same thing.

[harnois]

Well guys, I have graduated from the little online clips...

I have produced a 90-minute DVD that is 100% on-board open-wheel 1/18th scale on-road racing! It is available now. Go to harnoishobby.com to watch a preview and read all about it.

This is my first announcement about this DVD, here on yourmicro.com!

[alfred]

cool man.....might just have to put in an order.....i will make sure that i see the preview as well.:p

[Nerve]

I have always admired this track setup in your basement since I got into Micro RS4s about a year and a bit ago.

I like the webpage redesign as well and have checked out the preview also.

I like how Alfred was mentioned on the "most wanted drivers list" .... ROFL!!:D

[alfred]

heyhey, now that wasnt funny....lmao.

[harnois]

Thanks Nerve, I've spent a lot of time on the new track and the web page, and mostly the DVD.

[Nerve]

Thanks Nerve, I've spent a lot of time on the new track and the web page, and mostly the DVD.

This may have been mentioned somewhere and I don't think I saw it listed on the webpage, but what kind of specs are those cars running? Are you guys running a stock class of micro? How many cells and what type?

Just curious because they seem to drive fairly smooth w/o getting "too fast" around the track like my micro does on carpet racing here.

We run in the basement of a Candian Legion, so we have a larger area in which to run and have the room for brushless.

[Fajita Dave]

Hey Nerve,

This is a lot longer than I expected it to be :-p. Our cars are very basic but the details are what make them drive the way they do.

We are running stock 180 size motors and four AA Energizer 2500mah batteries. Our top speed is 12mph at the end of our 25ft straight away and it takes about 4.5 seconds to go from 0 to 10mph.

The chassis on the M18 and RS4 that we are racing are basically stock but on the M18 there was a whole lot of modifing to fit the open wheel body on it.

The M18s needed to be modified a lot of make the open-wheel body to fit. It moved the weight bias towards the rear a lot which helped it drive smoother. Even now my steering exp is at 70% to make the steering less sensitive. Even with that much exp it takes very tiny steering adjustments down the straight away otherwise you oversteer. There are a whole lot of changes done to the chassis but its about a page worth of explaining. Still its a stock chassis with a stock motor, AA batteries, and hard front foam tires.

The RS4 bottom chassis is completly stock but the upper chassis needed to be lowered a bit to fit the open-wheel body. The RS4 tracks straighter and the steering is less sensitive. We haven't figured out the entire reason for this yet but we have some ideas. The M18 has some slop in all 4 tires because of the indipendant suspension where are the RS4 has the straight axle bolted to the chassis. Less slop in the rear end means the car tracks straight better. The overall alignment makes a huge difference too (camber, and toe mostly). On the M18 we try to get the toe at 0 degrees front and rear.

The only things that really makes our cars drive smooth is tires that we are using along with the slick surface that we run on. We are running the XRay foam tires with the hard compound on the front and soft compound on the rear. The track surface is only wall paint applied with a paint roller so there is a whole lot less grip than the normal RC track surface. This forces the cars to push a lot which smooths out the steering and gives us a larger margin for error. Usually with the normal RC racing that has high grip surface and high grip tires along with crazy speeds for a small car makes things so fast its impossible to react or be accurate enough for the car to feel like its smooth to drive.

We have tried faster motors and bigger batteries in practice before and it just ruined the close racing. Pretty much anything faster on our track makes things to fast to react to. We are already doing 1 turn every second so there are only tenths of a second or less to react especially when you have 5 other cars you're racing wheel to wheel with on 22 inch lanes.

We have ran on concrete with about a 50ft straight away before which really made the steering faster because of the added grip. Still we kept the low HP setup because the cars were more drivable. Dispite the long straight away and pretty much double the space the racing was still more fun because the cars were slower than the average RC. Of course all of us have been racing with each other for a very long time so we are always racing close. These cars are only fun if your racing close on a track with tight turns. Otherwise they really are to slow and to easy to drive the have fun with.

[Nerve]

Wow! Now that was a reply.

But you know what, you answered my somewhat vague question perfectly. That was exactly the reply I was looking for. You gave enough detailed iformation that it made perfect sense. :D

You guys really have dissected the micros on making them run perfectly and have put a lot of thought into the setups of your micros/m18s. Where as myself, fire in a big block motor (or brushless), 2/3a 6 cells, make sure it goes straight and hope for the best. I really haven't gotten too worked up over tuning my setup for the optimal settings. I found that running hard foams and medium rears was a setup (with my chassis that is) worked the best for me. I found that soft foams on carpet was slower and sloppy feeling.

I will eventually tear down my micro (again) and rebuild and clean it up before the racing season starts up again in the fall.

Thanks again for that great reply! :D

[harnois]

It is funny to me sometimes how what seems like a simple concept takes so many words to explain in writing. :D

This may have been mentioned somewhere and I don't think I saw it listed on the webpage, but what kind of specs are those cars running? Are you guys running a stock class of micro? How many cells and what type?

Just curious because they seem to drive fairly smooth w/o getting "too fast" around the track like my micro does on carpet racing here.

We run in the basement of a Candian Legion, so we have a larger area in which to run and have the room for brushless.

Part of the goal of our “formula” is to create that smoothness that you are talking about. So it’s awesome to me that you made that comment.

The smoother handling cars enable the drivers to run much closer together, which is not only fun, but it keeps the action up-close in the camera. The smoothness of the cars also means smooth camera movement, which makes the on-board footage a lot easier to watch and actually understand what is going on.

The super tight track is another part of the formula that keeps things up-close in the camera. In order to keep it smooth on such a track, we need to keep the power down, among other things. So we run with 4 AA batteries and stock 180 motors. With that setup we get over 60 minutes of runtime.

Due to the narrow lanes, sharp turns, and low-traction, we still have to use the brakes 4 or 5 times per lap, so the cars are plenty fast relative to the environment. The brakes are audible in the preview if you listen carefully, especially in the “Close Racing” section. A short portion of the DVD is done with no music so you can enjoy the sound of the motor and braking… and impacts. For the next DVD we’re looking at having brake lights on all the cars so you can see when all the cars up ahead are braking for the turns.

If we ran on a bigger track with more traction and faster cars, we’d probably have just as much fun racing, but I don’t think it would work as a DVD. The competing cars would usually be too far away from the camera and each other, and everything would be too shaky and fast to see what is going on.

The tight track, smooth handling cars, and good drivers are what keep things action packed, up-close, and coherent. And as you can see from the preview, crashing is never ruled out!

As you can see we’ve really put a lot of thought into this DVD, so I hope you guys like it.

Most importantly, my response is shorter than Dave’s! :D

[alfred]

If its like all the other short clips that you guys have on your site then im sure this is going to be awesome........

[Fajita Dave]

We both have 8 paragraphs Adam :).

The DVD is actually a lot better than our short clips. Its just like watching real racing. Even though I was driving the camera car the whole time I found myself rooting for a certain driver to win. Especially the ending... it was a great last few races. The bonus features are a lot of fun to watch too.

I have some other RC videos that were professionaly done but they were just a bunch of clips strung together with music. With this you get to see the racing go down and you get the feeling that you're actually in the race and its a lot more entertaining.

[alfred]

cool man, hope to get my copy for sure.:D

[Nerve]

The smoother handling cars enable the drivers to run much closer together, which is not only fun, but it keeps the action up-close in the camera. The smoothness of the cars also means smooth camera movement, which makes the on-board footage a lot easier to watch and actually understand what is going on.

Yeah I think if you strapped the camera to the top of my micro you would want to keep a bucket near by... LOL. It is interesting that with lots of speed these cars can be fun, but with slower speeds they become more techinical as well. I would imagine that also the slower speeds would mean that parts dont get damaged as fast as they do on my micro (ie spur gears every other race).

The super tight track is another part of the formula that keeps things up-close in the camera. In order to keep it smooth on such a track, we need to keep the power down, among other things. So we run with 4 AA batteries and stock 180 motors. With that setup we get over 60 minutes of runtime.


I would like to be able to give that track a whirl, but I highly doubt I would be down in the states anytime soon.. heh.

Have you considered mounting remote cameras to the sides/uppers of the bridge and around the track in certain spots to give close up side track action or a birds-eye view of the race?

[harnois]

It is interesting that with lots of speed these cars can be fun, but with slower speeds they become more techinical as well.

In ROAR they have a 1/12th scale 4-cell class, when you know those cars could be made much faster. So surely we are not the first to recognize the value of keeping the cars down to a smoother speed.

Since the cars have less momentum and less speed difference between them, it is possible for them to nudge each other around a lot more without knock'n each other out of the race, thus staying in the battle. And the fun is in the battles.


I would imagine that also the slower speeds would mean that parts don't get damaged as fast as they do on my micro (ie spur gears every other race).

Yeah we hardly ever break anything. We do wear things out, mostly the suspension joints.


Have you considered mounting remote cameras to the sides/uppers of the bridge and around the track in certain spots to give close up side track action or a birds-eye view of the race?

We have experimented with that a lot. Probably in the next DVD we'll incorporate more camera angles, but noth'n beats on-board. :D

[alfred]

Hey buddy got the dvd......going to watch it a little later since the kids are watching kiddy movies......lol.....im going to post up a review tonight when there sleeping.

[alfred]

Im watching the Bonus features now, Bloopers, more crashing etc......i can tell you guys now that you guys went all out with this vid....i have seen tires popping off and for me i just put down a small drop of CA too keep the tires in place....lol....and oh did i mention the crashes......they were great. And for those members that want to see the track layout and there rides then you should get this vid, def worth the money.......Mr. H did a good job with the footage and i have never seen an M18 or MRS4 crash like they do......its a good thing. The vid has a lot of features and pics of there rides as well and my wife even enjoyed it. Just wanted to say keep up the good work and keep them coming.

[Nerve]

In ROAR they have a 1/12th scale 4-cell class, when you know those cars could be made much faster. So surely we are not the first to recognize the value of keeping the cars down to a smoother speed.

Since the cars have less momentum and less speed difference between them, it is possible for them to nudge each other around a lot more without knock'n each other out of the race, thus staying in the battle. And the fun is in the battles.

Yeah I think the 1:12 pan cars are meant to run 4 cells tho arent they? SC sized I think is what our guys were running. I know those are so amazing to watch doing laps around the track. I sometimes get mesmerized watching them when im out marshalling and stop paying attention to cars that flip over or get stuck.. lol.

Very true about keeping the speeds down. I'm running a T.O big block, friend of mine is running mamba brushless, someone else is running stock, my girlfriend runs T.O Big block (but can't drive that well..yet). So there really is a wide range of cars. For the size of area we have, a stock micro class would be boring as heck. But I think if the rules were changed to have only one motor used or something, then yeah it would be closer.

Yeah we hardly ever break anything. We do wear things out, mostly the suspension joints.

Spur gears for me. Suspension as far as I know is ok. Broke my share of knuckles however. Once I got GPM knuckles tho, I was good to go for the rest of the season. Worthwhile upgrade.

[harnois]

Im watching the Bonus features now, Bloopers, more crashing etc......i can tell you guys now that you guys went all out with this vid....i have seen tires popping off and for me i just put down a small drop of CA too keep the tires in place....lol....and oh did i mention the crashes......they were great. And for those members that want to see the track layout and there rides then you should get this vid, def worth the money.......Mr. H did a good job with the footage and i have never seen an M18 or MRS4 crash like they do......its a good thing. The vid has a lot of features and pics of there rides as well and my wife even enjoyed it. Just wanted to say keep up the good work and keep them coming.

Thanks Alfred! Glad you enjoyed it. We're not aiming to keep the tires in place, hehe, cos it is funny when they fly off in crashes. With our sprint race format the damaged car doesn't miss much racing anyway.

[alfred]

Are you guys also selling the dvd in the shop as well.....

[Nerve]

Just wanted to let you guys know that I received my copy of the dvd that Adam had sent out to me.

I will take a look at it over the next few days and send some feedback on it as well. I showed my girlfriend the Harnoishobby webpage (she has never seen it before) and she immediately said " wow that looks extensive ". She thought it looked pretty cool and is interested to check out the dvd now.

:D

[alfred]

Hey buddy, you should check out the bloopers man.:p

[harnois]

Yeah I think the 1:12 pan cars are meant to run 4 cells tho arent they?

Yeah I looked up the ROAR rules. They have a 4-cell road course class and then an oval class for 1/12th scale. They are made for 4-cell but no doubt they could be made for more, no doubt they could have a more open 1/12th scale road course racing class, and yet they don't. People pack all kinds of volts and cells and motors in their micros but yet in 1/12th scale, a bigger car, they stick to 4-cell for road course racing. Which I just think is interesting. We got a new guy that just started racing with us who used to race 1/12th scale road courses in the New York area, so I've been asking him a bit about that. He really seems to like what we have going on here. Our "rules" keep it simple and inexpensive, so that it all comes down to the fun of driving. Our cheeks get sore from laughing so much while racing! :D

For the size of area we have, a stock micro class would be boring as heck.
Unless you made the track so narrow and curvy and intricate that stock speed would be enough, and then you'd have such a long track and so many turns that it would take like a whole minute to get around it. :D


But I think if the rules were changed to have only one motor used or something, then yeah it would be closer.

Our experience so far is to specify the motor, battery, and tires. It's simple and does the trick of keeping everyone at about the same performance and traction levels.

[harnois]

Are you guys also selling the dvd in the shop as well.....

You mean in hobby shops? I hope to someday, but it isn't there yet.

[alfred]

Well it was entertaining......enjoyed it a lot.

[Nerve]

I still have to get around to watching it... :(

Maybe this weekend :D

[Nerve]

Yeah I looked up the ROAR rules. They have a 4-cell road course class and then an oval class for 1/12th scale. They are made for 4-cell but no doubt they could be made for more, no doubt they could have a more open 1/12th scale road course racing class, and yet they don't. People pack all kinds of volts and cells and motors in their micros but yet in 1/12th scale, a bigger car, they stick to 4-cell for road course racing. Which I just think is interesting. We got a new guy that just started racing with us who used to race 1/12th scale road courses in the New York area, so I've been asking him a bit about that. He really seems to like what we have going on here. Our "rules" keep it simple and inexpensive, so that it all comes down to the fun of driving. Our cheeks get sore from laughing so much while racing! :D

I think 4 cells compliment the 1:12th pan cars. Four cells move those cars over carpet with lots of ease. The larger batteries could also add a bit more weight to those things making the cars sit on the track better. Where as if you were running say an 8 cell 2/3a sized, the car might be a bit more loose on the track.

Unless you made the track so narrow and curvy and intricate that stock speed would be enough, and then you'd have such a long track and so many turns that it would take like a whole minute to get around it. :D/[QUOTE]

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nrcc&search_type=

Take a look at the "track" videos on there, that will give you an idea as the size of area that we run in.


[QUOTE=harnois;199869]Our experience so far is to specify the motor, battery, and tires. It's simple and does the trick of keeping everyone at about the same performance and traction levels.

Then it comes down to driver skill (or lack of) that determines where you end up placing.. heh.

I know racing in my first ever season this past winter has helped a lot with control over the vehicle. My first times on the track my pulse was racing and I wasn't sure on what to do and if I was going to do any harm to other racers. Now im more comfortable, lots of guys know me well enough and I crash into their cars on occasion w/o worry. :D

[harnois]

Our experience so far is to specify the motor, battery, and tires. It's simple and does the trick of keeping everyone at about the same performance and traction levels.

Then it comes down to driver skill (or lack of) that determines where you end up placing.. heh.


In our case it also comes down to skill and luck in the traffic, since we have so many cars racing in such a small area. That's usually what we're laughing so much about is the crazy battles we get into.

There is also still some car setup adjustments that can be done.

[Nerve]

Alrighty, first off I just wanted to say sorry for taking so long to view and review the Harnois Hobbies DVD. Adam had it sent out to me in a wicked fast time frame and I was holding off watching it until my gf and I finally had a few hours free in which to watch it. Plus I kept on forgetting it at my house on my desk (when I would go to her house).. oops. Anyhoo, tonight we finally sat down to watch it !


The editing job is phenomenal, very professional looking. The intro sequence really caught my attention and got me interested in watching what would be next. I must say watching it go through the whole event was very interesting. The first few races were interesting to see how the field was starting to stack up. Then, cars started to have issues and breakdowns happened and the field changed yet again. Those poles were really taking a toll on the cars. Once the final races were coming up, I thought I knew who the winner would be..... and I was wrong! Intense racing at its best.

My girlfriend was really getting involved with the dvd and was commenting about how real the racing looked. She loved all the different angles and it gave you a good view of the race. She also mentioned that she loved the scenes where the wheels came popping off...lol.

The bloopers reel was rather funny as well (the person getting smacked in the head with the antenna tube)... and the crazy crashes! Shows you how tough these little cars are. I really liked the photo gallery feature on the dvd as well. Having the cars showcased like that really added something to the dvd. The track build information was interesting to see how it all came together.

Overall, it was a very well done DVD. You can see the time and effort that went into putting it together.

:D

[Fajita Dave]

Thats very good to hear! The on-board video was originally something for us just as entertainment but after seeing it with our newest layout Adam decided to make a DVD out of it. We really want to get more people into the same kind of close spec racing on a tight scale track because its so much fun.

It really is amazing how far the track has come over the years. The first videos when the track was fairly simple it looked so plain and boring. Now the track is vibrant and just looks awesome. The tracks appearance actually makes the racing more fun because its not some flat, walled in, black and white track. The on-board video is actually why we ("we" meaning 98% Adam) tried to make the track look so good.

[harnois]

Nerve,

Glad you enjoyed the DVD. Thank you very much for that well-written review. The person getting smacked in the head with the car's antenna tube was me! We have no shortage of footage since we record most days that we race. So when I decided to make a DVD I had a lot of different days to choose from and an endless amount of footage to sort through. I took crash scenes from various days for the intro but the practice session and race are all from one day. This day was chosen for many of the things you noticed - the variety of things that happen to the cars, the crashes, the breakdowns, the impact damage, the ever changing score and the unpredictable and intense ending to the day. The desperateness of the drivers really comes out in the way they are driving sometimes, especially in the second half of the day.

Fajita Dave is Dave Kutassy, the camera car driver/racer for most of the DVD. He's famous now. You should see the Paparazzi that follows him every where he goes since the release of this DVD.

[Fajita Dave]

Oh yeah theres paparazzi all over the place because everyone on earth has seen the DVD (<--- Sarcasm).

[alfred]

lol, now that was funny.......glad to see that you guys are doing well.

[harnois]

I made another 10-minute video clip. This is a simple video meant to give a good view of Harnois Race Park and to demonstrate how close and clean our racing is sometimes.

Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyxHsgJb6eM&feature=channel_page

Or on my website:
http://harnoishobby.com/videos.html

[harnois]

Found this cool youtube video today of a 24 hour? M18 race. They've got a huge track with a bridge and all the cars seem to have headlights, tail lights, and brake lights, and some of the race was done "at night."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU6G6XaXbHs