buster8787

not a sport, its a hobby. Big difference

Get back to the question, is this hobby dying? No, not at all, it's finding it's level after a lot of growth.

Megatron1

SORRY i just did.

bmx_ican92

iTrader: (2)

I have worked in a hobby shop for 7 years now and i don't think that the hobby is dying, i think the hobby is just misrepresented. Companies like traxxas have really marketed and promoted the bashing style of driving. My average new to r/c customer has absolutely zero interest in assembling kits or any sort of maintenance. They want to pull it out of the box go 65mph and jump the car off huge jumps. Long gone are the guys who want to tinker and paint bodies and enjoy the non driving parts of the hobby.

Is this a change in the public's interest? I dont think so. I think the main problem is companies like traxxas who have the money to make r/c mainstream have no interest in presenting the hobbyist side of the hobby. They air commercials on tv of pure bashing and crazy stunts, not a slash tearing up at a clay track. I think that if our more race dedicated companies could start having booths at motorsports events or commercials on tv we would have a much bigger resurgence in racing and interest in the actual hobby.

We need to show people that these are awesome scale race cars, not really fast toys.

tc5 man

I agree don't understand why the racing manf do not promote like that.

Billy Kelly

iTrader: (9)

Traxxas knows it's market. It could show a Slash running on a track. But since most don't have a "local track". So it shows where it will be driven.
Nothing stopping other brands from having commercials. Or teaming up to show an RC racing comercial.
It's suprised me that other brands didn't follow the Traxxas lead and have demos running at real racing events. Wouldn't take much to setup a road course at SCCA event. Or at and Indy or NASCAR event.
Only 10 percent of actual Jeep vehicles every go off-road. More then a grass field or a gravel lot. And how many Corvette owners will ever do laps on a track. Around 10 percent.
And around 10 percent of the hobby is involved in organized RC.

Zerodefect

If your track is worth racing at, racers will make any excuse to be there.

If your track is dumpy, then racers will use every excuse to convince themselves to not go there. Clean the track, build a real drivers stand. Keep it professional looking and run fair, clean races.

If I was anywhere near the Yatabe arena or Hudy arena, you can bet i'm going to make a point to get there.

It also doesn't help that races are falling on holidays. Even thanksgiving. Sorry, but that's family time for me, not toy car time.

racer1812

iTrader: (31)

You just listed every example of why the major 'racing' brands don't do what you're asking. There's no return on investment for them. Even if all the "racing" companies COMBINED spent as much as Traxxas does on promotion. They wouldn't get enough people interested in organized racing to justify the cost.

Racing is 10% or less of the market, even the "new people" market. Traxxas designs and markets their products to the 90% that the other companies don't. That's why they make CrAzY money. It's sheer numbers..simple math

tc5 man

Its a shame more people don't get into RC racing scene you meet new people and race competitively but fun at the same time .

Something you don't get just bashing around.

buster8787

Out here we have basically five tracks. An outdoor race track, a basher track with crawler attached, two indoor onroad tracks, and finally an indoor offroad track which is brand new. I sometimes go to the basher track to do some tuning or just to fart around.

People bashing generally don't know that we race these cars. At demonstrations, its all how its presented to them.

Billy Kelly

iTrader: (9)

Absolutely agree. I was responding to another's post about why other brands don't have comercial or demos. They could but also know the market.
And I'm part of that 90 percent that doesn't. Even though there is a track about 30 miles from me. 6 years in, more then 80 vehicles owned. But I've never been to a track. Only seen a racing demo once, when RCX came to Chicago area when first got into hobby.
Now I'm close to trying a TC group that has been running at hobby store I use. Just parking lot running.

buster8787

basically they let traxxas do their advertising for them

Billy Kelly

iTrader: (9)

Well if it ever is actually released. A movie that main character is an RCer. And it's Associated vehicles.

http://www.bigsquidrc.com/feature-fi...sociated-cars/

There is s short promo clip on the Facebook page for it. Has more of a straight to video feel.

racer1812

iTrader: (31)

I can only hope that's a joke

bmx_ican92

iTrader: (2)

Not to be negative but that looks awful

racer1812

iTrader: (31)

Not only that..IMO, it's negative publicity for the hobby. I would compare it to using the movie Kingpin to try and promote Bowling.