Originally Posted by Wolf Hobbies

Team B&B:

There is a reason why I did this instead of opening a hobby shop or track. That is I am just too thin skinned to take a lot of abuse. I figured, great! Here is an oportunity to help out a bunch of people (myself included) and it had good long term prospects as well. Aside from taking a huge pile of cash I could see no downside. What a crock of "dung" that was. Since starting this there have been two prominent dealer types. One never heard of Team Magic and doesn't want to carry another line. The second was the dealer that is mad as hell and yells at me for half an hour for stuff that happend on someone else's watch. Some days are pretty hard to take But then I get emails from customers (retail and wholesale) that go on and on about how happy they are that someone stepped up to the plate to get them the parts they need to get their favorite car going again. I got one that told me he knocked a full lap off his personal best with his E4 and it is the best car he has ever seen. That reminds me of why I'm here. Anyone who thinks that this is a way to make a quick buck has a good view of his own colon. I will not see a real profit until 2009. Thank God we have another company that is doing well!! It is normal to be cautious and I'm not asking anybody for a date with their sister and I'm not planning on moving in next door to you. I am not a threat so please at least give me chance to mess up. Then you can dump on me and I'll take it because I deserve it. To date the only thing I have done is sell a bunch of R/C parts to people that really needed (or at least wanted) them. We are (quietly) doing a lot of things to make this a premier brand and to support the US dealers. For example: One of the bigest complaints from hobby shops in the US is that customers buy cars cheap on the internet and then come into the store for support. To counter that when the E4FS came out we bought the entire production run. You want a car? Great!! The price from us is the same as from your local dealer so go to your dealer. When we sign a new dealer they have to agree that they will not undercut other dealers by putting the car on the internet for less than they have it for on their shelves. We have had sales on our site (two by accident when we messed up the web site and the cars were listed at our cost) but the only cars that we had on sale were models that were not for sale at any other active dealer. As soon as a car goes up on the dealers' shelf our sale ends. You also don't see any of our kits on sale at any of the big "box shops" (discount sites). That is because we have not contacted them. We want this to be as appealing to small hobby shops as possible. There are a lot of ways that we could have made some quick bank but we have our eye on the big prize. I have seen a reference to being like Losi. I just want to remind everyone that before Losi was purchased by Horizon they made themselves into a premier brand with a great product. They had a great product and name recognition. They did that by earning it on their own. My sons and I got our starts with Losi Street Weapons. To be honest (don't take this as a negative about Losi or Horizon) we never bought another losi product since then. There were people crying about how being bought up by a big distribution company changed them. There is no debate. It did. Some say for the better and some say not. I think that the best thing for Team Magic is to rise to the top on their own merits with a single minded advocate. Getting lost in the warehouse with a thousand other brands will make the brand cheaper. But will it make them better?

I can't send you a photo of me smiling today. Smiles are not coming easily today. But if you REALLY want one (be careful what you wish for) I'll send you a photo of me in the booth at the show this weekend with a bunch of cars and I'll even give you smile. As an added bonus I'll send you a photo of my now famous E4 making more laps on the track at the show. As soon as we get back I'm going in for rotator cuff surgery and plan on spending at least three days horizontal in a pain pill induced "stupor" (like usual but more drool) No photos of that. A week or two after that I'll send you a photo of me at the port of Oakland picking up another container load. A few hundred kits, about a hundred F8 bags and a bunch of parts. This is for real. Please let me prove it.