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Old 2010.05.25, 08:32 PM   #1
Mike Keely
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How to get more racers???

I was wondering if anyone has had any luck at putting on a event to try to get more racers? I was wondering about putting on a race at a busy shopping mall or at a world of wheels type car show. Has anyone tried anything like this?
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Old 2010.05.25, 08:40 PM   #2
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word of mouth mostly. you get as many of the large scale locals to try it out and hope it sticks. i know your area is saturated in large scale racing, just need to convince a few to jump into a smaller class of racing. where did all the cwhits guys go?

i started dc gtg with 3 people MANY years ago. i treated it like a family and it grew. i do miss that atmosphere that we seemed to have lost when we moved to racing at hobby works. we used to race all day, enjoy a good dinner and wrap up racing.

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Old 2010.05.25, 08:46 PM   #3
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Are there any larger scale races in your area?

Maybe flyers at high schools, or local colleges with URLs to videos about the cars and racing.

Inside Line Racing hosts the KO Propo race in a shopping mall for that purpose... You want a good crowd of racers, so there is plenty of action on the track for everyone passing by to watch.

Having rental cars at the local track makes it easy for newcomers to try before they buy.

Target early teens that would spend their parents money on the cars/parts, and actually learn something in the process... They also learn to drive a lot faster than adults
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Old 2010.05.25, 08:55 PM   #4
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oh, we've done the mall things many times at hobby works. we can run outside in the open area on sundays provided we plan it far in advance. it always draws spectators but so far it hasn't brought in any new racers. it's something we may need to do more often.

are there any malls in your area that this would be possible? we can try to get our clubs together for stuff like this as a recruiting tool for both our clubs.
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Old 2010.05.25, 09:09 PM   #5
Mike Keely
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oh, we've done the mall things many times at hobby works. we can run outside in the open area on sundays provided we plan it far in advance. it always draws spectators but so far it hasn't brought in any new racers. it's something we may need to do more often.

are there any malls in your area that this would be possible? we can try to get our clubs together for stuff like this as a recruiting tool for both our clubs.
I was thinking about Annapolis Mall or Arundel Mills.
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Old 2010.05.25, 09:38 PM   #6
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My personal thoughts on this is that, with all the marketing that we can do, it's really a hit or miss.

If it interest people, they will come from anywhere. If they are not, no matter what they will not bite the bait.

But of course, we do whatever means to garner interest to potential drivers.
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Old 2010.05.25, 10:00 PM   #7
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Mike Keely.

Every year we put on an event at a local anime convention in hampton called "Nekocon". To date I can't say that anyone we met there has actual become a regular racer but it introduces thousands of people to the hobby over the course of a weekend.

The whole event is aimed at increasing awareness of the hobby and having veterans interact with event attendees who often for the first time are trying a hobby class R/C. We provide the demo cars. Arch2b has always been involved with this. Its planned to happen again this year so long as I can get enough real racers to attend. There is also a pro-race event.

That being said, I found out about a race group off of atomicmods site. They have local club contacts on there you may want to inquire about having your clubs contact on there.
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Old 2010.05.26, 05:16 AM   #8
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I was looking at a search for car shows in the area. I see that there are many planned around here in MD. I was wondering if we did something at a place where it is car guys and gals that it might be a better group to have a race in front of.
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Old 2010.05.26, 09:20 AM   #9
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I was looking at a search for car shows in the area. I see that there are many planned around here in MD. I was wondering if we did something at a place where it is car guys and gals that it might be a better group to have a race in front of.
I really like this idea.
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Old 2010.05.26, 09:38 AM   #10
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As these guys have already stated, be ready for many futile efforts if you are trying to get significant club level growth.

Ive been trying my best to grow mini-Z racing in our area for almost 5 years now. We have gone through fluctuations where we've had as many as 20 active racers, but always seem to dwindle back down to a handful of core racers. At least through each phase we've found another core guy or two.

The biggest thing that got us up to our biggest numbers in the area was the LHS actually taking part by supporting the locals with parts, and a very nice track room set up. It came shortly after I got a couple of 1/8 scale nitro buggy guys into it. I had been trying to push Zs onto the LHS owner for years and he wouldn't bite. He did finally let me put some fliers up in his store, and I found a guy who had two kids, interest in competitive racing, and the desire to get back to racing on-road. The best thing though, was he got hooked, and was one of the top guys at the off-road track. Within a few weeks of him running with us, our track room was exposed to nearly 20 new people (all with similar experience to his), of which about 4 (in addition to him and his sons) took it in and started racing with us. This is what sparked the hobby shop to join in on the action.

Within a few weeks of the hobby shop setting up a track, we had tons of exposure to local racers and bashers, and had picked up more than a dozen more racers, boosting us up to (my guess) around 30 people in the area who owned miniZs. Not all of them were 100% active all the time, but we would have nearly 15 in our race room (on a weeknight), and the hobby shop would have upwards of 20 (weekend races) on any given club race.

Sadly enough, that hobby shop closed down, and we are back to a half dozen serious racers, with an occasional visit from a few off-roaders that kept their cars around.

What I have learned in my 5 years, is that it is hard work if you want to have serious Z racers to run with on a a regular basis. Something I accept is that building the club is often a lot of times harder than building "event" based relationships. A few years back I decided I wanted to go out and find new people to race with. My first event was back in the spring of 08. It was club level event out in Charlotte NC. It was an awesome experience. I got to meet Cristian Tabush, who flew out to support the event. I met a few handfuls of people but, Mike (mleemor60), Pedro (pedrocamp), and James (pick), all took me under their wings, and made me feel right at home.

In the time since then, I have raced in NC, GA, VA, PA and NJ. Ive run into the same guys from NC (and a few more of them) many times, and have formed a solid bond with those guys, and many more. From these bonds I gain participants at my events, as well as more motivation to go to theirs. Most of our events have all the states Ive raced in represented.

By traveling on a regular basis, and by hosting events on a regular basis (most at our office), Ive gained a huge racers base that I get to run with on a regular basis. Sure I race with the same handful of guys weekly, but about once a month or so (pending on how work/family schedule effects travel) I get to race with as many as 20 or so other guys. Some of our events have had more than 30 (Spring Fling last year was 36), and almost every one of them has between 20 and 25. The core "event" group I run into on a regular is very tight as well. We are becoming rivals and friends at the same time, and sometimes I feel like my "club" consists of people from up and down the east coast. The guys from NC are definitely just an extension of our group, and I feel just as close to a few from VA, and PA as well.

If you can get a group to come down to one of our events (or just come yourself), you will have a chance to meet people from our coast who would all be willing to travel up to your place to support events. We are trying to make the Carolina Cup, just the series to build club level relationships, and all though a couple of this years races have been run, there is still a lot to be won from participating in the next few. We've got the SE regional coming up on June 12th (I see you've got your BTE event that day though), and we will have NJ, VA, NC, GA, of course SC, with possibility of PA being represented too. Of course with that many states present, you know the folks attending are willing to travel

Sorry about the long ramble. I've been trying to push this sport in our area for a long time....and I guess I had a lot to say about it FWIW, this is the shortened version of what I really wanted to post, lol.
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Old 2010.05.26, 10:36 AM   #11
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FWIW, this is the shortened version of what I really wanted to post, lol.
he aint kidding either
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Old 2010.05.26, 10:44 AM   #12
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If you can get a group to come down to one of our events (or just come yourself), you will have a chance to meet people from our coast who would all be willing to travel up to your place to support events. We are trying to make the Carolina Cup, just the series to build club level relationships, and all though a couple of this years races have been run, there is still a lot to be won from participating in the next few. We've got the SE regional coming up on June 12th (I see you've got your BTE event that day though), and we will have NJ, VA, NC, GA, of course SC, with possibility of PA being represented too. Of course with that many states present, you know the folks attending are willing to travel
Mike, I want to attend several events down there. Due to financial issues I have not been able to. If you or a group of your club start going I could afford to split trip costs.

Either way your club picked up Maya and I as regulars

It has become what I look forward to every week.
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Old 2010.05.26, 02:15 PM   #13
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I initially had the feeling of "if you build it, they will come"... but after renting a really nice facility form the city for a year or two, and running all kinds of local events in my area outside of the walls of our regular place, it just got to be too much for too little. I handed out around 200+ flyers at one of our older mall races and at one point we had a crowd of at least 80 people cheering and laughing with us... had a bunch of people tell me directly that they will definitely be at our regular location that very next weekend... not a single one showed.

The majority of my "core" drivers were picked up when we ran at local Hobbytown, after that... the majority of that crew either moved on or gave up RC altogether due to different scenarios (school, jobs... life stuff).

I couldn't tell you what makes or breaks it, but it does seem that if you are in or around a highly populated area... it makes it that much easier. I've been waiting for a Philly MiniZ movement to begin but it just seems like most RCers down there are into bigger scales. Not sure if it will ever happen there.

Not trying to be a downer, I think if any area has a shot to start pulling in new racers, it the DC area. But it also seems to ring true that any area with a Z devoted shop with a real race schedule seems to be the key for gaining and maintaining racers.

As of now, I am waiting for Larry to retire and open up his shop/track in Kutztown.
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Old 2010.05.26, 02:42 PM   #14
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we've been fortunate that we've convinced hobby works to support mini-z racing. they order parts, and provide a minimal amount of floor space and use of their tables, power, etc. i had to provide the track, timing system, and computer as well as manage the calendar/events.

in talking with the store manager, he wants to expand racing however i'm not exactly local and never able to make weekday racing. just isn't going to happen for me at all which is unfortunate as most shops seem to run races during the week vs. the weekend.

i'd love to see racing expand at hobby works, i just don't have the time to push it during the week.

keeping momentum at a location outside a retail environment has got to be tuff. i think what served our club well for so long was that it was much more of a family atmosphere at the time.

the difficulty is similar to many other areas outside cities, most are into large scale racing. our area is heavy into this and it's been a struggle to get anyone to make the jump down in scale. ken may be the only one i know that still does 1:18 or larger and moved down to 1:43 as well.
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Old 2010.05.26, 05:28 PM   #15
Mike Keely
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I would like to add a few guys and that is all to our club. Where we race could not handle 15 racers. The owner runs it in his garage where he does not charge to race. I think the owner wants a place where he can race and for his sons to see that you can have fun without getting in with gangs and such.

If we could do a few outside events to try and increase our racer base for the area even in the DC club I am all for it. I would like to do these events every few months at my work and get 30 or 40 racers. We had one last year that had 19 racers I think. I think we have 11 so far but a few others that would normally come have other plans already.

I will try to work on a event at a car show for July and see how it goes.

Arch is there any days that work for you in July?
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