Personally having raced nitro and electric 1/8 here, albeit nitro knowledge more limited, the concept that if you don't like waiting for 45 min mains you should just race nitro seems to be a self defeating point as if everyone is running nitro, considering how you need pitmen to race it along with marshalls, you really need a pair of guys, possible 3 people who agree to:

- Not run the same classes
- Pit for each other
- Not run if they get stacked to marshall behind the drivers class

Its more effort to have a race go off, and for the discussion about engines being easy to tune, sorry I have seen guys with TONs of experience still doing the nitro windsprints when they flame out, or a clutch goes, or some other nitro specific part dies. Plus the fact you are still using batteries to power stuff I think is kind of funny personally with all the jokes about "flashlights" and all. no batteries in your starter box or for your servos, you aint' going no-where.

All that said, to me personally what nitro needs to stay relevant other than diehards would be:

- Engines that start up and / or keep running without a pitman and finnicky tunes for max power
- Running either less time (mains shortened so you don't need pit stops) or engines that sip less fuel

one thing I thought was cool at 1/5 scale when I had a couple of them was it seemed that you started and went, didn't have any funky tuning work to do, and they seemed to run a LONG TIME.

Lastly, I agree about the long marshalling for electric guys for nitro events. Let electric guys marshall electric, nitro guys marshall nitro. Simple as that. you enter with a nitro car, guess what, plan to be out there for 15 - 45 mins or so. You race electric, plan for 10 min.

Regarding the length of EBuggy races, surely we’re at a the stage where we can run reliably for 15 or even 20 minutes with appropriate gearing and a “less enthusiastic” trigger finger?

There’s also the possibility of a manufacturer developing a quick change battery system if we want to go down the pit stop route (I don’t).

12min mains are definitely doable. I don't know why we race only 8mins

When I first started the 1/8 E buggy thing here, it was "common" for guys to have Neu motors, 6000mah 20C maxamps lipos, and a castle creation mamba max esc modified with the case drilled and the BEC bypassed. There were guys on those kind of setups for their tracks pushing 20 minute mains. The biggest thing was how aggressive you were on the throttle and how conservative you drove. Consider seeing how some people are driving these things nowadays, makes you wonder if there would be some benefit to that.

Some of the biggest complaints about nitro is having to have a pit guy. Read it here in this thread a bunch. But I’ve then seen this route brought up here of having a pit stop/battery change. 🤔 (not saying this at you specifically Smokey) you’d have to have a pit guy if we go route of battery changes. Is that something we want in ebuggy or not?

Nope, its a bad idea. having someone fiddling with changing a battery as past as he can especially with the 5mm plug setups we are seeing these days, is just asking for someone to smoke a battery, esc, or worse.

Keep the hassles like that to nitro.

First off, some of the comments over these last few pages are EXACTLY the reason why this hobby hasn’t grown - this is coming from someone who started in the late 80’s, raced off and on during the 90’s, and had to flat out quit after 2001 (and yeah, the talk of the hobby “dying” goes that far back). I started coming back to the hobby in late 2019 - NOT exactly the right time to come back, but that’s another story.

And part of that “other story” is that in reality, the only “growth” this hobby has seen is people that left the hobby, got bored during the pandemic, and started buying RC cars again. That’s not growth - that’s just regaining some of what was lost.

The real future of E-Buggy - or ANY other class has to start with community-building. Racers need to be welcoming and foster an environment to learn, get better, and just have a good time. Sure, it involves competition, but even at the highest levels of professional motorsports, while the drivers are the fiercest rivals on the track, more often than not, a lot of those guys consider their peers good friends - even “family” in times of need. Just let that sink in for a little bit before your next visit to the track.

Way too much attitude in this hobby anymore. Folks tend to take it way to seriously and who cares what is what! I like and enjoy nitro and electric. If folks are gonna argue between the two as to which is best then maybe they need to consider stamp or coin collecting rather then be hateful and miserable. No matter how you look at it it's a toy car. I've seen so much bs over the years at tracks from all classes and it just gets worse. The idea with a hobby is to have fun, enjoy yourself and tinker, but that's not good enough for a lot of folks. Attitude, smh.

I agree with you but I think it goes well beyond our little hobby. The "Karen" phase we all seem to be in as a society. I feel its the worst its ever been, and I agree with the guy above you too, I remember these talks in the late 90's every time participation started dropping off. Albeit wasn't all over the internet due to the fact we basically had AOL chat rooms at the time.

But I think the culture is way more toxic than its ever been, I've haven't seen anywhere else that a person in their 30-40's needs to scream at an 11 year about not flipping his toy car over correctly. Meanwhile their wives are berating an 18 year old server for not putting enough ice in their coke. Maybe we as a society need to truly look at ourselves, or we need to punched in the mouth and humbled a bit, I don't know I'm not a doctor? lol
Is the rest of the world as bad as Americans, on and off the race track?

Dunno about all of that.
but...
EFI is over a decade away.
Belt based brushless starter motors with glow plug timer is already available.

I think you are into something. It's a lack of childish rough-housing.

That being said their will always be friendly rivalry. Nitro v lipo v gasoline... I know this %100 first hand. I drive a jeep. Prefer a .45 and I'm a Kyosho guy.😁

Literally this weekend a guy pushing 50 was arguing with a 13 year old for jumping the track. even went to the race director to try and take the kids win away and had to have a drivers meeting over it. 3 marshals said he didn't jump the track. then even after that when they were doing awards he wanted to pull the kid aside and argue more but his parents put a stop to that. the kids mom made a good point in saying grown men arguing with kids is why there are no kids in the hobby. Electric, nitro, 8th scale, 10th scale it doesn't matter when you have 50 year olds arguing with and trying to take wins away from 13 year olds the future of it all looks bleak. I hope I never care about toy car racing so much that I want to argue with a kid over rather or not he drove over some drain pipe gaining .3 of a second.

I love to race. Love the 8th scales, hate the scene. However, ya have to wonder... what if we came into it wanting to do the best we possibly can, but at the same time taking some enjoyment out of trolling those jerks giving little kids crap? I've often imagined myself nailing dickheads like this in one of the turns, ruining their race in the name of sweet revenge. I suppose this is what starts fights at the track though 😂

Nope. It is not. We need to be running 15 minute double mains.

I'd be fine (t least our here as 20 minutes I think is common) 10 minute double mains.