RC10Talk - The Net's Largest Vintage R/C Community

How do I put it back on?


This hobby has changed heaps, seems like nobody even attempts to fix their own cars anymore. I suppose that's todays generation.......

Did you have a few of those types of customers today?

I guess this is the aftermath of years of RTRs.

I wasn't sure what to find in this thread... I'm happy to read it isn't as bad as I thought

(or is it?!? )

It's definitely a change - my 8yr old has been paying attention to "what Daddy does down in the basement" And asked if, for his birthday, he can "build a car with me". Pretty cool, but, well... then he's going to want to actually drive it. I may have 20+ cars, but I'd be hard pressed to have one functioning set of electronics for the bunch.

So I thought I'd get him a kit to build with everything it would take to drive it. The guy at the LHS looked at me like I had two heads! Almost everything in the store was RTR, and the only transmitters they had were really high end ($300+). I could have spent over $500 to walk out with what it takes to finish a Grasshopper (the only kit I saw there). He said "that's just not how it works any more, only racers buy kits" and he wasn't being a jerk about it, just matter of fact.

I know you can order a bunch of stuff online and do it much more reasonably - but most people aren't going to either know what the need, or spend the time. They want to walk in, and walk out with everything they need.

I'm not sure whether no one wants to build anything, or that the only way it makes financial sense to build is if you are running high end stuff, so people do what I did and bought the kid an RTR (and told him we'll build my Worlds Car re-re together). If all you've ever had are RTRs, you end up like most people are with 1:1 cars.

i built my boy a hopper and gave it to him on his 4th bday. he'll be 6 this summer and i'm about to set him up with my b4 (once i get a replacement).
he doesn't have the dexterity or hand strength to wrench himself, although he really wants to.
i lossen wheel nuts and let him finish, start screws then let him finish.

i bought a hpi 2.4 radio from an rtr on ebay for 40 bux, used the esc supplied and i had some nmih's from the legends racer.
lst summer i took out the 380 motor and in stalled a silver can 540. he's doing really well with it.

this is the year he gets to start practicing on a real track, maybe even run sportsman if he can show improvement.

he's really into "his buggy". but this is also a little kid who doesn't even know what a video game is.

as I read my post - I wanted to clarify - I'm not trying to imply anything negative about the LHS - they are fine, always friendly, and my only complaint is that it's pretty heavily geared towards both RTR & Nitro - I just mentioned that to show just how far the hobby has changed around here that a non-rtr requesting customer is a surprise. That and I'm not sure if it's customer driven or industry driven.

i have found that unless the lhs has a track that's what you'll find, a store full of trx maybe a couple of ae or losi rtrs, vatterra and stuff like that.

plus i do like to support the lhs, but i'm not a rich man and need to save $$ where ever possible.

i took my rc10 into the lhs and it was like i was talking a diffrent langauge

and if you need anything imperal and not metric forgetabout it

luckily around here the vintage racing scene has gained some good traction thanks to the vonats.
all of the local lhs' that have tracks know what the cars are and do not look down on them.
you'll find vintage cars racing weekly or atleast monthly in the 17.5 buggy class, sometimes vintage 4wd's in 4wd mod too.

it feels like connecticut is the center of the vintage rc scene. to me anyway lol.

Kids today can’t even park full size cars. The new cars having a parallel park feature for them how do they ever learn? Too busy to park because they are texting on their phone. My friend got me back into RC again because his son turned 10. He ran into the same thing at the LHS. Most of it was RTR so that’s what he bought for him. Those big Traxxas trucks just bang around the track. We took his son and neighbor kid to the local track and after a few hours they were bored and wanted the leave. They were more into playing turn marshals rather than driving.

I think that's why kids don't stick with anything. It's like going to Walmart and picking up a Tyco, which they always get bored with quick. No pride or time involved in the build and learning the hobby. Pretty soon plastic models will only come painted and assembled too.

Wow, there are some great responses here.

I agree that kids attention spans are shorter and that they have less patients. I remember as a kid I couldn't wait to get to the track and stayed there all day till my mom came to pick me up, even then I didn't want to go home.

I've been lucky to have pretty good hobby shops around me living in the Bay Area and having visited other shops in my travels can see how frustrating it can be sometimes. Smaller selections or geared for HPI or Traxxas RTR's, everything you ask for has to be ordered in.

Nitro is another thing that seems to be dieing. The cars are cheaper than good electrics and nobody can tune them so they just get stuffed in the closet or sold again.

This is a world where we can Google any topic and become "experts" at it...without ever having actually DONE it. I think that actually contributes to this RTR-but-don't-know-squat phenomenon.

Coelacanth wrote:This is a world where we can Google any topic and become "experts" at it...without ever having actually DONE it. I think that actually contributes to this RTR-but-don't-know-squat phenomenon.

^Amen

Man that s a good idea.. I'm going to let the kid help put the GT back together.