Originally Posted by
wizby
Those are all good reasons and I agree with them. I find it takes more setup knowledge to make an onroad car drive well. So a beginner without alot of help from experienced racers will quickly sell his car and give it up completly or go offfroad. I bet if you asked around most onroaders started off in the dirt and saw the speed and cornering as something they had to try. When the current offroad craze slows down alot of those guys will come over to onroad.
Don't dismiss offroad as not requiring any set-up because it still does need some work to get an offroad car running good. However, the margin for error in offroad is bigger than that of onroad. Offroad is slower and more forgiving which is why it is so attractive to beginners.
Nowadays, you don't see any novice classes in onroad at all especially nitro. Thats because theres an expectation that onroad nitro should be for experienced RC racers. The level of difficulty in assembling the kits is exactly that. When was the last time you saw someone at a nitro onroad race with an RTR? Regardless of that, no RTR motor would have any chance of competing against others with a Nova or JP motor. Plain and simple, that very fact disqualifies any beginner for nitro onroad.
If you want the sport to grow you got to bring in the newbies and they need to have a place to start somewhere.