On Road Racing Dying?
 

Is electric touring car racing fading away?

yes and no....

the hobby in general is slowing down as there are many other distractions to playing with toy cars. One is a money crunch. Even Wal*Mart is already tuning Christmas Toys for the $10~20 range vs. the $100~400 range as it has been the last few years.

In some areas on-road is king with new cost cutting racing like VTA. VTA is a great concept but just plain racing can be cheap too without going to Spec rules. Clubs could impose quantity limit 1 Motor / 1 Battery rule and 1 set of rubber tires for a race night. This would still let racers keep brand loyalty, but also let the budget racers compete wheel to wheel in respect to equipment. No more hot-shots burning things up just to find a 0.1 of a second on a lap.

I predict that if LiPO's can remain cheap and safe and brushless gets cheaper Electric will have a future.

What is VTA racing?

Vintage Trans Am, It is a spec class so you have to run a spec motor, tires, rims, and body, but whatver chassis you want.

Vintage TA / RCGT = CPR For On-road Racing...:D ...Check the racing forums. Onroad racing business is about to pick up ;)

What's really weird is, while On-Road TOURING is dying in many areas, there are still a lot of areas that have never really been exposed to R/C Racing , and these could be potential NEW markets never tapped.

How do you get RC'ing into those areas?

The VTA class is great, however it will NOT be for everyone...

There are a lot of guys who will be disappointed by the slower speeds of these spec cars who still want to be able to race.

Myself, I kinda suck at On-Road racing even though I enjoy it on occasion...and the VTA speeds suit me to a "T"

It really depends on where you live. In some parts of the country, they
only race off-road and in our neck of the woods, we just race Electric Touring Cars 10.5 Brushless class every week. So I don't think it's
fading! The economy is, but not electric touring car racing! :)

We started with a TC class, a mini class, and 1/12th. TC and Mini had motor and gearing restrictions that do well to keep the equipment pretty well balanced. Mini is still that way, TC got bumped up to a ROAR stock and we brought in the Vintage Trans Am class. One thing I feel is key to the success of these classes is not to over regulate them. Limiting the motor, gear ratio, batteries, and a few choices of tire is more then sufficient. Limiting to spec chassis and what can be done to the chassis is part of what kills spec classes. In my F1 series, which ran for around 15 years, we only limited motor and battery. Competition was great and took much longer for people to get bored with the class because they were allowed to tinker and add hop ups.

A lot depends on the area...out here on-road is doing well and off-road is suffering.

Here it seems like off road is going down but a new onroad carpet track just opened near me so hopefully onroad is getting bigger. Two local off road tracks aren't even getting enough of a turnout to race.

Right on the head, SPEC just kills the excitement after about 6 weeks. Racers like buying new things and trying new parts. Just that most racers don't want to be buying new parts every other weekend. Some racers are excited every time thier brand comes out with a new motor or battery and that is what keeps them in the race. Spec puts the focus on racing and tuning and not every racer is comfortable knowing they lost the race due to driving or pit skills. With a little freedom in selection, racers stay content.
That is why I brought up quantity limits rather than SPECIFIED motor/battery/tire/chassis/ or even body as a cost control

Additionally if you do spec anything you have to make sure it will work for everyone and doesn't wear out too fast. 2 good examples on this are tires and motor...I greatly dislike a spec tire because tires different drivers sometimes do better using different tires and the same goes for chassis as well. Some drivers/chassis just can use certain tires better then others and it is no fun for those drivers who can not get their car to handle with their chassis no matter what they do. As for motors you have to keep a close eye on what is happening in the class and outside of your racing circle and be ready to change the spec or rule if the need requires it. Our TC class was originally a Mabuchi can class allowing either the silver can motor or the Sport Tuned motor. In the past this worked out great with my F1 class as the motors were pretty much bullet proof and lasted a long time, even in the F201 chassis. Fast foward to our new TC class and the heat of where we race combined with the stresses of a TC drive train and we were having motors burn out every race and the LHS's were having a hard time getting them. We had to do something...so with TA available we did some testing to make sure the silver can with a specific gearing rule and sport pack batteries was not going to have motors burning out all the time. Testing went very well so we were able to have TA be our entry level class and bump up the TC class to a more open rules set.

I quoted this post because I think it makes some simple yet accurate points that I feel people should keep in mind when looking at the health of On-Road Racing and RC Racing in general.

I live in the middle of redneck paradise (Jonesboro AR) yet I have managed to get a very healthy On-Road Racing Scene up and running. All while Off-Road Racing is suffering big time. There are two separate Off-Road tracks less than a hour drive from here and since RC Racing got going decades ago Off-Road ruled. However, over the last year or so the Off-Road scene has been in sharp decline. Most of the time there are not enough people showing up at the local Off-Road tracks to hold a race. Two or three years ago most people in this area laughed at the thought On-Road racing, and now we get anywhere from 30-40 or even 50 cars ripping up the asphalt. I guess we are an example the untapped market (that just got tapped).

I also feel that pushing a spec class of some sort is key to getting a healthy racing scene going. Here I push the Tamiya TT-01 to potential new racers and the class is going strong. I really dont think it matters what "spec" class is chosen as long as it has the following traits. It should be cheap, simple, fair, and properly promoted.

When people ask me about the health of On-Road Racing I cant help but believe that it is about to make a come back. Does this mean I think it will be bigger than Off-Road Racing? No, not really. However, I do think that with all that is changing in our lives that there is surely room for On-Road Racing to get back on "track".

Consider the following points:

With the rising cost of land its likely going to be harder to justify keeping space dedicated to and Off-Road track for RC Cars. Parking Lot Tracks are generally free.

All segments of this hobby tend to go up and down in cycles. Off-Road racing has been riding high for quite some time and is likely to sway any time now. This is especially likely given how intensely competitive and expensive it has become recently.

For Hobby Shop owners and Race Promoters alike, On-Road racing holds advantages of a profitable nature that are very hard for Off-Road Races to offer. Many cities simply would not allow an Off-Road RC Track and the many things that tend to follow exist within city limits due to code compliance issue and bill of assurance BS. Yet with On-Road, well, parkinglots are everywhere already! How does this give On Road the "Profitable Advantage"? That's simple, Exposure! As has been proven time and time again, holding races in the middle of nowhere does very little to grow the sport.

God we can hope. :sneaky:

Hell No! :D:cool:

It is nice to see all of the strong points given for on road racing in general.
I have been in the r/c hobby for 30 years now and have seen the highs and lows. I agree that the parking lot racing is where we are going to see the biggest push for the on road portion of our hobby. There are alot of kits out there that are durable enough for parking lot racing. Hopefully they can get more exposure in the magazines to promote more outdoor racing.