Is there a future?

[Dufty07]

Hi I am a beginer, I started about 5 months ago, I brought a Kyosho Lazer(the best buggy around) off my brother in law, who then took me along to his local 1/10th off road club,(N.B.C). I was a bit worried about going as I was a complete novice and thought only pros raced, I had never even driven around a track before, and the idea of trying to stay within the lines scared me to death, but I needent have woried as I had a great time, and the people there were very friendly, and even did'nt mind me crashing everywhere and I do mean EVERYWHERE. But that was 5 months ago, and I think I've only had one sunday away from raceing, I've been to stotfold for the winter series(2 rounds), eastrax winter series(5 rounds), and Norfolk Buggy Club ( the best in Norfolk) is my local now(full member). I am doing the regonals this year, and I hope im still doing this in years to come, nothing but good things to say about every where I've been, and the people I've met...Agreat bunch of people who are as mad as me..........Catch you all track side......

[VintageRacer]

I started racing in the 80's and remember there seemed to be more youngsters racing than there seems to be now.

The local club came to do a demo race meet at my school fete, some of my mates had cars and were racing there which got me interested in the whole thing. The same club also took a meet to the local town carnival to raise interest.

Just a couple of ideas.

[Nick Goodall]

My parents bought me a Tamiya Madcap for Christmas when i was 11 (1993) and some lads around the corner from me had Nikko Super Sprints and told me they raced up at a local school so i went up with them and had my a$$ handed to me on a plate so my Dad came up next week and quickly realised there was a lot more to this hobby in terms of tuning, electrics etc and since he used to race and mechanic at Motocross he quickly got into it and bought me an old Optima Mid custom special and some second hand electrics through a guy he worked with - We were soon racing outdoors and every wednesday night at the school....

I think the main thing that helped me and this goes for a lot of racers that are still competing is that they had a parent there to help fund the hobby and take them all over the country to go racing, without that i'd have quickly got bored and had to move on to something else so i consider myself lucky my Dad was so keen and prepared to shell out the money needed!!! If you look at the likes of Craggy, Bradders, Pidge, Mossy, Danny Mcgee, Ellis, Kevin, Craig, all those guys started with their Dad's coming along which really helps out....

It sounds harsh but these days i think it's harder for parents to commit the time and money required due to having to work so hard these days just to pay a mortgage, keep a car (or 2) going, pay all the bills etc so in a lot of cases they just don't have the time, money or motivation to get up and take their kid(s) racing all day which i think has a lot to do with the decline in numbers of new kids starting....

Obviously this isn't the case with everyone, but when you look back at the Juniour champs from the 90's the class of racing was almost national standard, and a huge amount of competition where you genuinely couldn't always guarantee who'd win - these days there's like 3 or 4 heats at the juniours and it has to be twinned with the F2's, Veterans champs which is a real shame.

The Juniours used to be a big national meeting, with at least 11 heats and to give you an idea, one year (1995 i think) at Donnisthorpe some of the names competing are as follows (for anyone that doesn't know them all, they would have all made top 20 or so at Nationals (if not winning A finals):

Neil Cragg
Paul Bradby
Matt Moore
Kris Heath
Richard Taylor
Chris Doughty
Si Willets
Graham Alsop
James (Jim) Thomas
Jon Leonard
Rich Meredith
Danny Mcgee
Lee Martin
Tom Yardy
Luke Saunders
Darren Bloomfield
Simon Moss
Richard Sharp

That's just a few i can remember off the top of my head but when you think about it most of these guys are still racing and doing well, and when you look at the lack of numbers now something has to change!!

[MK999]

One of the main problems with bringing people in is it's just not that well known as a sport/hobby, before I joined my schools formula schools team (little brother to the more well known formula student) I didn't even know performance RC's existed, I'd grown bored of the standard nikko type stuff that comes out of argos a few years before so as soon as I'd finished with formula schools I looked into racing myself, that was about 3 years ago I guess, had a 2 year break after racing a couple times in 8th offroad, and came back about 10 months ago to 10th electric

I do often get asked about racing if it comes up, and people outside of racing are sometimes genuinely shocked that theres a 1/10th scale worlds !

Also agree with what Nick said, my dad doesn't have an interest in it at all (he had to ask if my car was 2 or 4 wheel drive when it had the shell off ) so if I wasn't working when I came back and had savings when I started out I wouldn't have got anywhere really. Luckily my dad is supportive enough of my racing to get up at 1/2 7 on a sunday, although there is a bit of complaining But for someone without even that much support they'd be totally stuck.