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Wooders28

If you're not a member of an RC Club, why not?

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As a few of you know, we are building a new venue for the Glasgow RC Club.

As part of the running the club, we want to have more people enjoying being part of the RC community and RC club.

I've put this under  ' General Discussions ' ,as I don't want to send out the wrong message by putting the thread under ' RC Racing Talk' .

So, if you're not a member of a club, why is that? 

- Not any clubs in your area?

- If you don't have the most up-to-date, high end equipment you think you'll be laughed at? 

- If you're not competitive, you won't fit in? 

-Too serious?

 

I'm wanting to have days / events for everyone, not serious about racing, not a problem, we'll just have an, open track day etc etc.

I love being part if a club, the main reason being, I can talk RC cars for hours and people listen and discuss without falling asleep, and also, no one thinks you're mad!?!? 🤷‍♂️

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The only one i know thats local(ish) to me is for racing big 1/8 nitro things which doesnt really float my boat.

If they had a hard surface touring car track I would join for sure.

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Hey @Wooders28 as you know, we are actively looking to join both the BRCA and a local club.

From our admittedly brief research we stumbled across the following problems:

1) The times/days that events are run. My daughters are still at school (well OK not during lockdown but you now what I mean) and most of our local clubs (within an hours drive) seem to only run races on weeknights and they finish very late (10pm) so by the time we helped clear up and then drive back home it would be near midnight. The kids have to be in school early next day so this makes it near impossible for us to join those clubs at the moment. Even worse for my kids as they have to be up at 6am to get ready, get breakfast and be on a bus (as we live in a rural area).

2) Most of the local clubs only run indoor touring cars - yawn  - not only do we find them BORING but we have nowhere at home or near home to use them so they are totally out of the question.

3) The clubs that do run buggies seem to think that an 'off road' track is some bits of board gaffer taped to a polished hardwood school gymnasium floor - this has about as much appeal to my daughters and I as poking ourselves in the eye.

4) The clubs that have proper outdoor tracks seem to share the facilities with other events and have limited times for practising and socialising, made doubly difficult because of the distance we would have to travel to actually get to a proper outdoor track. Now I'm not asking for proper dirt tracks, in fact I am so fed up of cleaning our buggies I'm quite happy with astro BUT it has to be a proper rough and bumpy track not smooth flat astro laid on a flat surface. eg. Our current ideal and most favoured track is Robin Hood Raceway as that just looks amazing. (We have spent hours watching youtube videos of the races held there.

5) Not all but many of the clubs we have researched seem to focus on adults and the general perception (we maybe wrong) is that younger drivers would not be welcome. My youngest daughter is 14 and she is a bit fearful that the adults would not welcome her and wouldn't be able to talk to her. I think this is partly because many of the videos we watch show mostly male drivers and mostly older male drivers at that. 

6) While I have no issue buying new buggies for them that are appropriate for racing, it would be nice to see more events that cater to younger drivers using cheaper RTR or Tamiya buggies. eg. Not so many high jumps and a slower pace. My daughters got a bit put off when looking at videos showing buggies tearing around at super high speeds and they gulped and thought they'd not be able to compete at that level.

Now I have explained that many of their worries are unfounded. Many of the videos done will be of A finals so they always do look quicker and there is not so much incentive to video the lower finals etc but it would help if some of the clubs ran age related classes rather than say just a novice class. This would alleviate many of my daughters issues as they would be running (and socialising with) kids their own age.

 

edit: Please don't take offense at the touring car comment, it is just a fact that neither myself or my kids have any interest in them. We have nowhere locally to run on a smooth flat surface. The kids are too young to even be driving yet so have no affinity to 1:1 brands or models. They just want to race the cars that they can run in the garden or at the local park. So buggies are perfect. They can be setup to run on any surface from smooth wood floors, muddy tracks, carpet or astro, do big jumps, run in wet conditions and even be taken to the beach on holiday. Most of our buggies run 30-40mph and we have some that run 50mph so for us a touring car is highly limited in where it can run and what it can be used for whereas a buggy is highly flexible and a jack of all trades and can be made a master of many. Even ignoring my bias, if you see my kids scrolling through pages of new cars on Modelsport, they will skip almost all the touring cars and only stop to look at buggies or trucks. In my view, it is the clubs switching to touring cars that has killed interest in the kids joining clubs. 

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There’s a club up the road but it’s a bit serious looking. Doubt they’d let me run my lunchbox round their track :lol:

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I enjoy RC because I want to have fun.  Racing comes across as too serious.  There's enough rules and regulations in life without it becoming part of my hobby.

The tracks aren't any use for the cars I want to run.  Modern buggies need astroturf or prepped surfaces, big straights and ridiculous jumps.  All I see is massive acceleration, jumps bordering on flight, turn corner, repeat.  Smaller bumps and jumps coupled with powerslides in the corners on dirt are more my thing.  Running a rally car on a modern track would be pointless.

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Just now, Blista said:

I enjoy RC because I want to have fun.  Racing comes across as too serious.  There's enough rules and regulations in life without it becoming part of my hobby.

The tracks aren't any use for the cars I want to run.  Modern buggies need astroturf or prepped surfaces, big straights and ridiculous jumps.  All I see is massive acceleration, jumps bordering on flight, turn corner, repeat.  Smaller bumps and jumps coupled with powerslides in the corners on dirt are more my thing.  Running a rally car on a modern track would be pointless.

This ^^

However, I raced 2wd off road from 1990 to 1998 and loved it. I tried to return to it a few years ago and was amazed at just how competitive it had become. People had different cars for different surfaces! So, I then decided I'd try my hand at a spot of 'Vintage' racing. But alas, that was even worse. I built up a Frog and to be fair, it was pretty capable. However, the class was just full of RC10 Worlds and Losi JRX's that had been hopped up to the max, brushless and Lipo etc... So, I stopped.

Maybe I'm looking at the early days of RC Racing through rose tinted glasses, but it no longer seemed to be the fun day out that I remembered. Each to their own I suppose. Now, I just enjoy a morning, or afternoon running a few different vehicles on my own or with a few friends.

That's not to say that I wouldn't re-visit some form of racing in the future though...

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@toyolien we feel the same. We have huge fun racing amongst ourselves on our garden track. It is pretty similar to the tracks I used to race on in the 80's - uneven, mix of gravel, dirt, hardcore etc with a few small jumps. After it rains we even have puddles to drive though. It is a smallish track with limited top speed but we still have huge fun. We also (kids included) like to try and bump each other off the track, nudge each other out of the way in our race to a finish line etc. The only rules we have are that if somebody crashes off the track completely (by wedging themselves between flower pots or falling off a jump into the gravel traps) we all stop to allow the driver to recover their car. That and the races last 5 minutes and we have a timing system. The emphasis is on fun. ;) On a warm summer day we can often spend 6-8 hours playing RC cars on the track without getting bored. Every race is exciting and every race usually ends up with some form of breakage..... our track is hard on the cars and we don't really care. I can replace an entire Thundershot front or rear end in about 10 minutes flat so we normally just break for drink or snack if a car suffers serious damage. Our races are very similar to the sort of races that you see on the RC Retro youtube channel where him and his friends have race nights and you see things like lunchboxes racing each other, alot of crashes and alot of DNF's :lol:

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@mud4fun Exactly. I've just been sat here thinking about this for a while. And I think part of the issue for me is that none of the modern buggies look real. They are specific tools for a competitive job. And, while I get that they've evolved this way to be faster, lighter, more efficient etc etc, I think they've lost some of the appeal (read Fun) for me. I doubt racing will ever be like it was and there's no point me turning up expecting it to be. My local club is a BRCA affiliated club with a purpose built off road mixed surface (mostly astroturf) track. I've raced there on and off since I was 13 (now 43). Back in the day there was always 10 - 20 people for a club meeting on a Sunday morning. it was ace. Nowadays, although the track is kept up to date, there are no events (other than Nationals) held there. If you join you get the gate code and can go when you want to. Which although that's fun, I do miss the Sunday morning club meets. There doesn't seem the volume of people willing to help organise these days. Time change I guess...

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um, I'm not so sure @toyolien, I hear what you are saying and I honestly felt the same until recently. I bought myself a Schumacher Cougar for xmas merely to see what, if anything, I'd been missing.

In all honestly it is just as much fun as all my Tamiya buggies. I guess it is a case of what it is used for and how it is used. In our case, my middle daughter and I had the most hilarious race ever last week when we decided to run a figure 8 course with my Cougar and her DT02...... being a figure 8 it meant we would T-Bone each other in the middle if we got too far ahead of the other in the race. This happened numerous times, even managing to slide over each other a few times. Both buggies survived unharmed but oh what hysterical fun that was. Never laughed so much while racing a car. It was mad. My daughter being as competitive as me meant that it was a game of chicken as to who was going to stop to let the other pass if we face a t-bone..... in many cases neither of us gave way.... :lol:

I've been having loads of fun with the Cougar, jumping it off kerbs, doing donuts, wheelspinning around markers on the postal racing tracks, getting covered in mud on the lawn. In all honesty it makes an awesome basher buggy. I think the bad rep comes from the way they are used rather than the cars themselves?

If anything we can have more fun with the Cougar than the Egress or Vanquish because we don't have to worry about breaking it. For one, the Cougar is a damned sight more rugged and less fragile and two, the Cougar has plentiful, cheap and readily available parts whereas you drive the Egress in constant fear of something breaking, it then being almost impossible to find a part and if you do it costs a small mortgage to fix.  :)

Back on topic - I used to race at a local club many years ago, it was a school club run by a Teacher and we had a track on the school grounds. I fondly remember racing on sunday mornings with my friends at a semi-organised level using the exact same buggies that we'd been bashing on the common or in our gardens with earlier that week. In many cases we hadn't even bothered cleaning them or doing any sort of prep other than charging the batteries! Those were the days! :) (there was little to no adjustment on those 80's buggies so all we had to concentrate on was driving. These days, as I've found with the postal racing, setup can make a huge difference to lap times hence why it has become a more technical sport)

 

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46 minutes ago, Superluminal said:

The only one i know thats local(ish) to me is for racing big 1/8 nitro things which doesnt really float my boat

I don't think there's that many tracks that run nitro! Noise being the main problem. 

@mud4fun it's always an issue for mid week run nights, starting early enough that the 9-5 ers can get there after work , which means 6ish, and then run long enough to make it worth turning up, so looking at 9pm. We'll be looking at 'family days' on a weekend (Or a Friday night?) , to let kids /WAG's get some run time in a relaxed atmosphere.

Yeah, not a fan of 2D (touring cars) cars either, but they're meant to be good for teaching you racing lines.

You'll find the guys at the ' jumpers for goal posts' clubs are great guys, and need to start somewhere, until they can pull funds together , we've run with exactly that, gaffer tape and MDF jumps, none of us thought it was the bees knees, but we where out driving our RC cars, have a laugh with mates..

Back to money, if a club charged £100 an member, and had a couple of hundred members, or like a football match 30,000 spectators paying over the odds to watch, then there would be more dedicated venues, but until then, yeah, you'll have an issue having to share a venue. We share the facilities (Toilets, Bar , Restaurant, car park) with a Tennis club, Cricket Club and a Rugby Club. Although Robin Hood ,is what we are using as inspiration.

None of the club's I know of focus on adults, and think its very short sighted if they do!! 

As I've said, we're planning on running days for families, and I would imagine that if there was enough interest at many clubs, (back to money again!) they'd run them too! Yeah, watching, A finals ,on YouTube will put you off a bit! Those guys are at the top of the tree, 

This is the Scottish championship 4wd E final! 

 

1 hour ago, J@mes said:

There’s a club up the road but it’s a bit serious looking. Doubt they’d let me run my lunchbox round their track :lol:

You maybe surprised! We've let lunchbox's run and bullheads ,someone rocked up with a Hornet in the summer, and they got track time.

49 minutes ago, Blista said:

I enjoy RC because I want to have fun

That's why I've not put it under the ,race ,section. It's a club, with members that what the very same thing! The only rules we have, are it's got to be electric and run 2s hardcase if running lipos.

Yes, the National championships can get serious, but not serious enough not to help a mate out, who's needing to borrow a part to beat you. That's only National championship level though,  club meetings are what you make them.

So if our club was close enough, you'd come along for the more relaxed meetings? 

 

1 hour ago, toyolien said:

Maybe I'm looking at the early days of RC Racing through rose tinted glasses, but it no longer seemed to be the fun day out that I remembered. Each to their own I suppose. Now, I just enjoy a morning, or afternoon running a few different vehicles on my own or with a few friends.

Most of our club members are from the early days! 🙄😂 

So this is the thing, all our club members I class as friends, so a meeting is running cars with friends.

 

 

So , for people to enjoy being part of a club, we need to have relaxed,  RWYB days? (Sorry ,we'd still have 'rules' , electric and 2s hard case if running lipos, to be charged in a charge bag) 

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Good topic @Wooders28, we were having a very similar discussion at my club the other day. It was actually about how to get more kids along. Average age would be aboit 40 I would guess, and the kids are almost all there because their parents are.

Things we've noticed:

Kids are keen and want to run their cars, but our track is really an 8th scale track, so modern 10th cars can handle it but not a $300 all in RTR which is what most kids start with. We need some club loaner cars as parents are put off by the $1000 setup price.

We run an 8th and a 10th day each month, Sunday from 8am til finish. Its a long day for kids, even 10th days finish about 3, 8th can go til almost 7 (can get C main in eBuggy and E main (ask me how I know) in nitro (30min mains) on a big club day). There was talk about doing 2 kids races per round, so they can come for a couple of hours.

Open class is supposed to be novice and kids, but gets experienced adults, either trying setup etc, or a group will bring a vintage each or something. That can put kids off, not having their own class.

We also don't do any advertising, should be advertising at the local schools and holding open days for kids to runanything they have. I think thats going to happen

@Blista you're in Tauranga right? I think there are some guys in palmy (bit of a hike) who are really into vintage. They have an old style track with sensible jumps and stuff,may be something you could try?

 

When I got back into it i went and visited a few clubs and decided on the one further away because they had a great atmosphere. The club president came up and was chatting to me, offered my son a drink from the chilli bin etc. Compared to the onraod club which at the time had a really bad committee and just seemed angry and serious all the time. That has a new committee and is much better now. I think thats onroad though, they are more serious than offroad.

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1 hour ago, mud4fun said:

@toyolien we feel the same. We have huge fun racing amongst ourselves on our garden track. It is pretty similar to the tracks I used to race on in the 80's - uneven, mix of gravel, dirt, hardcore etc with a few small jumps. After it rains we even have puddles to drive though. It is a smallish track with limited top speed but we still have huge fun. We also (kids included) like to try and bump each other off the track, nudge each other out of the way in our race to a finish line etc. The only rules we have are that if somebody crashes off the track completely (by wedging themselves between flower pots or falling off a jump into the gravel traps) we all stop to allow the driver to recover their car. That and the races last 5 minutes and we have a timing system. The emphasis is on fun. ;) On a warm summer day we can often spend 6-8 hours playing RC cars on the track without getting bored. Every race is exciting and every race usually ends up with some form of breakage..... our track is hard on the cars and we don't really care. I can replace an entire Thundershot front or rear end in about 10 minutes flat so we normally just break for drink or snack if a car suffers serious damage. Our races are very similar to the sort of races that you see on the RC Retro youtube channel where him and his friends have race nights and you see things like lunchboxes racing each other, alot of crashes and alot of DNF's :lol:

This sounds like a club meet!?! 

Although, we don't all stop. But if you punt someone off the track, you wait until they are back up and running,  before you go again (but that's RC etiquette anyway).

 

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@Wooders28 loving that Scottish E final video - how long was the track! more like a safari! :lol: Will show the kids that tomorrow, will cheer them up no end as it is actually nice to see all the crashes. Makes the racers seem more human. :)

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12 minutes ago, Wooders28 said:

You maybe surprised! We've let lunchbox's run and bullheads ,someone rocked up with a Hornet in the summer, and they got track time.

I’ve checked it out, here’s the track:

My issue is also time and commitments, like so many no doubt

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I have, at various times, raced at the club level, and have been to plenty of "practice nights" just to have fun. I raced off-road in high school (1987-89), and later indoor 1/10 and 1/12 carpet oval (early 1990s), and most recently (2000-2002) Clods and an M-chassis spec class. But honestly, I get bored having to stick to the structure of a race schedule. I'd rather just drive around. And I have found that I can be either ultra-competitive (in a bad way) or not care at all about competing, but I don't seem capable of anything in-between. So it's best if I just don't race against anyone.

And for the past decade or so, I've been lucky enough to have great places to drive right outside my door. Our last house had a huge flat back yard, perfect for buggies, with a big steep hill at the end that was just made for crawlers/scalers. And now, we have even more room, and even more varied terrain. Why haul all my stuff somewhere else to have to play by somebody else's rules?

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I get scared of the geekiness of clubs

i run a car Club and meets just freak me out ;)

im outgoing and confident but the forcing of people together to talk shop freaks me out haha

JJ

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17 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

It was actually about how to get more kids along

It's a struggle! 

27 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

We also don't do any advertising, should be advertising at the local schools and holding open days for kids to runanything they have. I think thats going to happen

Pre Covid, we'd spend time contacting local events, to see if we could rock up, and do an exhibition. Local fates, fun events at a local (ish) racecourse etc, set up a wee track, and let people have a go, and send them away with a flier (I was in my element, as I can talk RC to anyone who'll listen for hours! 😁). But it's easier just to put an Xbox/PS5 on!!

You need a good beginner event , I don't like just using the term 'Kids' , as its puts beginners off who aren't kids! We've kids that'll run rings around most people!! 

23 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

We need some club loaner cars as parents are put off by the $1000 setup price.

Put a shout out on social media and see what's about! We've been given cars and got cars fairly cheap doing that, and surely the sponsored guys can let the club have their year old lipos etc? 

30 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

When I got back into it i went and visited a few clubs and decided on the one further away because they had a great atmosphere.

It's the people that make the club! The more people,  like us, go to clubs, the club's will be as we want them?!? 

 

20 minutes ago, mud4fun said:

@Wooders28 loving that Scottish E final video - how long was the track! more like a safari! :lol: Will show the kids that tomorrow, will cheer them up no end as it is actually nice to see all the crashes. Makes the racers seem more human. :)

It's a Scottish National (SORC) at Dumfries, tracks are normally around 25 seconds. This is a ' serious ' race meeting, but some of the laughs you're hearing are from the rostrum 😂

 

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23 minutes ago, J@mes said:

I’ve checked it out, here’s the track:

My issue is also time and commitments, like so many no doubt

I'd let you run it, and if I knew you where coming, I'd bring mine too! 😁

Yeah, I work shifts, so I've not been able to goto the club as much as I'd like.

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15 minutes ago, markbt73 said:

Why haul all my stuff somewhere else to have to play by somebody else's rules?

I got / get bored running cars on my own. Even when I had a decent size garden, and built my own track. Half the fun of running RC ,is the people.

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The closest track to me is over 1 1/2 hours away and they don't actively run anything that I have much interest in. They primarily run dirt oval and NASCAR style paved oval. They have started to do drag racing, which is super popular in the US as of now, and I would love to give it a try, but they only do cash races where you have to pay to enter and the winner gets all of the entry cash, which means that they get super competitive, and I'd probably only get to do a few passes. I'd totally love to do traditional off-road and on-road racing, but unless a better option becomes available that is easier for me to get to, I'll probably just be running in my yard/parks/uni.    

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31 minutes ago, Wooders28 said:

I got / get bored running cars on my own. Even when I had a decent size garden, and built my own track. Half the fun of running RC ,is the people.

I can see how that would be the case for some people. But I'm introverted by nature, and I get dragged to enough other social events (at least when there isn't a pandemic) that I'd rather just enjoy my hobbies solo.

Besides, I'm at about 95% bench time to 5% running time these days anyway. And perfectly happy with that.

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1 hour ago, Wooders28 said:

That's why I've not put it under the ,race ,section. It's a club, with members that what the very same thing! The only rules we have, are it's got to be electric and run 2s hardcase if running lipos.

Yes, the National championships can get serious, but not serious enough not to help a mate out, who's needing to borrow a part to beat you. That's only National championship level though,  club meetings are what you make them.

So if our club was close enough, you'd come along for the more relaxed meetings?

For me, I'd definitely be more inclined towards a club that doesn't market itself as a race club.  A lot of clubs I see have a list of what they race and when and what's allowed, so racing seems like all they do.  I'd be interested in a club that truly caters for whatever RC people bring along.  I'd like to see more variety rather than be stuck in a club that only does one thing, even if they do that one thing really well.  Races, time trials, open driving, crawling, vintage, building, whatever really.

1 hour ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

 

@Blista you're in Tauranga right? I think there are some guys in palmy (bit of a hike) who are really into vintage. They have an old style track with sensible jumps and stuff,may be something you could try?

You're possibly thinking of Berman unless I'm mistaken.  I recall some Tauranga beach shots of his cars.  I need to get a vintage RC at some point (holding out for the Kingcab re-release like a fool) but at the moment a patch of gravel or dirt is all I need for the XV01.  Finding a good spot, having a charged battery and there being no rain looming overhead is the only issue.  :D

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1 hour ago, Blista said:

For me, I'd definitely be more inclined towards a club that doesn't market itself as a race club.  A lot of clubs I see have a list of what they race and when and what's allowed, so racing seems like all they do.  I'd be interested in a club that truly caters for whatever RC people bring along.  I'd like to see more variety rather than be stuck in a club that only does one thing, even if they do that one thing really well.  Races, time trials, open driving, crawling, vintage, building, whatever really.

You're possibly thinking of Berman unless I'm mistaken.  I recall some Tauranga beach shots of his cars.  I need to get a vintage RC at some point (holding out for the Kingcab re-release like a fool) but at the moment a patch of gravel or dirt is all I need for the XV01.  Finding a good spot, having a charged battery and there being no rain looming overhead is the only issue.  :D

The West Auckland club has an 8th scale track (modern 10th survive but its pretty rough on them) and a crawler track out back. You also get the gate codes when you join so you just turn up anytime. Hamilton has an astro track in a public park, just turn up and use it.  There are tracks and clubs in most cities.

Yep Berman is Tauranga, for some reason I thought you were too.

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6 hours ago, Blista said:

For me, I'd definitely be more inclined towards a club that doesn't market itself as a race club.  A lot of clubs I see have a list of what they race and when and what's allowed, so racing seems like all they do.  I'd be interested in a club that truly caters for whatever RC people bring along.  I'd like to see more variety rather than be stuck in a club that only does one thing, even if they do that one thing really well.  Races, time trials, open driving, crawling, vintage, building, whatever really.

Its down to money again.

Nothing is free.

Racing does bring in numbers, but as we're finding, pushes people away too! 

What about a club with a race track , Plus a smaller track for beginners / fun track where you could run any off road you wanted? 

People could then turn up with whatever RTR or car they had (or not turn up with anything as we've, club cars to borrow!), with friends, and have a wee track for themselves.

 

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