Is there a future?

[wacattack]

Question I have is this....

I used to race in the mid 90's and decided to make a return nearly 2 years ago.

In that time, most of the faces I see are those that were around when I last raced (admittadly a few years older), or a few that have progressed through the ranks inbetween.

My concern is there doestnt seem to be many new drivers coming through the ranks. The numbers commiting to the junior finals reiterates this point.

Is there anything we can do to encourage the sport, or is it something that will potentially die out over time? I really hope the latter is not the case but is there anything people involved in the hobby can do to maintain the future success?

[telboy]

Advertise at schools more?

Just like flyers pinned up on their notice boards or something. Advertising the fact that racing takes place, especially if the clubs use that school to race.

[glypo]

For RC as a whole - yes there is a future. Rallycross is where it is at and nearly all the good drivers are young. 1/10th scale died right down between the mid 90's until recently. So you basically missed the decline but no doubt noticed it on return?

Anyway tenth scale seems to be getting more popular again and hopefully we will see lots of new drivers coming into tenth as well.

[racingdwarf]

In norfolk we ran an 1/8th club for ten years holding three nationals etc etc, but it was very hard to get raw beginers into rallyx as the cars just don't like pottering round with a lerner also they soon found that rallyx cars were very unforgiving on any cheep components servos,radio etc they found setting engines up some sort of dark voodo and then there were clutches,and shimming the diffs right and if they made a mistake like forgetting tiewraping their airfilter pipe to the engine and it came of mid race there face would fall a bit when you told them the engine was for the bin!! but it's ok cos the shop has some good cheep ones at £120+
Also running an 8th club can be a nightmare as getting a peice of land were nobody is going to complain about the noise can be hard work, and then the track maintanance is never ending as the cars are very hard on the track (unless you got astro££££)

As a result of all this the club had very few beginers, Kids would come look, there dad would take a look at the cars find out how much one was look at the amount of gear needed............then head for the gate!! most kids in rallyx have fathers who were well into it before hand (Elliot is a great eg)

Last year the club came to an end and I now run a tenth club on the site, it's not been easy but we now have a lot of new faces including 4 kids. The thing about 10th is you can set them off with say a B4 rtr and they can plug and play, they can get the car, a charger and some batterys for sub £200 and have a good days racing.Also when they are on the track marsheling the is far less chance of getting hurt.We do a display at the local school fate and this year were are doing a few more fates localy. Flyers in schools, local papers, posters in any shop thats sells cars. Two of our keenest new members found out about the club at there local swimming club

Is there a future? yes very much so.

[Lee]

I think brushless and lipo will help things too.

The playstation generation like plug and play. God im getting old

[andy05]

When i first started at southport they used to run mardave meteor heats they used to get 2 heat fulls every week as well. it was good because everyone had very simillar gear, the new drivers actually had a chance to win races with out having to compete against modified motors etc.Maybe something simillar could be done with ready to run b4s

[Chrislong]

How did everyone reading this start racing?

Personally, I was bought an RC car when I was probably 5, and I used to be able to drive it and walk behind it, then my uncle gave me his 10th scale pan car which was fast - but to use it we had to go to the smoothest car parks at night - when empty. Then at 9yrs old I was bought a Monster truck which I raced a friend around the street with. So when my friend went to Bury Model shop one day he was told about the club, which he came back and told me about and we turned up there the next weekend - that was the start of my weekly racing and my mate never came back.

I think that now (certainly NW region), there are less shops actively involved with the clubs. For example we had Bury Modelshop > Bury Buggy club, Micks Models > Chorley Buggy Club, Rochdale models > Roche Valley Buggy Club, Formby Models > Southport Buggy Club, A shop in Oldhame (forgot name) > Oldham Buggy club.

Out of this list, only Formby Models is still open and now they have less involvement with the club.

The other idea is local news paper coverage. I know Teesside have had this - did it help?

The other thing is that there are so many of us who have raced for ages and ages, that when a beginner comes the difference in skill level is massive and that can be offputting. This is why everyone in this forum needs to be friendly and supportive to beginners and especially first timers... im sure we all are..

The class we race is growing, but I think thats because there people moving over from TC. Perhaps now the beginners are choosing TC as in introduction? I don't know.