Comp Crawling Qualifier Attendance by Year (2012-2014)

[SkaldidDog]

I figured I'd back all of the well-founded speculation with some numbers.

Numbers are graphed below.



Comments and questions welcome.

J

[Frankenwheely]

I'm sure some will blame the economy. Or the rise in scaler popularity. But after Nationals last year, I saw a lot of drivers just fall off the map. With no rhyme or reason. Not that they have to report to RCC of why they disappeared.

[TheAxialNut]

WOW! Now thats sad for someone like me, who saw the tail end of the peak and joined in too late... Man I just got my XR10 in Dec. 2011, and this last season was the first for me to compete, with no issues, or set-up changes every comp (tuning pains).

I hope this is just a cyclical lull in the participation, and maybe with a new release like the RC4WD axles or something else will reignite the passion to comp.

As a 2.2P competitor, I have seen it first hand (the decline), just less and less cars showing up to the comps, good and bad for me right, good cause I move up in rank when someone above me quits! But on the other hand by that theory I will be the only one in the series to be in first place! lol Plus I would rather drive with others to "see" new paths/lines, talk with drivers, etc, than to worry about how I am ranked. I care a little.

Well I know that there will be still a handful of comp'ers that will squeeze one more year in (at least), and get more drive time out of our rigs, I know that with WCRCC I will be getting up at 3:30am to get out to the comp site to help set-up at least one 2.2P course, and hopefully get some 1.9 scale action to wind down the day from comp'ing...

[nappahdog]

all we can do is try, I really hope new products will help. SWSC last weekend wasn't really huge either.


I really thought the shootout would have exploded this year 50-70 drivers is what I had expected.

[Jslick]

Thanks Joel for posting up the numbers. It is good to know what they are. I hope that the dedicated will continue on and encourage others to try crawling out.

[ROWDY RACING]

Originally Posted by Jslick

Thanks Joel for posting up the numbers. It is good to know what they are. I hope that the dedicated will continue on and encourage others to try crawling out.

We are trying but in this age of entitlement many prefer hobbies where everyone is a winner, and nothing is earned.

[EeePee]

Originally Posted by TheAxialNut

I hope this is just a cyclical lull in the participation, and maybe with a new release like the RC4WD axles or something else will reignite the passion to comp.

It has been a cycle. I guess one could say the TLT or Clod axles could be the first peak, but the Bergs smothered em. Killed em. Creamed em. But it got expensive, so forget it, I'm done. What? Axial has a "comp ready" MOA? Alright I'm in. Wait, I've spent how much again?

[EvilTwin v2]

There are several factors that have gone into us losing attendance. There's been issues with:
1. management of the USRCCA (Jason and Badger have their hands full with this site, but when they tried to hand the reigns over, the person taking over made us look like a laughing stock and lost us industry support from companies like ProLine forever). The USRCCA was at it's peak, and had showed incredible growth. We had the industry looking at us to be the next big thing, but the actions of one person killed it. With Fish in charge, it's been better, but he was handed a bit of a sinking ship.
2. top level competitors getting burned out and/or becoming a vendor, and leaving the hobby (best way to ensure you don't enjoy a hobby is let it become your job...it loses it's fun quickly, especially when you hear all the whining and bitching about your product from people who want to you give it to them for free).
3. Brian Parker (somebody very respected in the industry and our segment of RC's) leaving the USRCCA and forming his own comp format, rather than trying to introduce it as an option within the USRCCA. Not only did he go, but he took the date and venue for the West Coast Championships as the time for his Axialfest or whatever he called his big comp. I don't know if he was butt-hurt from not gaining partial control of USRCCA after Worlds 2009 or what, but he furthered the image that we are an unorganized group with drama and in-fighting.
4. Lack of industry support (alot of this has to do with what the mismanagement of Proline Worlds 2009 by King Bling...which included abusing his role as rules martial to run an illegal truck). After all, why should the industry provide major support for a segment of the hobby that appeared to be so unprofessionally managed. Somebody can't just walk into their local hobby shop and see comp rigs/kits on the shelf along with competitive upgrades.

One of the biggest factors, though, and the one that we can change moving forward, especially with the qualifiers, is the elitist attitude that has turned away the casual competitor. No, I'm not saying everybody should win, but the idea that courses need to be extremely tough has ruined the experience for so many up and coming and/or casual competitors.

On top of the thousands of dollars we already spent on the trucks, to go to a qualifier, they now need to take time off work, pay for a hotel room, meals on the road, gas, etc... All this to go to a comp, run 3-6 courses and be lucky to get through 1 or 2 gates per course. There's no satisfaction there.

So that guy ends up with a negative attitude toward the hobby in general. I, personally, took it as a goal that I wanted to get better so that I could finish more courses and place higher. However, many people that get into this hobby realize that they're not going to win. They're looking for a venue to run a truck and have fun. Our comp rigs, while impressive in what they're capable of doing, aren't a lot of fun to just run through the woods, so they look toward the competitions as the only time they really run them. If the only experience they have is frustration at only running 10' and 1 or 2 gates of a course, they're soon going to become frustrated and find something that gives them some satisfaction and feel of accomplishment.

Many of these guys moved on to the scalers. With a scaler, if they can't get through a section, they winch through. They cover 100 times as much ground and get the satisfaction of accomplishment of finishing the course. Even in racing, the slowest guy still gets to drive his laps.

Now, I've heard the argument several times calling these people out for having entitlement issues or expecting to be handed a win. There are a few like that, but for most, that's simply not the case. Often times, it's the guys who travel to the qualifiers and compete at the higher level that are organizing the comps, setting up the courses, and conveying the attitude that this is the level we need to keep the comps. Unfortunately, that makes everybody but the top level competitor feel like they don't stand a chance and that the hobby just isn't for them.

I've been preaching this point for the past few years, and it finally looks like people are taking notice, especially with the introduction of the Trail Class. If you want to keep people coming back, you have to give them a good experience. When it comes to courses, the course needs to be able to be finished by the majority of the competitors...especially at the qualifiers. Use bonus gates to separate the field. The better competitors will run cleaner and will have the challenge of the bonus gates to keep them feeling competitive at a higher level, yet the rest of the people will feel the accomplishment. Honestly, back when ECC used to get 120 drivers, I bet only 20-25 of them ever thought they had a chance of winning. The others were there for everything else it had to offer.

Let people feel like their money was well spent. Get them having fun, and you'll keep them coming back. Limit them to only a handful of gates they can drive and you're going to find fewer and fewer people attending. Assure that it's fun for them and they'll return, and maybe even bring friends.

[GySgt Hartman]

Originally Posted by EvilTwin v2

...

1) Expecting large profit driven companies like Losi and Axial to support the incredibly small segment of comp crawlers was destined to fail from the beginning.

2) The spirit within crawling moved from having fun (2004) to win at all costs (2009), let's start here in identifying why it's been dying off. Hell I'll even ask, did MOA start this downward trend? Going out with friends on the weekends and working at beating an obstacle is one thing, guys spending hours and hours alone honing their skills just to beat everybody else is another.

Brian simply identified what brought 90% of us to the hobby in the first place, which was having fun with friends and wheeling. Quite frankly without somebody like him cheer-leading this to the masses, encouraging people from all skill levels to come out and have FUN, I'd speculate if Axial would have continued to support crawlers/scalers at all...

[nappahdog]

The courses were just as tough and there was just as much money , if not more , into the rigs at SWSC. The format was the same pretty much and you can get around the winch factor easily, 8 minute courses made for a little more drive time but not much, there were still those that didn't finish a single course all weekend. I really don't understand why everyone is scared if the comp side looking at SWSC.

[ROWDY RACING]

Originally Posted by nappahdog

The courses were just as tough and there was just as much money , if not more , into the rigs at SWSC. The format was the same pretty much and you can get around the winch factor easily, 8 minute courses made for a little more drive time but not much, there were still those that didn't finish a single course all weekend. I really don't understand why everyone is scared if the comp side looking at SWSC.

Because G6 kicks USRCCA and SORRCA's ass when it comes to number of drivers.

[Calderwood]

Why don't we have any format that uses comp rigs on a 20+ minute course? I really think we need to take some hints from racing which is always popular. People want drive time and they aren't getting it from comp crawling.

[EvilTwin v2]

Originally Posted by Calderwood

Why don't we have any format that uses comp rigs on a 20+ minute course? I really think we need to take some hints from racing which is always popular. People want drive time and they aren't getting it from comp crawling.

I don't like buying new servos enough to want to run 20 minute courses. Besides. If the courses aren't built such that the masses can finish them, I doesn't matter how much time you give. It'll just be 20 minutes of watching the guy fight gate 2.

[EvilTwin v2]

Originally Posted by GySgt Hartman

1) Expecting large profit driven companies like Losi and Axial to support the incredibly small segment of comp crawlers was destined to fail from the beginning.

2) The spirit within crawling moved from having fun (2004) to win at all costs (2009), let's start here in identifying why it's been dying off. Hell I'll even ask, did MOA start this downward trend? Going out with friends on the weekends and working at beating an obstacle is one thing, guys spending hours and hours alone honing their skills just to beat everybody else is another.

Brian simply identified what brought 90% of us to the hobby in the first place, which was having fun with friends and wheeling. Quite frankly without somebody like him cheer-leading this to the masses, encouraging people from all skill levels to come out and have FUN, I'd speculate if Axial would have continued to support crawlers/scalers at all...

In 2009, the hobby was growing like crazy. Brian's biggest mistake was associating himself with somebody who cared more about his own good time and success than that of the hobby. It's a real shame that he hadn't gone into Worlds 2009 with a partner who wasn't so self serving. I think with the right partner, he could have done great things and kept comp crawling moving in the right direction.

My only real issue with Brian was how he left the USRCCA and the back handed comments he made publicly, putting it down, in order to promote his own comp format. (I'm not referring to G6, but the other multi-lap format.)

[Calderwood]

Originally Posted by EvilTwin v2

I don't like buying new servos enough to want to run 20 minute courses. Besides. If the courses aren't built such that the masses can finish them, I doesn't matter how much time you give. It'll just be 20 minutes of watching the guy fight gate 2.

If you can't keep a servo in your rig for 20m courses you have a setup problem. 20 minute courses give the opportunity to build a different style course than what is currently "popular". If we have more gates they don't need to be as difficult. Do you remember how bad it sucked to get a 5-10 question test in school. A couple mistakes failed you. The frustration level is huge for a "less than top shelf" driver. A 20-30 gate course that reads more like a g6 course would be awesome. 5-10 bonus gates would give the best drivers a place to prove themselves and the 20-30 regular gates would sort out the rest of the field.

[EvilTwin v2]

Originally Posted by Calderwood

If you can't keep a servo in your rig for 20m courses you have a setup problem. 20 minute courses give the opportunity to build a different style course than what is currently "popular". If we have more gates they don't need to be as difficult. Do you remember how bad it sucked to get a 5-10 question test in school. A couple mistakes failed you. The frustration level is huge for a "less than top shelf" driver. A 20-30 gate course that reads more like a g6 course would be awesome. 5-10 bonus gates would give the best drivers a place to prove themselves and the 20-30 regular gates would sort out the rest of the field.

It's not a setup problem. It's an available terrain problem. Maybe you have enough rock to setup courses like that, but most people don't.

As for the servos, most of our comps (and most clubs' that aren't near naturally rocky terrain) are on stacked rock, dam spillways, shotcrete, etc. the terrain is very hard on servos and motors and esc's. They need to cool down between runs.

Next thing is who is going to judge? In that same 20 minutes of one course, we are running 2 to 3 courses simultaneously, so with 5 minute courses, we have had 8-12 drivers run. With more realistic courses, the drivers are having fun, there's plenty of people to judge.

What you're proposing you'd need to have at least 4 drivers on course at a time, each with their own judge/ scorekeeper, and it's much harder on the equipment. I'm usually pretty open minded to trying new things, but for our current style of comp crawlers, that simply won't work.

[SkaldidDog]

***Updated with 2011 data and Nats data. Please let me know if you see any glaring mistakes.

If one takes on this hobby solely to do well at big comps without putting in the hours they will be disappointed. As much fun as big events are I feel you must love the design, hand build (not purchase), tuning and endless hours of practice in small groups or alone. Newbs need to embrace this. If build/tune/build/tune turns one on, then they will enjoy the big events more from a driving standpoint (more likely not to fail on course). Free crawling just plain sick "bounty" lines makes me smile the most, especially when shared with friends. I get pumped every time I learn that my rig sucks in some way because that's one more thing I get to tune out and one more excuse to drive with friends and learn.

But we need a DRIVERS classification that covers pro and shaftsman dammit!!!! Trail class just brings in scalers that will never make the jump to pro because they will get killed in the just as competitive current shaftsman class.

I agree with Rowdy that the loss of XR support (and it's cost to trick out) hurt comp crawling bad. Good points on the downside of the transition to being a vendor Evil.

Looking forward to AZ this weekend. It'll be a blast.

J

[Frankenwheely]

Originally Posted by Calderwood

Why don't we have any format that uses comp rigs on a 20+ minute course? I really think we need to take some hints from racing which is always popular. People want drive time and they aren't getting it from comp crawling.

Comp rigs on a 20 minute course? You might as well put a MOA on a G6 course. Battery life and rig capability gets lost in the scaler comp mix.

Originally Posted by EvilTwin v2

I've been preaching this point for the past few years, and it finally looks like people are taking notice, especially with the introduction of the Trail Class. If you want to keep people coming back, you have to give them a good experience. When it comes to courses, the course needs to be able to be finished by the majority of the competitors...especially at the qualifiers. Use bonus gates to separate the field. The better competitors will run cleaner and will have the challenge of the bonus gates to keep them feeling competitive at a higher level, yet the rest of the people will feel the accomplishment. Honestly, back when ECC used to get 120 drivers, I bet only 20-25 of them ever thought they had a chance of winning. The others were there for everything else it had to offer.

That works.

[JeremyH]

Originally Posted by Frankenwheely

I'm sure some will blame the economy. Or the rise in scaler popularity. But after Nationals last year, I saw a lot of drivers just fall off the map. With no rhyme or reason. Not that they have to report to RCC of why they disappeared.

I blame Twinkies. Those little things are just too good and distract me....

[4xFord]

I haven't seen it touched on, but accessibility is a huge issue.

There is a strong barrier to entry. Convincing a family that you should spend your limited time and funds traveling to an RC comp in BFE is tough. Comps that run from 7am to 9pm for 2-3 days is out of control.

For me I just could not justify it to myself anymore. Flights, rental cars, couple hours drive from airports to comp spots, expensive yet shitty hotels, etc. At the same time that I was getting tired of the traveling, I had personal gripes about the course format changes and ridiculously long length of competitions.

Nationals 2012 I didn't get to have a single dinner with friends, for me seeing everyone was half the fun. On the other hand Nationals 2011 ended by 5pm everyday and you had Vegas for the rest of the day/night.

I enjoyed the competition side, but the camaraderie and fun that came along with it kept me coming back more than anything else.

I think Carey is right about having generally complete able courses with tough bonuses. If you want numbers and new blood that is.