What pointers, if you are serious about achieving something you dont need pointers. You want to win, you practice and test and race and then you may or may not win. If you practice enough, and practice well enough, you WILL win, guaranteed, specially in a sport like RC where the amount of people who really put in the time is fairly small, and more importantly it's not a case of who has the most money or best equipment, it's a case of who wants it most. The younger you are the easier it is, when you get older, start thinking about life after racing, or already have a family, it is harder to find the time to put in the massive amount of time required to gain that last few % so you can win the big races. Some people disagree, and think that they put in a lot of work, but didn't reach a high enough level. Well the truth is, that is because they didn't practice enough! It's pretty simple really. The thing is, most people know what they want, but few actually bother going about getting it.
JQ, You're 100% correct! By also reading what Jared wrote, kind of what I already knew, about 40 hour practice weeks is just something I'm not as fortunate to be able to do. I do work very hard though to race at the level I do race at, one because I want to compete with the best and win but also because I LOVE to do it. I feel very fortunate to race at the level that I do race at and be provided with the equipment to do so.
I understand the commitment that guys like Ryan, Jared, Cody, JQ and many others make each year to travel, be away from family and friends for periods of a time, the 100 billion hours spent in the garage wrenching and testing. There is a lot of sacrafice involed to make this a profession but like many of you have stated "I would do it too if I had the chance".
I give a lot of respect to the guys who do make a living racing RC cars and hope one day that this is the norm and that RC can support its sport, drivers and fans like SX does.