Roc, Super Roc, Ontario Roc

[PinkBanshee]

Can someone please explain how the Super Roc and Ontario Roc differ from a regular Roc?   

[Mukey]

Well, for one they have different names....    Sorry, I couldn't resist.

In all seriousness, I believe the Super Roc & Ontario Roc are different in their dome, but I don't have that much experience with the "other" Rocs, only experience I've had is at the merch table

[stpitner]

Super Roc is the type of plastic - it's like the regular Pro plastic as opposed to the KC Pro plastic which is like a blend of Pro and DX to give it that firmer feel.  The Ontario and San Marino Rocs signify the location where they are made (as opposed to Rancho Cucamonga).  I guess for the Ontario Roc and San Marino Roc the mold is ever so slightly different.  The Ontario is less stable than the usual KC Pro Roc from the get-go I do believe.  I'm not sure about the San Marino Roc as that was just recently brought back.

Just find one that you like and stick with it I suppose...

[Bruce Brakel]

Ontario, San Marino and Cucamunga are California cities where those Rocs were originally made.  Because they were made in different locations by different injection operators, they came out different from each other.

The new Ontarios and new San Marinos are merely made to be like the original variations.

[stpitner]

Do they still physically make those discs in those towns?  The bottom of the discs do say different town names, but I haven't checked to see if there is variation amongst the same mold of disc.  Star plastic is frequently marked on the bottom I've noticed.

Very intriguing.

[Bruce Brakel]

The answer is on pdga.com's discussion page somewhere.  Dave D. or someone authoritative explained all that not so long ago when they were re-releasing the San Marinos.  I think everything is now made at one place.   

[Working Stiff]

As I recall, San Marino was a P. O. Box.  Innova did not have a plant originally.  They contracted all the injection molding out to other places.  All of those early discs had the location "San Marino, CA." on the bottom, but they could have been made anywhere.

The first two Rocs (the original small diameter Roc now known as the Classic Roc, and the first 21.7 cm diameter Roc known as the San Marino Roc) were introduced during this period.

In the late 80's or early 90's, Innova opened a manufacturing plant in Ontario, CA. and started doing their own injection molding in house.  Existing molds that were still in production (like the Aviar and Stingray) continued to say "San Marino" because that was the engraving on the mold, but all the disc were made in Ontario.  All the new molds that came into production said "Ontario" on the bottom.

In about '94 part of the San Marino Roc mold became unusable.  There are stories that it was broken, and others that it just simply wore out from the repeated process of hot plastic being shot into it.  At any rate, the Roc was re-molded.  The resulting disc was domier, less stable and was generally hated by all Roc enthusiasts.  This disc has "Ontario" molded into the bottom, so it is known as the Ontario Roc.  San Marino Rocs became in very high demand at this time and were stockpiled by Open players who refused to throw the Ontario Rocs.

Sometime between the release of the Gazelle in '94 and the Cheetah in '95, Innova moved to its current location in Rancho Cucamonga, CA.  All discs molded since then say "Rancho Cucamonga" on the bottom.  Again, there were still discs being made that said "San Marino" and "Ontario" on the bottom, but everything Innova made after 1995 was made in Rancho Cucamonga regardless of what the bottom says. 

I'm not sure if that is still true as I don't know if any discs are made at Innova East now or not, but new discs still have "Rancho Cucamonga" engraved on the bottom.

By 1997, Innova had decided that they could not tweak the Ontario Roc into the kind of disc Roc throwers wanted, so they threw in the towel and molded the disc yet again.  This new disc had less dome and was more overstable than either the San Marino or Ontario had been.  It has been hugely popular disc.  Of course, it says  "Rancho Cucamonga" on the bottom, so it is the Rancho Roc.

Innova only had one base plastic until they introduced the SE Gazelles and KC Pro discs in 1997.  Since all of the plastic variations (KC Pro Rocs, SE Rocs, Super Rocs, CE Rocs) came out after the Rancho mold was introduced, these are all made from the Rancho Roc mold.

After languishing on the scrap heap of disc golf history, the disgraced Ontario Roc made a comeback a few years ago.  New players it seems don't like to break in a disc to create a turnover disc.  They like a disc they can flip out of the box.  There has been a rash of understable mids released recently to meet this demand.  Last year, somebody at Innova got the bright idea that they could CFR the flippy Ontario Rocs.  It must have worked, as I saw a lot of new Ontario's floating around last summer.

So now somehow Innova has figured out a way to replace the piece of the San Marino mold that was unusable and has re-released the San Marino Roc as a CFR disc.  It seems that from here on out, the USDGC Rocs will be a combination of the three molds, the Ontario and San Marino will be in the CFR program, and the standard stamped DX Rocs, Super Rocs and KC Pro Rocs will remain Ranchos.

[Working Stiff]

Other random thought:  a lot of attention is paid to the Roc, but it is not the only disc that had different versions with different engraving.  The original Cobra was a "San Marino" disc, but it was later re-molded to be more stable.  The second Cobra had "Ontario" engraving.  The XD was originally beadless and had "San Marino" engraving.  At some point a small bead was added and the engraving changed to "Ontario."  The original small diameter Roc was a "San Marino" disc, but it was dropped from the line-up when the San Marino Roc appeared.  It came back as the Classic Roc in the early 90's, but the original mold was gone.  The re-created mold had "Ontario" engraving.  The Aero also was dropped from the line-up for several years.  When it came back, it had  a re-created mold with "Rancho Cucamonga" engraving.  All Aviars had "San Marino" engraving for years, but I noticed that the new beadless putter does not have a location, just a website.

Nobody really seems to care about these changes, but we talk for hours and hours about San Marino, Ontario and Rancho Rocs.

[stpitner]

very cool information.  It's amazing how much disc golf has changed as far as plastics, available molds, stuff like that.  I guess it shouldn't surprise me since Innova has been around since when - only 1983?  I can understand why there are so many changes in 10-12 years (half the lifetime of the company). 

It really makes me wonder what's going to start happening in the years to come.  The drivers can only get so fast, there's already a bunch of plastic lines.  I could see Innova starting to possibly make a line similar to FLX (even though I'm not sure how they feel about that type of thing right now).  I know that they still have more discs to bring out in the different types of plastics (eg. DX Sidewinder coming out later this year, I'm sure more models will come out in Star)...  maybe either stuff like a thumbtrac or grip improvement will start to come out?  There's lot of room for large diameter discs.  I know that there is a movement towards "green" plastic, and while that's great for the environment, I'm curious to see what it does for the game.

[roman]

To draw a parallel, snowboards have been largely unchanged since the current shape/design was developed in the mid-90's. The only thing that manufacturers tweaked was the material they were made from, as well as their flexibility. Nothing really break-through has developed until about a year or two ago, when some manufacturers began making boards with different shaped edges (similar to the turbo-putt by Quest) to help in certain conditions, others made the base of the board convex instead of concave, another move from the norm. All these changes initially produced a different feel, but nobody really liked the change until the manufacturers fine-tuned it over the year or two. Now some are coming out with revised versions of these new technologies that outperform a lot of the boards that are based on the tried and true design that has been around for over a decade.

So to answer your question about what may come in the future when they get the discs flying in every which way, I'm guessing they may move in the same direction as Quest has attempted to do in the past few years. Experiment with different design, different shapes, etc. As long as the old time PDGA players don't cry too much about it because they don't like change.