Originally Posted by jiml

Chuck, I understand why you question my argument. The people I describe are parking lot bashers, or one step up from that. And because you're concentrated on racing, you don't see them.

But my argument comes from personal experience. There once was an on road track here on Long Island called South Shore Hobbies. We raced there on Friday nights and Sundays. Saturdays was a practice day. There was a group of people (I won't call them racers here) that specifically went on Saturdays to avoid the real racers. They just wanted to run with themselves and have a good time. Yes they wanted to get better compared to their friends, but they didn't want to get into serious motor tuning, big dollar batteries and millimeter difference tire truing. They so wanted to stay away from racers that an internet rumor started about a special Saturday race, that ended up being bogus. They heard there was a race so they didn't go that Saturday.

That track was forced to close (business reasons). A few months later a new carpet track opened up, 360 RC Speedway. 360 was started by 2 racers, one of which is a ROAR 1/12 stock national champion. The track was great, with several big screen TV's to follow the action and a great racer focused hobby shop. The group of Saturday racers from the other track decidied to try their luck at the new track. Problem is the track was so racer oriented Saturdays were crowded with racers practicing. They tried to have a good time but when they were on the track the racers kept telling them to move out of the way, and tried telling them about "track equiette." Well, as you can imagine, this wasn't fun for them, so they went home and sold all of their RC rar racing stuff. They were out of the car racing hobby for good. When I asked them why, the answer was "we didn't like the attitude there." Now to defend the racers of 360, they really didn't do anything wrong, but they were at that level of competition where everything was serious. And that's what turned the "bashers" off. Unfortuantely 360 is also closed.

This is only one example. I have seen this happen over and over again. No one sees or hears from these people becuase they're out of the hobby. Why go on RC Tech if you don't race any more?

This is the problem. This is why we're losing racers, and not getting any new ones. If we can fix this, we can save RC racing.