John Warner

At our club a few years ago, we had something called a "Mentor" system. That's where one of our "regulars" would take a newbe under his wing for a week or two, and would pit with him and help teach him everything from basic car setup to driving skills and everything inbetween. It worked very well, and made many a friendships. The charge for doing it?...... $0.00! It was all done by good people to help increase the fun for the beginner which in turn brings more racers to the club week after week.

jamescam

iTrader: (10)

I'm sure the club type events previously mentioned are great but they are not the type of event that would entice someone to fly in to town for. I am talking about the type of event that could be broadly advertised and draw rc racers people from around the US. An event of this type of caliber would need big RC racing names and an agenda that would make people want to dig into their pockets for airfare and lodging along with the cost of the event.

These type of camps are available for everything from poker to actual car racing and I think it could easily be adopted for RC racing. In fact there would even be opportunity for companies to sponsor certain seminars. Such as...

Optimizing your Controller Settings sponsored by Airtronics
How to Get Punch out of your Packs sponsored by Fusion Batteries
Mod Motor Management by Team Brood Motors

You get the idea. Of course the agenda would be broad in terms of topics but a solid agenda teamed with daily competition mixed in with advice from the Pros would have consumers digging into their pockets!

PS. If you still have doubt think about how much you would pay for a weeks worth of instruction from Atsushi Hara.

John Warner

Just out of curiosity, what would be in it for somebody like Atsushi Hara to want to do this?

jamescam

iTrader: (10)

I'm sure they would get paid for it. I wouldn't expect them to do it from the kindness of their hearts that is for certain You really couldn't charge $75 or more a day without having a big name.

Let's look at the numbers... How many people do you think would sign up for this type of event and pay $500 for a week if Hara (or someone of that caliber) was hosting it? I would say a manageable number of people would be 50 so lets use that number. 50 x $500 = $25,000. Not sure but I would gather $5,000 would get a quality driver of notable recognition for a week. That leaves the track with $20,000. $7,500 for marketing (full page ad in RC Car Action or XRC and a banner or two on the most popular websites should suffice) and perhaps another $2,500 in actual costs to host event (additional staff, doughnuts in the morning, etc.) that leaves $10,000 left over in profit. That doesn't even take into account if you get sponsorship like I previously mentioned. You could charge manufacturers say $500 to $1000 to sponsor a specific seminar topic where their product would be highlighted. Or even better they could provide the driver in exchange for getting event sponsorship (RC Racing Camp at Raceway X sponsored by HPI).

SPZA

no stress.....think about it, he is teaching others tricks of the trade, and something he loves doing.....

..take for example. Saxton came to Ontario this summer to race in one of out big races sponsored by TTR of Canada to promote TTR.....he was under abosutly no stress to perform and he said that it was one of his funnest races becasue he had fun, and wasnt getting pressured to perform....

...and he cant wait to come back next summer, and he is really looking forward to it....

judge10tpt

the best drivers should be happy to do this sort of thing as if no-one teaches the new breed of racer the sport will die with the lack of competition, just look at F1 at the end of last year, no-one but a ferrari fan wanted to watch because who wants to watch only one driver or team win everything, so to all the best out there give up the knowledge and prepare for some competition