How are modern racing "classes" differentiated?

[EMC]

In the old days of 1990's brushed motors in off road racing we had stock and modified class, further differentiated by buggy's and trucks and 2wd/4wd for buggies.

Stock brushed motors had bushings, and a certain amount of "turns" or RPM ratings that made them considered stock.

Modified had bearings, fewer turns it seems, and were much faster motors.

With modern "off road" racing and new brushless systems and 2s and 3s lipos etc, how are these classes differentiated and what is the basic criteria typically?

[lmw94002]

Went racing this weekend for the first time in a long time... local track runs...

2WD - Stock Buggy
2WD - Modified Buggy
2WD - Stock ShortCourse Truck
2WD - Modified ShortCourse Truck
4WD - Modified Buggy
4WD - Modified ShortCourse Truck

Stock essentially means 17.5 Brushless and 2S lipo.

I know they can further "restrict" classes (mostly stock) with the 2S Lipo Voltage and timing/esc settings for the motor. I haven't dug super into that yet since I'm still way off the pace of the top locals.

[RCveteran]

My local is basically same as above with one other class being "sportsman". That's the catch all where you find newbies mixing it up with everything and anything.

[EMC]

Has short course taken over and replaced stadium trucks in popularity?

[lmw94002]

Up my way when checking out the local tracks, the only trucks were ShortCourse. I did see a few trucks, but noone actually raced.

Other classes I've seen ...

Novice - Run what you bring
Over 40 - Usually 2wd stock or mod buggy.

[Tamlok]

Popularity will be different depending on where you are. On Long Island, 17.5 Blinky 2WD Buggy (which means no electronic timing from the ESC) was the most popular class with about 20 drivers on any given day. Short Course and 4WD buggy had a handful of guys, but it was not consistent. As was stated before, the Sportsman Class you could drive whatever and would get put into that if there were not enough drivers to field a race by itself. Where I live now in Virginia, the most popular is 2WD Buggy Modified. Stadium Truck I do believe has lost out to Short Course trucks.