Too Many, Too Few

Added 13-11-99

 

Its all well and good giving the customer what he wants, but in R/C racing this has resulted in a proliferation of weak classes. Is such continuous expansion really good for the sport?

Too many classes with too few racers. Is this the state of radio controlled car racing in the late 1990's? If the metric for measuring the growth of our sport is the number of classes we support, then we're enjoying a boom period. The past decade alone has brought us off-road Trucks, Pro-10, saloon stox, 1:10 I.C. Circuit, Formula One, Touring Cars and Large Scale. Now rally cars and GT racers look set to join the big time too.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with expansion, as long as there is sufficient demand for all the products. If not, drivers will simply move from one class to another and as one section grows, another will shrink. Once a decline has started, it can prove a very different trend indeed to reverse. Sadly, that scenario matches the one we have witnessed. The steady influx of beginners needed to support genuine growth hasn't materialized and instead a game of musical chairs has ensued, with the same group of drivers moving from class to class. Where one wonders, will they all end up?

You might question why new classes always seem to be so popular? What makes a driver want to race a new type of car? Is it because the fun factor appears greater, the technology seems more interesting, the cost is lower, the cars look nicer or simply because the prizes are better?

The manufacturers, of course, aren't going to stop releasing new types of car. They need new ways to stimulate sales and bringing out a new range is often just the ticket. Developing cars for well established classes often requires years of painstaking R&D. By this stage, the competition element has usually become predominant and if you want to sell a product in this arena, you need to prove it's a winner. Pick a new class and it doesn't matter if the handling is a bit suspect, or the design a tad simple. If it looks good and promises plenty of fun, people will want to have a go and those sales will soon be yours.

Drivers like to be winners too. If you're racing against Mark Green or David Spashett every weekend, finishing second soon becomes the best you can hope for. Race in a different class and a first place trophy can become your property too. It's not always a trophy on offer these days either. Compete in a manufacturer promoted class like the Tamiya Eurocup or the Kyosho World Cup and a trip to Japan or Hawaii might be your prize. Now that really is something to impress your friends.

The enthusiasm with which radio-control racers greet new classes might be evident, but equally they appear to be an unequivocally sentimental lot too. Drivers might move from one class to another, but rarely do all of their fellow competitors jump ship too. A hard-core often remains, clinging on to the remnants of their once popular section. In the twenty five years since the BRCA was formed, how many classes can you think of that have actually vanished from our circuits because of dwindling numbers? Difficult, isn't it? Now think of the circuits and clubs that have vanished because not enough drivers raced there. Well, that one's a little easier to recollect.

It takes conviction to make bold decisions, but surely such courage is needed if our sport is to thrive in the next millennium. Can-Am, Formula Two, Group C, the DTM/ITC; they all had their moment of glory. But when numbers dropped, the classes were axed without a second thought. Sure enough, new formulas soon emerged, but when Super Touring, GT and Formula 3000 grew, they replaced the old order and didn't add to it. If full size motor sport can do that, why can't we?

 

 

 

Spread The Word

Added 13-11-99

 

Since you’re reading this article R/C model cars must rank pretty high in your personal list of popular pastimes, but how can we get more people involved?

Finding the magic formula that moves a sport from a minority interest into a runaway success must be a marketing man’s ultimate dream. Occasionally that magic happens though, with businesses booming as more and more participants join in the fun and a new sporting culture emerges. Model car racing has enjoyed it’s boom times too, but attracting newcomers to the sport has never been easy and at times it has been downright difficult. As we move towards the new millennium, what steps should we be taking to tempt more newcomers into joining our world of excitement? In a recent survey, three well known British characters were asked for their personal views.

George Land (Helger Racing): "At a show like the International Model Show, the public relate to the action they see on the track and go to one of the trade stands to find out more. At that stage, they’ve got a lot of enthusiasm. Our problem is to then convert that enthusiasm into wanting to go along to a club. To do this, we need more club involvement at the big shows, providing information for the public, and we need more shops to get involved with promotional work too. When I first started racing, which was nearly 20 years ago, we used to do a lot of promotional work at schools. At a school fete, for example, we’d hold a race in the school playground and the local model shop would be there too. When you bring a youngster into the sport, you usually bring his father in as well and that helps to make the sport stronger. I think we need to take top drivers like David Spashett, Craig Drescher and Ellis Stafford, put them in the school environment and show the kids that there is something constructive out there for them to do. Racing is something they can do in a community atmosphere. It doesn’t involve drugs or beating people up and is a very socially acceptable activity."

Jason Varley (CML): "I think we need to make the most of opportunities like the International Model Show. You can’t expect someone who’s never driven an R/C car to be able to drive round a proper track, so what you need is a little oval off to one side with cars that are really geared down to make them super slow. Then you can let people have a go. It’s like a test drive without any commitment and if someone likes it, they’ll want to find out more. Even racing R/C cars cheaply, it’s going to cost around £200 to get started. That’s a lot of money to spend if you don’t know if you’re even going to enjoy it. At least kids know what they’re getting when they buy a Sony PlayStation."

Chris Hardisty (BRCA Chairman): "There’s a paradox here. The one thing that gets people interested in our sport is the ready availability of cheap radio sets, car kits, cells at £20 a pack, etc. But the nature of our sport is competition and when people go along to a race meeting with this type of gear, they are not able to compete. We need to keep on exposing our sport to the public. We’re only going to pick up a percentage of the people who watch and we want to attract people who can associate with what we do and realise that this is all about competition. We don’t want to cajole people into having a go who then leave the sport, the ‘weekenders’ who try it out and then move onto something else. We need people who want to race R/C cars and are prepared to have a serious go at it."

Of course, we can all play our part to help our sport grow. "Expose it, promote it and enjoy it" is the message to remember. By working together, welcoming more people to our world can become a reality.

Public or Purpose Built Track

 

ADDED 30/07/99

Not all areas of the country have the blessing of being in the neighborhood of a purpose built race track, with nice sweeping turns and the permanent type of equipment installation that makes the task of running model cars races relatively easy.

So, if you don’t have a piece of land and are not willing to spend alot of money, here are two alternatives you may wish to consider in order to have the private or public benevolence set you up.

Is there a go-kart track in the area? These tracks, in many instances can be easily adapted to race RC cars. Usually they already have some type of permanent fence (sturdier than our requirements) and the owners can usually be talked into leasing their facility for model car races (say 50% of the entry fees) . It may be necessary to pave a small portion of the track in order to close the oval, but here, we are not talking about tons of money.

The best way to get funds together is to incorporate a club as a non-profit organisation. Put the guys together and see if they volunteer the minimum amount required to start-up. If you have 10 racers volunteering £100 each, you already have the 1 grand you need for initial track preparation. All you need is 10 hand clickers in order to count laps, a decent hot pit area, a PA system (a Megaphone does it too) and drivers' stand. As the entry fees start accumulating, you may think about buying - the AMB scoring system (a must to get to the next level, national races) . Keep an open mind: if you have 1/10 scalers in your area, make some races from them. They will look at the track as a super speedway and their money smells really good.

Be ready for a lot of hard work. Make sure that you understand that there is no money in this business. The entry fees the club collects will all go for equipment purchase, maintenance and track improvement.

The best example of this type of approach is the Tri-State Club in Rhode Island (USA). Their club has been around for a long time and they run on leased premises (a go kart track). With the track owner's permission, they shortened the track enough to make it acceptable in view of the fact that the track lanes were relatively narrow (though above minimum), built a beautiful scoring and drivers' stand, and operate today one of the neatest D-shaped tracks I've ever seen.

The second alternative leads you directly to your town or village. Most of them have the so-called Parks and Recreation Department, a team which is in charge of spending taxpayer' s money in stuff they know nothing about. Timing is of the essence, because these guys get moneys allocated which they have to spend within the financial year, amounts which, if not used, cannot be rolled over to the next year. A good way to approach these users of public funds is to make them understand that our hobby is a great educational instrument. kids learn a lot of stuff they will one day learn at school (you know, physics, math etc.) it helps to develop the healthiest of competitive spirit (whoops), gives kids and young adults something to shoot for during their free time. keeping them way from drugs and bars. It is 100% family oriented (at least as long as no one gets a black flag, but you don't need to go into these details . . . .), etc. Make them also understand that you can organise races with the purpose of raising funds for good purposes (Cancer, Red Cross, whatever is up in your area). Another important issue is to open their appetite with the prospect of organising, some day, a major event which will bring 70 racers from all over the country to the Town, i.e. with wives and kids over 200 persons who will sleep and eat in the town or Village for a period of 3 or more days.

If your first couple of meetings turn out ok, the next step is to find the appropriate location. In our case we shared with the Town the costs of applying 2" of fine blacktop on the surface of two existing hockey rinks. The rest came by itself: We installed the permanent chain link fence, the council installed the lights, we installed the crash boards and pit lanes, and the council gave us a shed. This year we installed permanent rubble strips in the turns (4" x 2' conveyor belt rests. glued to the asphalt with pure silicon) and, 17 years later, we started-talking the council into re-paving, enlarging and banking our track. It may take one or two years, but we will get there.

Things are not always this simple and it certainly helps to have a club president that doesn't' t mind to lend the club moneys without hoping for the always welcome return payment. But if you know what you want. if you are determined to get it and you have the support of a bunch of guys, sooner or later you'll get your track. Just don’t give up, these guys need your vote.

How nice can a public track be? As nice as a purpose built commercial track. 

With bi-monthly clean-up parties, and the pride of maintaining our facility in top-notch condition. we earned the reputation of being the nicest guys in town, in terms of maintaining public facilities and of doing something for the town....

A final note : never take full prices : most of the local builders and contractors need your jobs for tax purposes and are willing to do the work for a small nominal fee. Look at it as if it was your own home and you'll be surprised how much Can be achieved with relatively small sums of money.