Racing and how to increase attendance ??????

[Steven Vaccaro]

Lets start a discussion on how to increase racing attendance. We have the platforms available. Social media should help us. But how do we recruit newbies? Lets try to keep this from morphing into rules issues. Please

[longballlumber]

I remember as a kid the nitro club my dad belong to would set up a few display tables over a weekend at the local Mall. They would have several club members bring boats to display, they would have VHS vids playing, and they would all take different shifts manning the tables to provide information. I would like to think this is still a relevant method, but it takes a commitment of many.

[eric113]

Are you talking racing on club and/or national level?

It going to be like any other section in RC’s. Most time this hobby is 3rd..etc hobby for them and not serious. Another big part is commitment. Most time they aren’t super committed to hobby.
I think another big thing is shock of start up cost. Say some are buying a Spartan or M41 then learn that boat doesn’t fit into a class. Or they read or hear about the rules then say nah, nevermind.

[Steven Vaccaro]

Im talking club level. we need to build the numbers at clubs. I think Namba Imbpa should work on some sort of advertising campaign. It can be done rather cheaply. For the cost of just putting together the idea to pitch. We have so many avenues of getting it out there at $0 to little cost these days. it seems we are letting this pass to easily.

[T.S.Davis]

Well, a number of MMEUlligans will be spending a little bit more time with car guys. I don't know if that will net anything.

Steven, are you thinking about more participation in major events or just more participation? I'm not sure those are two of the same thing.

I recently made an 11x17 laminated flier to place on the counter at the largest hobby shop in our area. It has on it boats that can actually race right out of the box in classes we run locally. All of the boats on the flier are available right there in the store. It has our club information and how to get a hold of us. Nothing really fancy. It being an icy tundra right now I don't know if anything will come of that either.

There's some kind of mental barrier that keeps people from racing too. Fear? That first heat is nerve racking. The fear of getting in the way the fast guys maybe. I'd don't totally understand that part but I do totally get it. Racing cars for the first time ever on Sunday. I'm very nervous. Makes no damned sense. Toy boats, toy cars, fer fun, it's a hobby, git a grip, etc.

FB advertising could/maybe/might get people to the pond to check it out. The tricky part is how much of a commitment it is to get out and play for the first time. At our pond you can't just show up with a boat and run. You have to be insured. We can work around the club membership thing but there is no solve for protecting everyone. I've thought about this one for ages with no reasonable solution. Some way to get a guy to run a boat in a heat without him having to commit to it totally.

Someone mentioned in the other thread the major marketing. Traxxas does lots of that but they also have the funding to do so. I wonder about the organizations setting up tables at trade shows and if that's ever resulted in more membership. There used to be NAMBA funding available for that.

[T.S.Davis]

I think another big thing is shock of start up cost.

This is where a club does help. We've actually used our own fleets to entice guys we could tell were for real interested. Not just curiuos peeps. People you could tell would show up and race.

[T.S.Davis]

Steven, are you thinking about more participation in major events or just more participation? I'm not sure those are two of the same thing.

I typed too slow. Every once in a while I do some work at the office.

[eric113]

Im talking club level. we need to build the numbers at clubs. I think Namba Imbpa should work on some sort of advertising campaign. It can be done rather cheaply. For the cost of just putting together the idea to pitch. We have so many avenues of getting it out there at $0 to little cost these days. it seems we are letting this pass to easily.

I think it also if there not club near by, then forget it. Nearest club for is Houston and I live in Austin. It 2.5-3 hour drive one way for me. But I don’t mind the driving.

As far I know as newbie looking in, I don’t see neither organization doing ANY advertising. I seen few people mention either organization with link but that about it.

[eric113]

This is where a club does help. We've actually used our own fleets to entice guys we could tell were for real interested. Not just curiuos peeps. People you could tell would show up and race.

Clubs do help with this plus more. I have made some good deals with other club members.

[dethow]

I think what Mike said makes some sense and could even get closer by setting up a table at local hobby stores instead of a mall. Get peps that already have interest in RC. But that takes commitment from a few good members.

Terry's thought on going out to do some car racing and maybe spreading the word or even flyers there sound good because at least you're doing something instead of just committing to sit around waiting for a conversation from interests parties.

Visiting local flight clubs could also be helpful. We have a few good sized ones around.

I think we could get some fliers out to other hobby shops besides Larry's. There are many in the Metro Detroit area which could pull in racers. Time spent talking to the guys working at these local shops could also help them and make sure they have a flier to hand out if they have someone in their shop looking and/or buying a boat.

To be honest... I think MMEU should have a core member which is specifically tasked with heading off recruitment. Not this year (2018)... but I may have some interest in doing something like that down the road. It's hard for me to be a full out core member since I'm not that local to our pond. But I can do other things for the club.

This recruitment position is something all clubs should consider. I'm sure all clubs, like MMEU, talk about the things that should be done but with no one specifically tasked... things never happen.

[JestDanny]

Location, location if people see you having fun, people will want to join in on all the fun. The club I raced in years ago, our race lake was in a large public park lots of on lookers. The club had fliers in all local hobby shops, we even had the local weekender news print magazine do a rite up on our club complete with action photos.

Unfortunately where I live now is far from a hot bed of clubs and racing action, can't find a race within 200 miles. If I want to race again I'll have to move back south ha ha wife says NO. What's worse is I heart tunnel boats, find another one of those here in N.E.

I club raced motorcycles up in Louden N.H, in years gone by, not every biker wants to race, nor can every biker afford to race, or have a full on tracked prepped race bike. So for those who did not want to, could not afford to, not have race bike to, all was not lost, you could still get out on the race track and have fun no matter what bike you did have. Track days, just show up at the track with a half descent road worthy bike and riding gear, pay the man, green means GO, yellow means slow / caution, red means return to pits slowly, have fun. 4 classes set by speed and experience , 15 min each class rotate all day no speeding tickets fun.

Fun run days show up at the lake follow simple rules, safety first, run what ever rc boat you did purchase. cook out, have fun see you next time.

[G-UNIT]

I like to join a club but where is one near orlando fl with out going to the west coast.

[T.S.Davis]

MMEU has set up tables at swap meets multiple times and netted not a single new member from it. That said, locations as well as dates could vary.

The trick to starting a club is really......find someone you know personally that digs RC stuff. Network with people you know. Hand them stuff to try out when/where you can. "First ones free!" Once you have literally 3 dudes to play with you have a club.

Then volunteer your knowledge and even your services if you can. Ken Joye and Dennis Whitt helped me a lot early on. I built a Stealth for one of our club guys that I had met one time. Now he's a junky. He can't get enough RC boats. I try to answer every question I get via text, FB , on here, emails, in person. I even forget who I've talked to sometimes. Getting guys to agree to play (at first) together is how the club forms. Doesn't have to be racing right away. That can come later. Then you need to get the group to agree to a particular type of boat to make heats. Cats, mono, spec, full P hydro, 10th. Doesn't matter. Just so long as the group picks something that everyone wants to run. Then stick with it. Only add if you have the numbers.

Danny's right on. People see you having fun, laughing, acting a fool........they notice. If you're doing it right, the people aspect will keep them interested. Don't get too serious either. I've personally done this. Blew it. A hobby that's stressful isn't a hobby. It's a job. Nobody is getting rich racing toys so keep it fun. Someone once said "The first rule of racing is........have fun". Took a while for me to believe it though. Did I say fun enough times? I could go back......

[T.S.Davis]

Should have said, buy all the boats ya want but make sure you continue racing the class the group agreed to. Consistency matters. We bailed on a class we felt we had outgrown and lost a member over it.

[Shooter]

One of the biggest deterrents (at least for me) is the time commitment. If it was an 'afternoon' or a
'morning', then maybe less of a problem. Giving up an entire day + prep is not everybody's bag. My wife still looks at me like 'an entire day??? really???'. Maybe I'm the oddball, but I work full time, come from a big family with wknd b-day parties, little league games, church, etc..., it makes it nearly impossible, even WITH the FE FEVER!!!!

[trigger]

Boats are a lot more effort than other rc forms, it’s not like you can step out your door and run it. Trudge to the pond, don’t forget that retrieval method, assemble everything there, then have 3 mins of fun. Oh and all winter you can’t play if you live in the cooler places.

Our club has all kinds of events be it scale or racing, some in places at the same location of popular farmers markets, in schools, at apartment complexes, loads of people watch, we pass out cards etc, but it’s surprising how few we hook in to it.

When drone racing was made a sport, and grew, I was hopeful that all rc areas would grow with it.

I’m not sure what the answer is, we try to hook folks with various methods, I wish more were into it and got the bug.

[T.S.Davis]

Yaeh, I do feel like a snake oil salesman sometimes.

[trigger]

Yaeh, I do feel like a snake oil salesman sometimes.

Yeah I hear you. It can be tiring answering all the same questions too, but you have to as you pointed out, just in case you find that like minded nut job.

[Ken Haines]

I like to join a club but where is one near orlando fl with out going to the west coast.

There is a large FE club in Ocala at the Villages.
Our club is in Ft Pierce ....The Wave Blasters of Florida
Both are Fast Electric Clubs
NAMBA District 3 is the State organization which races
mostly Gas and Nitro, however this year they are allowing us
4 classes at 7 monthly races. There is a club in Orlando, but
as far as I am aware they are a Gas racing club for District 3.
Actually next week is the Winter Nationals in Melbourne.
Check out Namba3.com

Hope this helped, Ft. Pierce is about a 2 hour ride from Orlando....
we would be happy to have you join us some Sunday.
Pm me if you have any questions and I can give you a cell contact.
Thx,
Ken

[T.S.Davis]

like minded nut job.

Haha That sounds like something I may have actually said at some point.

[IRON-PAWW]

OK this one I can have some input on. We are a *very* small club in Perth West Australia struggling to get members.

Cost and complexity to get into the hobby is a huge part of it. Honestly - you need more straight off the shelf boats that people can buy and run easily and get hooked. That damn Traxxas Spartan has a *lot* to answer for. Time and time agaim I see new people turn up with one of those - it melts - and you never see them again. Proboat have made good inroads here - but more is needed.

If quality boats - properly set up - with decent ESC's and running gear come in a package with all you need to run them then more people will be interested. A guy in our club just bought a genesis cat from HobbyKing. The motor way *waaaay* out of alignment with the flex/stuffing tube. Just shoddy stuff. Boat went for 2 minutes (god knows how) and the flex flew apart. If that's your introduction to RC boating you aren't going to like it. Put boats on the shelf that will perform and be set up right straight out of the box and you'll hook people. I know that's not so simple. I know. But...

Over here we have a boat show. A rep came to our club meet and was extremely impressed. He asked us to put on a display at this years upcoming boat show. I think you need to get the boats out there and seen by the public at large to generate interest. We get interested onlookers at our club days *all* the time. When people can actually see for themselves what boat racing/running is like you'll hook them. So maybe clubs *do* need to think about display type days.

Flyers at hobby shops and knowledge of the clubs at hobby shops also helps when customers come in looking to buy boats. If customers know there's a club out there they can join to get extra enjoyment out of their purchase then it may just hook them. Great for the hobby shop - great for the club.

Just some ideas...

[Rumpelhardt]

I was kind of surprised to learn that RC boats are not popular here in the Northeast. From my point of view the whole RC thing, cars, boats, planes etc. should be more popular than they appear to be. Then I started thinking about why it took me until 59 years old to really start getting into RC vehicles.
I tried RC in the early 80s with a nitro car. It sucked in my opinion. Obnoxiously loud, messy, always tinkering with it to get it to run and glitchy unreliable radio equipment. Sold it off and moved on to other things. A couple years later an electric car. Still with the crappy radio it was slow with no run times and it always seemed to be burning something up.
About fifteen years ago on a whim I got a nitro boat. It was still nitro with the stuff I hate about nitro but it was fun, fast and fairly reliable once I got tuning it figured out at the cost of two engines. The radio still had problems but it was much better than the ones I had before. Problem was I was still drag racing fairly regularly and that took a lot of my time and money so rc was out again.
I really never gave RC another thought until my youngest son came home with an old beat up Traxxas Rustler he got off a guy he worked with. He spent a little money fixing a few minor problems and got a couple lipo batteries and as I watched him run it I saw that it was fast, very reliable, fairly decent run times, tough and the damn radio didn't even seem have much of an antenna on it and still didn't miss a beat. It's been down hill from there lol.
I finally after seeing the new Traxxas boats at their display at New England Drag way decided that I needed a boat. Did a little looking, asked a couple questions, got my Blackjack 29 that I've ran exactly twice before ice and I think I'm hooked.
All this to say I think that a big part of the problem at least with older folks is that there is still some perception of RC vehicles being ether noisy, messy and smelly, or slow and much more finicky and delicate than they now are. There is also the problem of people not even knowing these are out there. I've been in the RC hobby in the car end of things for about five years now and I still didn't know how far boats had come until I saw the Traxxas boats and people can't race something if they don't even know they exist. The hobby needs more exposure. Get more people into the hobby and you will get more racers. There will be more people buying boats and related stuff. It's a great hobby, It's good creative outlet for younger people and old fogies like me alike and I can see racing being a good competitive outlet for those so inclined as well.

[Luck as a Constant]

for me the whole idea of racing just doesn't interest me. I'm not very competitive for starters, and i really like my boats to stay undamaged. that doesn't work if you're racing.

[ray schrauwen]

Let some people with the interest, try it out. I've heard people say this but the club's don't respond (here at least) unless they lump down $$. They don't mind say $15 or so but not an all in with IMPBA membership and joining the club.

A good number of FE guys just fun run in Lake Ontario because they can and it's fun and cheap.

I known, some spend thousands on some boats only to do fun running and choke on an insurance fee, I hear ya....

[Rumpelhardt]

How are the classes structured? I know in drag racing racing you have sportsman classes set up for people running basically stock production vehicles with strict rules pertaining to modifications restricting mods to basic safety and maybe a few small performance/reliability mods. The classes move up in performance from there with each class building on the entry level "stock" class allowing people to move up if they so choose while using the same basic platform helping to keep cost at a relatively manageable level. You then have the upper classes for those who have reached the limits of the production platforms to move into purpose built race vehicles. This works out pretty well but the problem is as people naturally push the limits of the rules the people who make the rules often under pressure from the competitors will as time goes on change the rules in the lower classes allowing more modifications raising cost making it harder for younger people to get a start. You then end up with a bunch of old guys standing around wondering how come their favorite sport is dying.

[MarkF]

Terry hit the nail on the head. Car tracks and hobby shops with a flyer to your club has worked the best in the 25 years I have been doing this. Having a loner boat for those that show up to try it helps out and then offers of used boats for cheap so they can get there first boat is the best way that I have seen to get people started. The disease will take over from there.

Mark

[T.S.Davis]

Tom and I talked about this some yesterday.

Something else you really need is a couple knowledable guys that are part of the club that will throw themselves on a grenade to get guys in the water. Be that organizing the club so it actually can race, talking to people that just stop to ask questions, tech support for guys looking for speed. Organized racing doesn't just magic itself into reality. Someone has to make it happen. These guys need the patience of saints too. They're gonna answer the same questions 10,000 times. Plus there will always be the "but this guy on the internet said it would work" battles. Ya take a deep breath and keep working with them.

Another thing I meant to do today but forgot is to volunteer to help the local store. If I happen to be there and someone has FE questions they can come find me.

You have to first want racing to happen and then be willing to sacrifice some time and a bit of sanity to make it so. You'll know when you find one of those types. They enjoy talking FE almost as much as racing them.