TCRacer101

iTrader: (16)

I've heard that since nitro vehicles are loud most people hate having tracks by their houses. Electric is quiet, clean, and easier to use. Nitro is loud, a bit dirty, and harder to tune.

I don't mean for some to get mad at me, but I just want to know how many think that nitro might've changed the hobby.

porkey

iTrader: (1)

i like Electric better, i like to watch nitro but i hate when people dont know to
tune there vehicle and it sounds like crap

TCRacer101

iTrader: (16)

I like watching ANY r/c but if they're not running right, I find it very odd.

But I like nitro, and I'm not tryin to diss it.

R/C is R/C. All hobbyists (except scammers), we're like a band of brothers. Most racers will help out newbs for them to enjoy the hobby for years to come.

carbon madness

iTrader: (2)

I would say it might have hurt some of the tracks that were in cities. Although I don't really think that was the main cause of why places close down, as I have seen some people that if they don't agree with what the track owner said, then they will whine about it and then try to get every one on their side, and then there are the people that don't want to help new people to the hobby, and the the track will lose people as no will want to be around them.

So I guess it has more to do with the people who cry about stupid things that most people will just say whatever to, and then you have the who arn't helpfull.

porkey

iTrader: (1)

:tire :

David Alberico

iTrader: (13)

I think electric 8th scale is the next big thing.

downtempo

iTrader: (4)

Hasn't nitro switched over to four stroke yet? Alot more quiet than weed eaters. The more types of RC available to the consumer to buy (especially if it appeals to newbies), the better for the industry as a whole.

charly71

i agree with david im a gas racer at heart but this year is the 1st year since oh 1987 that i went electric just cause im sooo burnt out on gas racing, you know all the tuning,cleaning and constant money those thing eat up i decided to do 4x4 electric this year and havent looked back. i think gas can kinda hurt the hobby alittle when a hobby shop sells a rookie a gas car and the rookie has no clue how to tune and care for a nitro car. that can easy get somebody burnt out fast or the rookie will learn on his own and later just get out just cause of all the stuff and money involved with gas racing. butt now that it looks like by next summer 8th scale electric will become a class of its own and i hope it does its gonna bring back a few of those burnt out gassers and will bring in alot of new commers. as of right now losi and caster are the two 1st cars to hit the market i think the caster is avalible right now and my losi should be here at the end of this month. i to think 8th scale electric is gonna be the big one.

cracka

I think it's the rtr nitro's are what have hurt the hobby's growth more than anything else.
rtr's give the false opinion to people that they're just like electrics and that anybody can do them just by putting some gas in them and go, but it's not that simple. then by the time someone finds out that pullstarts don't work, maintenance is crazy, stock engines don't last very long, and getting a new motor costs more than the entire car and it drives them away.

shurcooL

Did desktop PCs hurt the laptops???????

Some like one thing, some like another. Since when did more choice hurt anybody?

Drift_Buggy

iTrader: (22)

When Dell put Li-Po batteries in their Laptops?

electricguy007

+2
I just watch nitro as well. I used to own one, nothing but a pain.
Ive been to the track many times and people just have engine problems
like mad. Seems like the more expensive the engine the more needles
you have to tune. And the life span of a nitro engine isnt as good as you
would expect. An engine can only be pinched so much til it's useless.

carbon madness

iTrader: (2)

that is a differnt subject, but laptops were after the desktop

But no a choice never hurt anyone, but if the people who buy it don't know anything about it, then they will most likely no longer use it (and leave the hobby)



cracka, I agree with you on that, but at the same time this goes back to my post about people who don't want to help new people. For one they could have told these people about the type of work that is needed to keep a nitro car running, and then they can even show them how to use it. But there are a lot of people who won't do that. As for buying on-line, then of course there will be problems, but there are hobby shops that will turn you away if you didn't buy the car from them, but if they would help them, then the shop would make more money over time.

Jon Kerr

iTrader: (17)

This is the big problem. Nitro didn't hurt the hobby. The sales people in the hobby stores have hurt the hobby. Nitro racing is a lot of fun. But IMO it's for experienced racers or hobbyist. I have first hand experience with this.

One of my wife's co-workers asked if she could have me look at her husbands RC Car because "he thinks he killed it." I asked him if it was an on road car or off road car. He didn't really know what I meant. I asked if it was nitro or electric. He says "I have to put gas in it. Does that mean it's nitro even though it has batteries in it?" He had never had an RC Car before. He walked in to Hobby People and asked for the fastest thing they had. They sold him an HPI RTR nitro on road car. He had no idea what he was doing. He couldn't tell a carburetor from a caster block. He pretty much burned up the engine because he had the thing running probably 2 full turns too lean or more and never put after run oil in or anything. He was using Trinity fuel that his neighbor gave him that had been sitting in his garage for 2 years. He didn't even have the right servo horn on the car. The optional one he saw on the shelf was pretty and red so he put that on even though it was completely wrong and he tossed the stock one. The guy at Hobby People told him it would be stronger and wouldn't break because it was aluminum. It was a throttle servo horn! The mounting holes on it were wrong and it was causing a bind and making the brakes drag even at full throttle. Eventually he ended up not having any brakes because he wore through the caliper and it broke. He broke some suspension parts and ended up gluing them together when his regular Duracell AA's in his receiver pack died and lost control of the car. I fixed the car as well as I could and got it running for him. I gave him the car back with some instructions on things he needed to do and parts he needed to buy. The first time he drove the car after that he ran it for a long time in their driveway and let the FRESH AA's in the receiver pack die again and ran the car full throttle into a brick wall. He brought it back to me and the chassis was about folded in half and every suspension part was ripped off the car. It even broke the cooling head off the engine. I told him it was dead now and he'd be better off buying a new car rather than spending the money to fix this one. So he threw it away and swore he'd never even think about getting back into this.

Now had he started with something electric that he could actually control and didn't have to worry about tuning so much, he would have enjoyed LEARNING how to drive it more. Especially with brushless being the norm now. No need to worry about teaching them about cutting comms and changing brushes, breaking in motors, etc... And had he started with a kit that he had to actually build, he would have LEARNED how to work on the car by building it so when parts broke he'd know how to fix it rather than give it to me to do. I'm not saying he would have definitely stayed in the hobby, but it would have been much more likely.

I ran 1/8 scale all of 2007. It was the first time I'd run gas cars. It took me a couple of months to get the basics on maintaining and tuning a race engine and I never really did get extremely good at it. And I've been racing RC cars on and off for nearly 18 years. Imagine how a noob feels when they get into this new hobby and spend $500+ on a nitro RTR then he/she realizes there are hours of work that goes into making an engine run right and maintaining it. "I thought this was supposed to be Ready To Run." I've heard that exact thing said when you tell someone who bought an RTR gas car that you have to break in the engine before you can really run it. They don't get that. They don't know. As a salesman behind the counter you need to sell them the product that matches their experience level. Sell the product that will get them to want to stay in the hobby. Not the most expensive car on the shelf so you can get a few extra bucks commission. In the long run you'll end up with more customers spending more money in the shop. (Can you tell I'm a sales rep in real life. )

edit: Wow, I was more long winded than I thought I was going to be.

aeRayls

iTrader: (3)

I 100% AGREE!!!!, with Jon Ker. In that respect it did hurt the hobby.

I do know for sure one thing nitro absolutely KILLED in my area... electric 1/10th racing. Then of course the ONLY nitro class I would race (1/10th truck) was killed off too. I've been racing over 15 years and things just keep getting worse and worse. I guess I was spoiled by getting to run in the mid 90's when RC was BOOMING, so now I know what I'm missing.