Decrease in entries...

[Mike McKnight]

Guys I have not read through the entire thread and I don't want to or need to. You want to know why entries are down? You want to know why people are leaving? Try looking in the mirror and at all of these posts. This is not a problem exclusive to IMPBA. NAMBA has similar problems as well. You are going to have a certain amount of attrition, it's a given. Aging boaters, boaters that have passed, others with economic issues. But what I am seeing now is a mass exodus, and I have had ideas of joining it, out of our hobby. It is reaching an alarming rate in some areas like my own district. We have had out lowest numbers ever in the past 12 months. Some is due to drought conditions and a lack of water...but the overwhelming common denominator...the 800lb gorilla in the room no one is talking about...is POLITICS! The politics, The bickering, the desires of some in power to put their own desires and agendas ahead of what is best for the organization or District. It is far worse now than it was when I was a DD from 05-07. You are not going to attract and keep any new boaters when they see this kind of garbage going on. I know I'm not the only one seeing it. In the past 12 months I have watched my own district unravel because you get one or a couple of people that insist on having things their way instead of what is the best for everyone. You have people that are allowed to exhibit questionable behavior and unsafe boating practices. New boaters are not stupid they will see this and run away even faster then they arrived. I myself an not racing as much because I have had it with the political garbage. Until we collectively pull our heads out of our keesters and get back to have a sense of decency this will continue. I personally have been accused of conducting a witch hunt against another member because he was doing something against the law and against the rules of our organization.Because I was concerned about exposure to liability to ALL of us I was accused of all kinds of nasty things. Have we lost out minds and our sense of right and wrong and common decency? Seems like it.

I personally have been on a mission to help new boaters that are interested in Scale in my district. Just to make sure that they keep the fire they have to see it through to getting the boat on the water regardless of what political crap is going on around us. Because Scale has been all but dead here for some time. It was very strong with 20 or more at most races when I arrived some 14 years ago. One guy at a time I'll do what I can to rebuild it. What are you doing? Look at yourself and ask what you can do to help make things better. Me personally I am tired of butting heads with people that used to know better but for whatever reason have an agenda now. So no more being the yard duty teacher. If something happens well they can't say I didn't warn them. I'd rather be proactive instead of reactive. That's just me. Being reactive is what has lost us a lot of good people. I know you've seen where you are too.

I am just going to go the other way and help one guy at a time. Someone helped us when we got in so return the favor. That's the only way you will see entries go up again. Oh and by the way, something I keep hearing from older boaters...." I don't wanna get involved I just want to run my boat". Well you know what? You need to get rid of that defeatist attitude and demand better from your leadership or you won't have a place to run your boat. I've said my peice take all shots you want. I know BOTH NAMBA AND IMPBA are experiencing it.

 

[Tim Kish]

Mike

Randy and myself started holding special test days at our pond last year inviting anyone and everyone, advertising and doing what ever we can to get people out and you know what it works.

I can honestly say we have been working very hard in d1 to improve our hobby and it is working, we are growing.

 

[Don Ferrette]

Don. I was sure I saw a few of those monster gas scale boats in your trailer at Hobart a few years ago. Correct?

Maybe it's time you visit an optometrist Randy, there was not and never has been a gas scale in my trailer at Hobart (or anywhere else for that matter). The only monsters of mine to grace the inside of my trailer at Hobart are my nitro twins. So again before you spew forth unfounded BS and make false accusations I suggest you get your facts straight.

 

[Randy Rapedius]

Don. I was sure I saw a few of those monster gas scale boats in your trailer at Hobart a few years ago. Correct?

Maybe it's time you visit an optometrist Randy, there was not and never has been a gas scale in my trailer at Hobart (or anywhere else for that matter). The only monsters of mine to grace the inside of my trailer at Hobart are my nitro twins. So again before you spew forth unfounded BS and make false accusations I suggest you get your facts straight.

Have you seen my driving lately? Maybe I do need an optometrist

I can only go by what others have told me and what I (thought) I had seen. If you say you have never had a Gas Scale in your trailer, then I must apologize and retract my statement.

 

[tmunn]

I have been to several races and due to distance(closest race is 7.5 hrs away)I find i have to back off due to not caring to spend so much money and time to get to the races.I really like it and hit it hard for 3-4 years but am scaling back.

I would like to suggest that if clubs were to run a class or two like stock cat or stock hydro or mono in gas then guys could run 225.00 engines and not have to run 600.00 engines to compete.I think that might help in the gas classes and you know....it would be just as much fun if the playing field was left to setup and driving skills.

Our group is a good bunch of guys but attendance is down a lot since i started in 08.

 

[Mark Bullard]

There have been to many classes made without enough support. This has been done at board level without thought. Now how should it be done? It is not rocket science.

A class should not be placed under review by just a member asking for it. If a member or members would like a new class they should build the class. This means to build boats and race them in their district. Also to get members in other districts to build and race then to.

This is how you build a class. The way I see it is if you have close to 10% of your racing members in each district and there surrounding districts then you can form together and ask for a class. This will give the class a lot more credit than someone saying that I am building one and others may so we need some rules and the board members make rules for a class that has no merit. Then when you throw it out to the membership for voting and less that 5% of the members vote this will give you a bad class or it works with bad rules also.

Now there a many issues on why our races are short on entries. The list is long and I have only touch on one problem.

 

[JimZaremski]

I don't buy the "too many classes" argument. I've only been racing a few years (and been a spectator at some races for a few years more) but in district 2 the classes offered have been fairly consistent for the past few years. Nitro: B-/D-Hydro, Sport 40, 1/8 Scale. Gas: 27 Cat, 27 Mono, Sport Hydro, and Thunderboat. Occasionally Open Rigger if there are enough requests. And even with a fairly consistent offering of classes, attendance has dropped over the past few years. just this past month we had two races (Carleton and Tilbury) struggle to get enough entries to justify having the race. I can't point to any one thing, but I'm sure it's a combination of what several people have said. Some people can't afford it, some people have lost interest, some people are no longer with us, and we're not getting enough new people to make up for it.

 

[Tim Kish]

While it seems obvious to most that we have to many classes and it is hurting racing, especially at the district level, we also have the problem of diminishing numbers in clubs.

Not all clubs are suffering but enough are, so you have to ask why are some doing well while others are struggling?

Everything in our hobby starts at the club level, we need to come up with creative ways to get new people out and old members back and interested again.

We need people to check their EGOS and help others, share set up info , props anything to help the guy thats struggling to get better.

How many are willing to do this?

I have been bragging about the NLMBC for a while now because I am very proud to say we do this kinda of thing regularly, and it works.I have seen so many frustrated people leave this hobby because their own club members won't take the time to help them out

When's the last time you called an old member to let them know your going testing?

Try it you may be surprised what happens.

 

[Tim Kish]

We are also doing this at the district level and yes it's working .

 

[Mike Betke]

Jim,

Your spot on with your assessment of D2, except for one thing. We do not do a very good job of promoting the hobby around here, myself included. We have 3 clubs in the metro detroit area and most hobby shops do not know they exist. I keep saying I'm going to make a flier for the local place up here in Lake Orion and never seem to get around to it. It has to change. I am going to try and use the Spencer Park race this year as a means of local promotion by getting it advertised in the local papers again and have information available to spectators interested in the hobby. We always get a good turn out to the race and tons of spectators.

Tim,

Your spot on as well about being willing to help others. My dad and I always have an open door when it comes to helping out. I would much rather show guys how to better tune their equipment than see them get frustrated and quit. All they need to do is ask, be willing to learn and the door is open. I like to show them how to first be consistent and competitive, then we can get going on making it faster. Not very many secrets here, I am not handing over the plans for my boats, but I'll help anybody get there boat running good if it means another boater out there on the race course. This hobby requires some skill when it comes to setting up motors. Tell a new guy that he needs to set up his head clearance on his motor within .001 of an inch and 99% of the time they will have no idea what you are talking about or how to do it. Experienced boaters need to help them out and show the new people how to set up their boats properly.

 

[Don Ferrette]

"While it seems obvious to most that we have to many classes and it is hurting racing, especially at the district level"

So even if we disregard that this "most" is a completely unfounded claim you few guys pushing this have dodged the question posted TWICE -

IF THAT IS THE ANSWER WHAT CLASSES DO YOU CUT?

The one thing some seem to be missing is YOU DO NOT HAVE TO OFFER ALL THE CLASSES! Offer what WORKS in your given area and get the boats on the water!

"Not all clubs are suffering but enough are, so you have to ask why are some doing well while others are struggling? Everything in our hobby starts at the club level, we need to come up with creative ways to get new people out and old members back and interested again."

Tim is correct here and we deal with this in D12 as well. Quite often people like myself, John Finch and Dick Tyndall spend more time at the local races helping with and working on newer members stuff than our own which is a good thing but also the easy part. Getting new people to the pond is the real battle and is the heart of the issue, too many classes has ZERO to do with it. Since last fall have finally started seeing boat counts over 100 at district races but only because of the variety of choices to the racers. We offer nitro, gas, FE and mixed (open) classes and it is at least allowing us decent boat counts and keeping the host clubs from losing money.

Nitro is struggling everywhere at local levels and sadly will continue to do so and the problem is two fold. First is the cost, those of you thinking it's not are lying to yourselves. Sure we current nitro racers find a way to make it happen because we are already deeply vested in it so we stomach the astronomical costs we now pay (priced a new nitro motor lately??). I've watched people in hobby shops buy FE powered cars and planes because they don't want to spend $5 for a glow plug and $30 for a gallon of 10% nitro. In the last couple seasons the new members we have seen in D12 are going gas or FE, there hasn't been any new nitro boaters which brings us to part two - today's plug and play society wants instant gratification, they want to either pull a cord or plug in a battery and go which is what gas and FE gives them. The "modeler" mindset is dying off and it's not just in boating, I had a long conversation a couple months ago with the owner of a very large and well established hobby shop and he told me the RTR FE and gas is what sells now no matter if it's a car, plane, boat or whatever. People are getting lazy and don't want to learn to build and tune anymore and that if it continues like it is will spell the death of nitro in all levels of the hobby industry...............

 

[Ronald Van Wagnen]

Do some quick archival homework. This will soon lead to what classes may want to go bye bye.

The records should be around for the Nitro Nat's the gas nats the fast electric nats the fall nats the spring nats the winter nats the larger local and regional races.

In this day and age someone should have good records of entries for at least the last 3-5 years.

Or at least maybe IMPBA should start keeping them ?

Inactive ron

 

[Tim Kish]

Don I don't have the answer but if we don't talk about it how are we going to come up with a solution ?

And just so you know Nitro in D1 is the strongest I've seen it in a long long time .

 

[henry velasco]

Just some food for thought

Go to namba disrtict 19 .com

click on schedule -- go to any HEAT RACE DATE do you see ALL the class,s offered

now click on points -- see all the class,s run -- how many boats on what date ETC. -- no it,s not hard to figure out what class,s will run in YOUR DISTRICT

THERE IS A five BOAT MINIMUM entry per class ONE WEEK IN ADVANCE

See -- there are no class,s dropped -- our members can get five boats to run you run that class -- or is that to simple?

 

[Bob Morton]

4068 hits. Wow. Great salution Henry.

Nails

 

[Ronald Van Wagnen]

Henry,

That is the kind of info that will help this situation in the future.

Good job.

Any chance they have a full season or two stashed away to post here ?

inactive ron

 

[dwilfong]

Get rid of the silly fuel and spark ignition,glow plug regulations.

Stop polarizing the Hobby!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The good old days are in the past move into the future.

Pull your head out of a hole.

Ya go a head lets here all the BS excuses.

Will sound like the government explaining how thy know what is best for our own good.

 

[henry velasco]

Henry,

That is the kind of info that will help this situation in the future.

Good job.

Any chance they have a full season or two stashed away to post here ?

inactive ron

Ronald

If you go to the points page you will see 2012/2013 points scored for those years and which class,s ran

 

[Andy Greene]

"While it seems obvious to most that we have to many classes and it is hurting racing, especially at the district level"

So even if we disregard that this "most" is a completely unfounded claim you few guys pushing this have dodged the question posted TWICE -

IF THAT IS THE ANSWER WHAT CLASSES DO YOU CUT?

The one thing some seem to be missing is YOU DO NOT HAVE TO OFFER ALL THE CLASSES! Offer what WORKS in your given area and get the boats on the water!

"Not all clubs are suffering but enough are, so you have to ask why are some doing well while others are struggling? Everything in our hobby starts at the club level, we need to come up with creative ways to get new people out and old members back and interested again."

Nitro is struggling everywhere at local levels and sadly will continue to do so and the problem is two fold. First is the cost, those of you thinking it's not are lying to yourselves. Sure we current nitro racers find a way to make it happen because we are already deeply vested in it so we stomach the astronomical costs we now pay (priced a new nitro motor lately??). I've watched people in hobby shops buy FE powered cars and planes because they don't want to spend $5 for a glow plug and $30 for a gallon of 10% nitro. In the last couple seasons the new members we have seen in D12 are going gas or FE, there hasn't been any new nitro boaters which brings us to part two - today's plug and play society wants instant gratification, they want to either pull a cord or plug in a battery and go which is what gas and FE gives them. The "modeler" mindset is dying off and it's not just in boating, I had a long conversation a couple months ago with the owner of a very large and well established hobby shop and he told me the RTR FE and gas is what sells now no matter if it's a car, plane, boat or whatever. People are getting lazy and don't want to learn to build and tune anymore and that if it continues like it is will spell the death of nitro in all levels of the hobby industry...............

Very well said. And this is the reality IMHO -

"First is the cost, those of you thinking it's not are lying to yourselves. Sure we current nitro racers find a way to make it happen because we are already deeply vested in it so we stomach the astronomical costs we now pay (priced a new nitro motor lately??). "

Offer what works in YOUR area and leave the national org classes as is.

Promote your races with enthusiasm and passion- help new members- get involved - but most important, be an ambassador for what you love.

 

[Tim Kish]

Okay so nothing is wrong everything is good, it's just myself and a couple others that feel this way?

Got It

Good luck guys, I'm done.