› Starting Line
AS I STROLLED AROUND THE GROUNDS of the Horizon Hobby RC Fest during the day and reviewed the layouts for our Pro-line By The Fire coverage in my hotel room (work, work, work…), I couldn’t help but think about how “jamboree”-style events contrast with RC racing as vehicles (no pun intended) for getting new people in our hobby. The RC Fest was a particularly good case study, as it had a full-on professional-style RC race going down alongside the try-me tracks and rock-crawling courses and other fun stuff. Make no mistake, the new-to-rc spectators were highly impressed by the race action, but I doubt anyone watching would have dreamed of asking to take a test drive with one of the race cars or thought racing was something they could easily jump into. Those things were movin’, and the racers were clearly serious guys doing a serious thing. You wouldn’t expect a chance to take a test spin on a CRF450 at a Supercross race either. But elsewhere at RC Fest, there were people trying out all sorts of vehicles, and from the looks on their faces, I could see their vibe was definitely, “THIS is for me.”
None of which is a diss against racing. Racing has always been and will always be a vital part of the RC hobby, but it’s still a very insular world, and the racing scene is often hard to break into “casually.” If the local track doesn’t have a “fun class,” like Tamiya haulers or stock Traxxas Slash (and kudos to those tracks that do), getting into racing can appear to be a big commitment in time and gear that probably keeps a significant number of people away. I believe there’s no better way to get someone hooked on RC than putting a transmitter in their hands, and more “come out and try it” events would be a great way to grow the hobby with more participants. Of course, you can’t put on an RC Fest or Axialfest or Pro-line By The Fire every weekend, but promoting a “Get into RC” event in the hobby-store parking lot is something any store owner could put together. Are you part of a Facebook group that meets up for trail runs or bash sessions? Encourage people to watch, and put a radio in their hands if you can. And back to racing—during the pre-mains lunch break, why not break out a few demo vehicles so that those who wander into the store and are seeing high-performance RC cars in action for the first time can get a taste of the fun? More people in the hobby means more fun for all of us. Let’s get ’em hooked.