Where to from here for slots (not only a digital discussion)

[VenturaAlfa]

Well, I decided to take myself out of the equation and get into my son's head (he's 11) and my daughter (she's 13).

I have a permanent track set up and over 200 cars so you would think they would be into it; they are really not. They like the cars that look like movie cars they see or have seen. Think speed racer, Cars or the batmobile.

So are details in cars a big deal? No. Is scale accuracy a big deal? Never was for me and is not for them. Will they be racing slot cars in the future? I really, really doubt it. F1, NASCAR and MX v. ATV all make such great realistic video games that are so much better than slot racing that I doubt slots will survive other than as a curiosity. Something that the "old folks" used to do. A 70 inch T.V. screen is now an affordable reality and I have to admit a race game on that size screen is simply awesome.

I still like slots but my kids couldn't care less and their friends that come over couldn't care less either. (I can sometimes get them to race with me for a few minutes at a time). I've taken them and their friends to the local slot car track which has two tracks and there is real lack of interest unless they are crashing and destroying the cars (and they have no interest in repairing them). We had 4 hobby shops in our area 5 years ago, we are now down to 1. Cruz'n Bob brings his tracks out to local events with rental cars and while there is some interest it's really not much. For anybody that doesn't know him he's amazing and has both commercial style tracks and fully landscaped tracks (he currently has a Cars movie track that is incredible).

When you talk about the manufacturers, we are their demographic. By we I mean the group from 45 on up with a substantial amount of disposable income. Look at how many folks on this site and SCI own over 200 cars and are planning on buying more: It's not a 15 year old kid with 50 bucks burning a hole in his pocket that is out buying the latest Pioneer, Slot.it or NSR. I'm as guilty as anybody, but we are the demographic, and once we are gone I just don't see the hobby continuing, I hope I'm wrong.

Think about it, how many under 25 year olds or under are posting on this site or SCI? Are there any? At least here in the U.S. I see slot car racing a lot like model trains or vintage aircraft; interesting as museum pieces or the unusual surviving hobby shop but not much more.

Sorry to be such a downer but that is where I think we are headed based upon the kids around me.

Ventura Alfa

[Ember]

[proxieken]

The post is hard to answer. My thoughts to the first part are- "digital". But then the part in parenthesis sort of eliminates that answer.

As mentioned before, HO slot cars are still going strong with guys running the T-Jet chassis. Pretty much I expect the rest will stay the same.

The real question on any hobby being sustainable is are the veterans willing to take the time to bring in new recruits? We ran the show at the fairgrounds last year and Carrera gave us some cars to use. There were kids beating them up for the entire day. I got a little worn out just putting them back on the track. I enlisted my kids to corner marshal. But the kids were very happy and a lot of the older folks would come by and tell about how they used to have one when they were younger. We wound up running a kids race and an older driver race alternating. Everyone had a great time and it seemed to be good exposure to the hobby.

If no one knows about the hobby it will not be given a chance to grow. And sometimes new people can be a pain in the butt so we treat them a little unwelcoming. No one wants their prize collection to be pulverized by some complete newbie. But the newbie has to start somewhere, and if the hobby is to grow and endure someone has to be willing to offer some help to new people and bear with them as you explain stuff.

My other hobby is wargaming. There are a lot of older folks in that hobby who simply do not have the patience to work a new player in to the hobby. I think maybe slot car racing will be fine and grow if we help some new folks along the way.

[frank9129]

I got caught up in the discussion and lost interest.
My thoughts are: If we continue to present our hobby to younger generations Slot Car Racing will continue to evolve.
I have a following. The kids that experience my track follow me where ever I go. I get stopped while shopping by kids, and their parents, asking where the next race will be.
The only thing I can't get them to do is buy their own cars to race. Some have been given tracks for holiday presents.
I'm finished...

[paul gage]

I'd like to hear from Dave Kennedy of Carrera USA on this subject. They seem to have a hold on the future marketing of slot cars in North America, the real RTR market, as in Ready To Retire. In Canada, and I'm told the US as well, Carrera listed three 1/32 Christmas sets in Parts Source Canada Auto Parts and PEP Boys chain in the States. 90 stores in Canada and 800+ in the US. We're not talking HO or 1/43 sets that would have listed in the ToysR Us type retail toy stores. If all they sold was 10 sets per store, that's 9000 potential returnees to the hobby. Fifty to sixty year olds who played with slot cars when they were kids. Based on my increased Carrera tire sales I suspect Carrera was very successful building the hobby in 2013, and their own bottom line of course. Mine too, thank you Carrera, keep it up please.

[dreinecke]

This is weird! I was just thinking last night I wonder if Paul has any indication of how the hobby is doing - and BAM! There he is! I suspected Carrera was trending upwards with their offerings and the quality, but most of all their prices!

[Xr4ti]

:angry-soapbox: As time goes by, we see fewer manufacturers. It will be like the first 'nuclear winter' was with only a few manufacturers of scale and the rest very specialized. Componentry will be of quality materials i.e. gears that don't strip, small items like mirrors and windshield wipers that don't break in a crash (more crashproof parts standard), and I see the price of slot cars probably doubling as new designs replace old ones. This slot car market has taken a huge hit lately and when you consider quality companies like SCX, Spirit, Revell-Monogram and Vanquish being non-profitable, it makes me wonder who is going to step up to replace them. The Chinese will only manufacturer very large lots of certain items and the hobby can't support it in it's current condition. Retail stores unable to sell at a standard margin when being undercut in price by someone on the internet will discourage further investment in the industry as there is very little profit left to be made. Without retail stores in public, like back in the '60's, the hobby enters a death spiral.

Xr4ti

[paul gage]

"death spiral" ????????? The only death spiral in the slot car hobby is it's members dying. I focus on the RTR Ready to Retire market. It's huge compared to the RTB Ready To Bury market! No offense intended old man! No arguement that we are losing members to age. That is not a sign with which to judge the health of the hobby though.

Manufacturers who recently went under did so from poor management. When Fly and SCX went under I saw no loss in volume. Scalex and Carrera sales went up. New manufacturing techniques will open profitable opportunities for small makers like Pioneer. Direct sales marketing will ensure they make suffucient profits to finace future product developments. The LHS must become more than a middle-man.
The largest core of members were not influenced by retail stores in the 60's, nor are they influenced by them now. They were far more influenced by color catalogs (and magazines). The ebay of the 60's. When the catalogs were replaced with shopping malls in the early 70's that was the end of the hobby in NA from the Cox, Eldon and Strombecker points of view. Not to mention the impact of the whole China thing, network and cable television advertising changes, etc etc.

If I were you, I'd get ready for big sales increases Dave. Most of the slotting enthusiasts I deal with are also plastic model builders, (4000+ mailing list and growing) they will need body work for their new slot car builds. It would surprise you how many tires I make for static display models. Jon would become a millionaire if he came out with a $49.95 tire/axle truing machine! Tire sales alone are trending such that I will pass the million dollar sales mark mid 2018. Give me a CNC lathe with live tooling, another million!

IGNORE THE CRITICS and get yourselves on eBay, it's business, not personal. Once sold, you can make it personal between you and your customer. That's Customer Service. That builds the hobby.

To think that this hobby is small and dying is a very myopic view if you ask me. If you make it, it will sell! Make yourself a good profit and you will be here tomorrow to sell more smiles! The biggest reward is seeing the smiles when new toy runs well!

[paul gage]

You're not a minority at all Dave. Future growth may be driven by the RTR segment, however, scratchbuilding played a large part holding this hobby together during it's decline in the 90's. It will play a large part again in the next decade. Thanks in no small part to the internet. New technologies will make it possible to scratchbuild anything you desire. Lots of todays RTR returnees will evolve into modellers and builders. It's in our nature. I am always envious of scratchbuilders as they can have almost any car they want. It will only get better. And you guys buy a lot of tires too!

BTW this discussion speaks nothing about the European slotting scenes.

I guess its obvious I see no dark clouds in the future of this hobby. Oh Ya! Digital too, yes, digital, digital, digital, there I said it. It's here to stay and will get better too. Enough lolllygagging, got to get to making more of the Kurtis Kraft tires for the next scratchbuild project! Back to work! My boss is looking over my shoulders...

[bobbyraz49]

Well... I race 1/32 Scaleys at a hobby shop in Buffalo on a very large 6 lane/200 foot Carrera analog track. Been doing so for 4 months. I am addicted !!
And it amazes me how many kids come with their own cars to race there. Perhaps it's a way to get kids out during a long Buffalo winter. None the less the kids love it. I try to avoid the track on weekends because so many kids are there.REALLY !!!
I was running one of my cars late fall and a guy comes in with his 6 year old son. The kid was amazed. I said try my car..but the dad was worried he would ruin my car. So I took out a Scaley GT-40 and said you can't break this one. He raced for over an hour as his dad and I marshalled. Thad (the kid) was about to leave because the kids were coming in to have an actual race. He said thank you Mr. Bob and shook my hand. I said....race my car !! What a smile on his face. So I marshalled for a couple hours , watching these kids enjoy MY hobby.
Now when I see Thad he always shows me his newest cars. He was so happy because he got a GT-40 just like mine.
Thad as you can tell is a very polite young man. His parents, still tell me how nice it was that I took the time to let him race.
He had his birthday party at the track and he must have close to a dozen cars. Ya' think I would get a commission ...LOL !!!
Sorry for my ramble but I had to share.
If ever in the Buffalo area...look me up and I'll meet you at "the track"
Best wishes and thanks to all those on this board for their assistance.

[Ember]

I think there is a big difference between the way the different continents look at the hobby.

Australia probably fits somewhere between Europe and the Americas in outlook. We are about as far spread as you lot, so big gatherings can be difficult.

I love the building and tinkering more than the driving. And I can see me doing more building as time (and scenic commitments) allows. But from the first day I expressed a wish to try brass I had an older British friend (first generation spotter, fairly recent returnee) question why I would want to.

But he's a speed freak. Every car gets a 29k + motor dropped into it. Guys here are more likely to go the other way. This displays a significant difference in outlook. I can't help but think that difference could be significant to the future.

[Dangermouse]

Great chat so far, it has been good reading the different slants to the discussion

I have edited the title slightly - to not only a digital discussion

I put the comment about digital there in the first place because I didn't want the thread to be a discussion where people said the future is digital and other people said it wasn't.

It wasn't put there to put people off talking about digital or saying the future is digital and I guess the only clarifies my intent a bit more.

The thread has headed off in directions far from where I was thinking (which is fine) it has been quite interesting reading.

There is a thread over on slot forum talking about engineering students working on a project - and I think what has come out of that discussion for me is that the chassis is probably the one are where improvements can be made for the future of slot racing, I don't know if this will happen but it seems strange to me that each new body design seems to be accompanied by a new chassis design as well. Sometimes these are good and sometimes not - some have room for a digital chip and other don't.

I was thinking that surely it would be easier to come up with a universal chassis that could be easily adjusted to fit a wide range of cars rather than designing a whole new chassis for each car.

If you had the one chassis then all you would need to do is the body and some detail parts around front and rear bumper areas and then away you go.

What do you think - will we see a better universal chassis in the future? Would the slot community want a universal chassis in each car like say the MSC or HRS chassis or not. Is this something that is actually workable

DM

[Xr4ti]

Composites, yes.
Universal chassis, no, but what you will see is chassis made of material that doesn't warp, bodies that don't warp but all this will come with a price increase. MRRC's Sebring chassis will not be as popular in an age of specialization where each car incorporates it's own design. One size fits all doesn't work for leading edge performance. Also, the performance tuning features will be incorporated into each design like adj. front axle ht., different motor pod compatability, adj. guide tongue length, suspension of independent front and rear wheels. All very specialized.

Xr4ti

[Dangermouse]

My best and fastest slot cars are my Plafit cars - they all run the same chassis with some minor adjustments for different car sizes, axle heights etc. These chassis run out about the cost of an NSR car to start with and you can add more with specialised parts and then you need to add the cost of the body so base price around $160 for a RTR car 1/24 car a bit less maybe for 1/32.

I figure with newer materials something like this could be done in a more affordable price range. With out the need to produce a new chassis mould for each car then that may mean the overall production cost is less thus the cars wouldn't need to be any more expensive to incorporate a adjustable universal chassis...

I find the chassis on cars vary so much that I sometimes was wishing that some companies just sold the painted body for half the price and let me do my own chassis.

Performance wise something like this walks all over the chassis in most RTR cars to me it makes sense to liberate the need to make a new chassis up for each new car which quite often gets messed up - this is also a lot better than a sebring or PCS chassis

[Dangermouse]

Not really saying only one universal chassis I suspect each company will come up with their own - the singular more refers to each company having a universal chassis for their cars -