Ten years ago kids were addicted to XBox, PSP. The current Gen are too lazy to play those games, so they follow another kid on Instagram or Youtube and watch him play.

My brain is not wired to understand what the next generation be into..

All I can say is I'm doing my best to keep my 3 year old son into playing with real toys. He loves his matchbox cars. On weekends I hand him an m chassis with throttle limited and he does a decent job of driving it around our cul de sac. He sits next to me when I'm working on my cars. I hope to be able to maintain this.

I have worked with Hadley J.H. RC Club since 1988. Our numbers have gotten smaller because of video games, more sports activities, and fewer parents involved. RC car racing also requires hands on repairs. You can't push the reset button on broken RC car. We are still going and having fun.

video games ...

I am looking at the silvia body, there are two. One is for long wheelbase, the other for short. I don't like the way the long wheelbase Silvia body looks, its a different design than the short wheelbase version. ...hmm, ...maybe mid wheelbase won't be so bad? -there are plenty more bodies in that range.

do ppl still use weight in the front bumber if so how much?

I do, as my car was under weight, so I put the extra in the front bumper to get more weight over the wheels.

I have about 25grams of weight in the bumper. (I soldered some large steel nuts and washer in place to make a solid chunk of steel and solder).

I use the 3racing bumper mount with a Sakura foam bumper to add weight to the front and provide protection.

so considering how there are only 2 bodies available (not counting the 1st generation rx7 as its hard to find), and I hate both bodies...
...how does the mid wheelbase handle compared to the longwheelbase? -thinking maybe getting the CRX body for the 2017 season. I hated the shortwheelbase as it was too twitchy for me ...but maybe mid will be okay?

Mid is ok

Yeah, they blamed video games when Pong came out in 1972 and again when the Atari 2600 was released in 1977. We could play that garbage for days. The biggest difference I've seen is the saturation of the market by current devices/media and parents being unwilling to chase their kids asses out of the house to play. I suppose the fact that portability is now a factor also contributes. You can now take the brain musher with you!

Funny how history tends to repeat itself. I saw this quote about social media that was taken from the writings of Martin Luther 500 years ago, regarding the proliferation of books, due to the invention of the printing press.

"The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no measure or limit to this fever of writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of lucre and gain."

And here we are again.

Good points Monkeyracing-
I've tried w/my kids, and they don't seem to be hooked like I was ...not sure what the reason? My wife and I take our kids out all the time, -skate park, sports practice, and other outdoor activities. They are mildly interested in RC cars.

Finally managed to run my mini with the upgrades. I took it out to my local track for some solo practice 2 weeks ago, and it felt much better with the new dampers. Previously I've had to dial out throttle just to get around the track, but this time I was able to push it. I'm not sold on the CVDs, both of them worked their grub screw loose and the pin partially let go, even though I had used threadlock. Luckily there was no damage and it didn't seem to affect track performance.

I also ran it last weekend at a trophy race, and it felt very good there too once I gooped and heated the rear tires only. I've normally been in dead last by at least a lap since I wasn't able to push the car with the friction dampers, but at this race (which had the out-of-retirement rc-mini.net crew) I managed to qualify 10th out of 13 (woo! A main) and finished 8th overall. I had a blast. CVDs seemed to hold up better too.

But... not all is good. The track I've normally been racing my mini at is closing down and the club is merging with another. Their new venue is over an hour away, and the new race schedule clashes with my local track which doesn't run mini

And...you did some awesome launches into the netting fence at the end of the back straight too...

Just got back from an out of town club race with my mini. I must say, light weight spool with regulable double jointed cvd's made a noticeable difference for me.

Both parts are available through 3 racing, which may not help those of you who are TCS bound.

I think one was from clipping the dot, and a couple were from traction rolls. After that I started hitting the anchors right before the turn... and got rear ended