19 replies to this topic

[MSwiss]

I have scouting events with groups in the mid-20s, and an occasional church group in the low 30s, but today's day camp event was easily my biggest ever.
 
75 kids, racing in nine 8-heat races, brought in in two waves, late morning and early afternoon.

 

 

 

[Tim Wilkins]

Great! Kids are the future of slot car racing.  

[MattD]

Really nice, Mike.

[Tom Eatherly]

75 kids! Man, that is good. Busy day.

[MSwiss]

And 17 more 11-year old boys tonight, to go along with a couple parties, on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon.

I'm beaten like a drum. LOL.

[Eddie Fleming]

Sounds like you are doing a great job of marketing.

 

Keep it rolling if you can stand it. 

[NSwanberg]

Mike, did you have any help for the day?

[Racer36]

This is a great example of patience and tolerance that is the exception rather than the rule in this day and age. It should be commended.

For all those kids to put up with Mike Swiss that long is a testament to their upbringing. Kudos to them.    

[Cheater]

I think Mike has a lot more patience with the kids than with adults... LOL!

[MSwiss]

And a ton more patience with the kids than with adults like you. LOL.

[MSwiss]

Sounds like you are doing a great job of marketing.
 
Keep it rolling if you can stand it.

 
I'm not much of a marketer.

I have a sandwich sign I set up near the (very busy) street, and have some vinyl lettering in my window.

I also have some small, free listings, in "Stuff for kids to do", type publications.

Most of parties, I think, come from word of mouth.

In the case of the day camp, they are from pretty far away, and somehow found me, after being given the runaround by an R/C place much closer to them.
 

Mike, did you have any help for the day?

 
Not for the day camp. I showed the staff what to do on the flat track, while I ran the "official" races on the King.

In the evening, Jim, who runs the place when I'm on vacation, helped me marshal.

[Martin]

Good to see new blood in the sport. Great job, Mike.

 

Please let us know how many come back and get involved. This is the age most of us got hooked.

[kvanpelt]

For all those kids to put up with Mike Swiss that long is a testament to their upbringing. Kudos to them.    

 
He's ours and we love him, warts and all! 

[Dave Crevie]

Right. Catch 'em young. I was eleven when I had my first exposure to slot racing.

 

Mike is right, the kids are better behaved than many adults. Do they live close enough to come back with their parents? Maybe a summer kids series is possible.

[MSwiss]

Dave,

 

They were from Arlington Heights.

 

I wish it wasn't the case, but as I've said before, parties just seem to lead to more parties.

 

When you were 11, you didn't have computers and cell phones to distract you.

[Dave Crevie]

No, I didn't. Go-karts and Mini-bikes were the distraction by the time I hit my teens. Up till then playing baseball in the street was the competing activity.

 

The Eldon set I had at 11 did lead to my going to commercial tracks. 

[JK Products]

Congratulations, Mike, I think this is great! I'll be talking to you about your success and what ideas you have on the event.

[Dave Crevie]

If you set up a race for such a group, maybe some kind of prize for the winner. When I was a teen my local track gave cheap ribbons on their big race night. I never won one, but it was incentive to build faster cars.

It might be incentive for the kids to come back to such special events, even though we don't have prizes for
the weekly races.

[Phil Smith]

I wish it wasn't the case, but as I've said before, parties just seem to lead to more parties.

 
Everyone seems to be missing that. I remember you stating that before. Most kids just don't care about slot cars anymore. Too many other more appealing options.

 

I bought my grand kids an HO set for Christmas. They don't even look at it, much less play with it.

[jimht]

I've done this off and on during the Summer with daycare myself... best/worst was 100 kids a day for five days with four different daycare centers.

 

It can best be described as awareness advertising except they pay you for the awareness.

 

All the kids have fun playing with the cars (or just chasing/marshaling them)... racing? hah! A race occurs whenever two cars get close on the track.

 

Remember that during the heyday of this stuff in the '60s there were so many people playing on the tracks that there was hardly any time for organized racing and the proprietors at that time were quite happy with that. Wildcat race, five laps, go!

 

It was only after it all "died" that there was real racing.

Of course, by then there was no money in it, just like now.

 

If we had stuff like this going on all the time it would be great but the truth is the designs of most tracks now are not friendly to the younger beginners or this sort of thing. Too big, too fast, too tall, etc. etc.

 

That said, it's worth doing the legwork to get this kind of business... not to get new racers, just to make a buck.