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#21
30-01-2011
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its the same at our club,always the same people,there must be 30 odd members and between 5 and 10 of the same people setting the track up,we were told to pre book because if we had over 20 cars in one class and we just turn up and 20 are in we cant race.....i understand you have to limit it abit but turning people away when what needs to be done it all 30 people set the track up and start earler,why not make people wait outside if there not setting up the track
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#22
30-01-2011
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If racing starts late so you either have to run less rounds or finish late, then so be it, it will only happen once. They rely on the fact that you will give in before they do and if you don't put the responsibility of setting out the track onto them they will keep on standing by and letting others get on with it. An idea to break up the little cliques that are at most clubs is a variation on team racing, a normal endurance will have everyone racing with their own little group of mates. We also tried sorting endurance teams by splitting up the drivers so there's a spread of abilities in each team, but the fast drivers tend to hog the track to win leaving the beginners to wait on the sidelines. I placed the drivers in heats as normal based on ability, so everyone raced against similar skilled drivers, then all drivers with number 1 were team 1, number 2 is team 2, etc. so every driver had their own race as normal, but the total laps for each number was added together to the teams total lap score. The idea is to encourage the top drivers to help out other drivers of the same number to improve by giving them driving tips and help setting up their cars instead of just hanging out with their mates. Cheap plastic trophies for the winners will be greatly appreciated, they don't need to be anything special. The only downside to it that you need to have exactly the same number of drivers in each heat, so needs a bit of forward planning to get the numbers right or have the extra drivers opt out of teams.
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#23
30-01-2011
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Drivers attitude makes all the difference, when one of the youngsters breaks down there's guaranteed to be one of the top drivers going over to work out what's wrong and fix it if they can, or if a youngster turns up with a Tamiya TT01 and one battery pack there'll be someone who will top it up for them on their charger. Making them feel part of the club makes all the difference to keeping them coming, which means they tell their mates about us and fathers also see it's a good place to bring their kids. Strangely enough the kids are the only ones who actually check their lap scores after each race, and printing off a spare set to give to them at the end of the night if they have done well means they have something to show their parents and friends to help promote the club. Get the young kids hooked and you've got someone who will race until their late teens when they discover beer and girls, then come back when they've settled down. We used to have Phoenix Raceway a couple of miles away, a bigger permanent track that was advertised by the local hobby shop. It died because the serious racers there effectively scared off any newcomers which led to its demise. An example was a pair of new drivers that turned up at our club, they had been told by racers at Phoenix they needed the latest spec touring car, lipos and brushless to race there, while we told them the 15 year old Tamiya tourers with 540 motors and old nicads would be fine to get started and have fun racing. Guess which club they raced at. As for getting them there in the first place, I can't help much there. We rely on an ancient website that needs updating with an easy way to email me from it, youtube videos and a facebook group, but mainly by word of mouth. We haven't been advertised in a model shop since 2004 and we've never got to the stage of needing to promote the club. Getting coverage in your local papers is a good way to get yourself known, pointing out it's something for the kids to do and how little it costs to get started (540 motors make a cheap starter class) while pointing out there are world championships and the fact Lewis Hamilton started with r/c cars are good ways of attracting their attention.
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#24
30-01-2011
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I'd come visit you guys at Cheadle more often if it wasn't for work/family commitments meaning Thursdays are basically out. The reason why? Ironically, its because you don't have a transponder loop! Buggies are always a bit of a carnage class on that track, and (absolutely no offence intended here Terry!) the manual timing means there are frequent errors - but thats why its fun. Its not about FTQ, fancy gear etc, its just about having a laugh at the track.
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 Yz4 - Yz2 DEX210 - Cobra 4210- DEX410 RC10 Team - Manta Ray - RC10T Mini Trophy - Blizzard - Wheely King Tz4 - GT24B BMRCC Emergency back-up race controller (but only if nobody better is available)
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#25
30-01-2011
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hi Guys
Most of what is said before me is true , A few hardy regulars doin' the hard work for the masses. I have been racing since the early nineties at Louth we still average 60 drivers per weekly meeting We race on a friday night (the best night of the week ) generally kids havent got to be up Sat morning and most parents dont have to be at work either probably our most important advantage we never turn anyone away whatever they bring to start with (we have two loan cars gor testers (currently bulletproof Ansmann tourers) Encourage youngsters the most Drivers briefings (rants!) about helping naming and shaming if neccessary it usually works if there not willing to help there no use as clubmembers either . regular series about 4 a year Team race (mixing all abilites horrendous to organise but the best night of the year ) christmas party with prizes raffle and disco We are blessed with a hardcore of regulars and who have evolved with our club over twenty years and moved with times from buggies to tourers and no doubt will follow trends in time we have handout transponders available but do encourage personal AMB Lastly we are all there for fun and everyone is regularly reminded about it Prima donnas do'nt go down very well here unless they learn to muck in quickly we also are doing a monthly carpet series on Sundays (f1 mardaves pancars etc if anyone wants to come weekly meetings £2.50 sunday all day £5.00 regards Dave fiddling
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#26
30-01-2011
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 The fact there used to be no guarantee that the lap scores were accurate (they usually were Si!) as you say meant no one bothered much with lap scores. You would think accurate lap counting might make them take it more seriously, but strangely enough still no one cares who actually wins.
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#27
30-01-2011
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I agree with Terry about folks that stand around while others set up.
(Some people are just bone idle and you cant do anything about that.) Mainly its not quite feeling part of the club and that maybe handling the clubs equipment, as it were, would in some way be taking a liberty. Its quite simple. Be friendly and ask a random onlooker to help do this or that. soon they will get the idea that its ok to handle the equipment and hopefully they will feel better for making a contribution. I think positive encouragement is the best way.
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#28
02-02-2011
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I've been racing at Leighton Buzzard MCC for about four years now and agree with most about setting up, Its the same old faces week in week out.
We have been running a very good Tamiya MINI class for years and it certainly helps with ecouraging the youngsters to join, (having a good local model shop helps as they can help push the class.) cheap to start but can allow for hop-ups as drivers improve. Tuesday was the first round of our new TT_01 class, run straight out of the box, only 'hop-ups' allowed are bearing set, alloy drive shaft and 3 racing shocks. we use a control motor, (ansmann clash 28) and control tyres again 3 racing. This has already proven to be a popular class, cheap entry level racing.
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National Gulf Veterans & Families Association SelectionsRC. www.rc-racing.co.uk S-M-D
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#29
02-02-2011
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John Jones --SMD--INSIDE LINE MODELS--PR RACING UK-- My feedback http://www.oople.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79696
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#30
03-02-2011
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Mark, as a (saddly) infrequent visitior to your club may I give you my honest feedback ... I appologies if any of it seems blunt, it's certainly not intended to be offensive in any way ... it seems I have a bit of a harsh vibe to my writing style!
Firstly the venue itself is very good, plenty of space, adequate power and reasonable temperature control. +1 The track surface, good carpet that isn't mega grippy and doesn't eat tires and also doesn't seem to offer a huge benefit to those with fresh tires over worns ... perfect for a club +1 The layouts, sometimes I think you guys put features in for the sake of features. On a couple of occassions I have been to the club it has felt as if the car almost never has all 4 wheels on the ground. That makes it difficult to judge any potential setup improvements and makes it difficult to 'race' on IMHO. I know the majority are micro racers but it does make the track less enjoyable for 1/10th ... again just my opinion. -1 The people, everybody seems nice and friendly and there doesn't seem to be any real cliques going on which is nice. +1 The schedual, it does seem to be the case that it 'feels' like a long time form doors open to the start of racing. Once the meeting gets underway its totally manic to the point that if you break anything, not matter how minor, it's tough to get out for the next round. As I am coming from about 90mins away and I am leaving work about 4:30/5pm I am usually one of the first there. You know I am more than happy to help with the laying of the track but I do find it difficult to get involved as there never seems to be any sort of plan. All that ever seems to happen is that 1 or 2 guys "make it up as they go along" whilst the other handful of folks drag all the bits out into the middle of the hall and pile it up. I think a pre-drawn track plan would help loads to get the track layout communicated and as they say "many hands make light work". Your track marking system is really simple to set up and the only improvement would be for the lengths to be marked on them, that would allow anybody to be able to follow the plan if there was one. I wish I could do more to help with the packing up but have at least an hours drive back and invariably have to be up at 5am on a saturday morning for work -1 The day, with more and more people working saturdays, often at even less sociable hours than in the week, a Friday night is a real PITA. The arguement for Fridays was always that the kids would struggle to get their homework done and get to a race meeting on a school night ... thing is there are next to no kids now and those that do race seem to be organised enough to cope IMHO. Also only running every other week means it is easy to get out of sync with when it is on, a number of times I have found myself in a position to go racing on a Friday night only to look at the website and find that your not running that week. Often it's a more than a month before I get the chance to visit your club again. Obviously that is going to be different for everybody you ask so this one is just my personal opinion. -1 The location, Leominster isn't easy to get to from the south or (M50 side) in terms of consistency of journey. Easy enough to find but a horrible slow drive through the lanes non the less. Not sure on the access from the north side but looking at the map it seems a little better. If you could get it closer to Hereford without loosing too much of the space and storage of the current venue I think it would benefit the club as it would "feel" closer for many of the west mids off-road racers and that might get the guys from the Birmingham / Coventry / Kidderminster / Worcester areas along a little more often. I remember Worcester buggy club having 30-40 every week at a venue much smaller than yours because it was always good racing and easy to get to (must have been a while ago though as I also remember TQing regularly there lol). It might be worth while posting a question / poll in the Mid West region section on here and asking if you can have a link on the Mid West website to judge what would be best to for the 'local' drivers. The motivation, why am I willing to do a 2.5 hour round trip to race at Leominster / Hereford? Because I like the size of the tracks and the fact that I can use old tires without feeling at a huge disadvantage. That said there is no reason for me to become a regular, especially not seeing as it cost me £20 to do a club night there. If I knew there were going to be several quick buggy lads there to compare myself against (i.e get lapped by  ) I would be there much more regularly. 0 (as not the clubs fault the quick west mids guys don't go)Total rating = 0 (i.e. the negatives for me balance with the positives) So what do I do instead of going to Leominster? Well the simple answer is nothing, I have very little other choice. I could maybe go to Caldicot and maybe I will in the future but that is further in terms of time (or more expensive if I use the bridge) and the hall is much smaller than yours ... seem to remember it being a bit of an obstical course type track from some previous visits too. I am getting my TC together to run at Gloucester, even though their track is VERY small it is only about 4 miles away and they do get a couple of quick boys there now and again (such as Mr Jefferies). I might also go to Worcester on occassion with the TC once I have it running as I would like. What I am looking forward to is Ledbury running on a Wednesday evening, hopefully I will see you there Mark. You know I am a fan of your club Mark, the core guys do a great job and I am disappointed in the poor showing of support from the Mid West lads at the BWOC even though I pushed it as much as I could for you. I really hope that the Hereford club keeps going and putting in the good work you have been, would be a shame to loose it ... even if it is a little too far for me to become a regular (although I will try to do once a month again soon)
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#31
03-02-2011
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i was a member of John Robsons club for a number of years and i must say i have nothing but praise for the man, his indoors and out-door meetings are the best run i have been to, in regards of the manner, organisation and just the way the meeting is ran. Yes he has a no nonsense approach but it works.
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#32
03-02-2011
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^^ nothing but praise for the way he ran the meetings, it was more a case of me being a bit "timid" at the time! hehe
__________________
John Jones --SMD--INSIDE LINE MODELS--PR RACING UK-- My feedback http://www.oople.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79696
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#33
03-02-2011
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 This year has been the first in a while that we've had a heat full of new starters with their christmas presents - remember when that used to happen every year?! There are only 3 children in that group though, the rest are 'born again' racers! Last year I wrote a little article for the local parish/village magazine which encouraged a few locals to come along to see what we are doing. Is that something that you could look to do in addition to the local schools? For those clubs who have cars for people to try out, could I ask how popular they are and whether it does help get more people into racing?
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#34
23-02-2011
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I'm just looking at getting back to racing after a very long break (20 years).
However for some of the mean time (and still am) I've been into Heli's. Our club just about folded two years ago. But what has happened is that the club has as big a social element (chatting, drinking cups of tea, drinking more cups of tea, etc..) This has transformed things as people want to be there and feel the club and it's future belongs to them. We do have a few "odd jobs" but then every club does, as a group everybody mucks in and those who don't find themselves on the end of light hearted micky taking. You find the group that does not help are the sort that don't like been the butt of jokes We have gone from 20 (hard core) members to having to cap the membership to 60 and add a waiting list this year. So if you can get the club nights to be enjoyable word gets round and people come Hope this gives you an "outsiders" view.
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#35
23-02-2011
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hey guys.....
i think RC racing needs more promotion.... i was looking at go pro camera vids on you tube when i came across a guy who had put one on his car and it got me wondering what was going on in the rc world. i used to race 20 years ago at bolton buggy club and when i read about LiPo batterys and brushless motors and 2ghz transmitters i thought wow ..... surly with all this new technology people should be attracted back to the sport... i know i am.. im not allowed to spend all my money on a new car and radio gear atm though as im moving house..blah blah... as for the other stuff you guys mentioned cheap plastic trophies are really good for kids... ive still got some of mine... (only the big final wins though... i threw away the 3 in the g final ones  )and another idea i had to help get people involved in setting up the track would be to get a layout of the floor space drawn out and get people who come to the club to design a track... the winning design is used that week and if you had drawn the track you would want to help build it... and also it might speed it up having a drawn out plan.... just a thought i had while eating my beans on toast....
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Snapped the tail, like a well oiled snail.....
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#36
23-02-2011
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We did that when Bury ran the indoor series at Chadderton - each meeting a couple of us would draw up a track, we'd choose 1 and build it. But even then translating drawing into track wasn't easy. Setting up a track in a bare hall with or without a plan is tricky. I agree about the promotion though. Roger mentioned lack of kids racing - a good part of that is so few even know racing exists. I'm a teacher, and my pupils are stunned at what our cars can do, and that there is organised racing. Now my current pupils don't have the income or resources to afford race cars (its a poor area and most are new arrivals to the UK), but I've worked other places where it might well be more successful, if we even tried. I see plenty of kids bashing RC's - they just don't know there is more than that. Trophies I never saw the point of. Pot hunting used to mean it was better to be 1st in the C than 4th in the B which always seemed absurd to me. Anyway, you won't need a new car to come run at Bury. Bring the ancient one and I'll get it working....
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Yz4 - Yz2 DEX210 - Cobra 4210- DEX410 RC10 Team - Manta Ray - RC10T Mini Trophy - Blizzard - Wheely King Tz4 - GT24B BMRCC Emergency back-up race controller (but only if nobody better is available)
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#37
23-02-2011
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when we were running chorley club we had a few kids racing, and small trophies and or badges for 1-2-3 always drew them in,
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Mattys the driver,my names carl
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#39
23-02-2011
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Mattys the driver,my names carl
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