Petem

My wife and I are thinking of starting a new business, a rental car, three track, offroad, road and rally cross raceway, for birthdays, company events, etc!, entry level to intermediate track set ups, using LC Racing 1/14th and 1/10th cars, looking to see if there is other similar tracks out there and would like contact info for how they have done and what type of set ups they have!

ThePanda

iTrader: (68)

Rental places that I have read about mainly seem to use traxxas cars. The price relative to the durability and ease of maintenance is almost unparalleled.

sdunnmcp

Tracks are closing all over the country. I would make sure you can support the investment before jumping in. My guess is that this would be a difficult business adventure.

Steve

Petem

the LC racing cars are tough and reliable, have two SCT trucks and a short course track on the side of my house, over 80 lipo battery packs before we broke anything, a $3.00 A arm, also working with LC Racing on becoming a west coast distributor. so car and parts would be much less than Traxxas brand, plus the cars are smaller, but still fast and handle great

thunderbt3

iTrader: (14)

+1

Fast and great handling won't matter much to drivers with little to no experience driving hobby grade RC's. The first instinct will be to peg the throttle into the wall or launching off jumps.

ASM

iTrader: (30)

A solid business plan will financially answer your question of whether it's a good idea or not. At least you'll have a clear understanding of exactly how many rentals you will need each month to support your plans.

Andy63

I would suggest to have a hobbyshop paralell to the tracks if you want a profitable buisness. This industri is very hard to handle and the demand for rentals is extremely low!

But i love the idea of having 3 different tracks that offer rentals and i would like there to be a shop that have a certain brand were you will get the benefit that locals will drive that brand.
Good luck!

// www.andrefossto.wordpress.com

Zerodefect

Just don't make the tracks small and lame, with short drivers stands. If that means cutting back to just 2 or 1 tracks, so be it. Many of the tracks that are closing, were....., let's face it, boring, small, dirty, ugly, and lame.

90x80 with a 8-10' drivers stand is a great start for indoor carpet onroad.
140x140 with a 15-20' drivers stand is decent for an outdoor off road track.

You might not need the rentals, but 3 or 4 2wd Slashes don't cost enough to make a difference.

I'd also recommend a warehouse based hobby shop as well. Make sure your inventory is online. Getting 20% markup for 5min work per product sold is easy money. (open box, put box on shelf, box sells, pick up box, ship box, easy) I have no idea why more hobby shops haven't gone online.

seth556

iTrader: (43)

A lot have but get overwhelmed with the complexity of it all. There's also a lot of overhead/time required to get a fully functioning website that people will actually want to use. You have a lot of competition, there are some really big, really well run online hobby shops that you'll be competing with. Overall, you've suddenly gone from competing with local stores, to the best hobby shops in your country and some international ones.

That said, online is the current and future for hobby shops. Adapt or die.