VictoriaXmod teams up with IROCC??

[VictoriaXmod]

I'm in the process of starting a new store/club/coffeeshop for Xmods in the Victoria area and thought I'd check to see what kind of simular clubs already exist around here. Natrually I found IROCC. Is anyone with IROCC intrested or willing to chat with me about some ideas and possiblities? As any Rc owner knows one of the first questions they allways get asked is, How much for me to get set up and racing? Unfortunatly until the intoduction of Xmod's the answer was "More than you can afford :-) ". But with a xmod starter kit, One can start racing for under $100. And with the almost endless supply of upgrades and modifications avalible, speeds of up 40Mph are very much possible. Drop me a line if anyone's intrested in chatting with me about more details, Coffee's on me :-)

[0000000000]

A 1/28 scale track would be interesting. Just to let you know though, there are several other 1/28 scale cars than just the Xmod.

[Grinder]

Ohh... what about 1/18th scale?

Dave O. would be a good guy to talk to.  He set up a slot car shop which is similar to what you would be doing.

X-Mods would be interesting.  My main issue with them is the controler.  Can you use a different controler or are you stuck with the stock one?

[VictoriaXmod]

Yes of course, many different mediums other than Xmods, but I felt I would start with those just because I've become addicted to them :-), and from there I could set up different races for Mini-z's etc, just figured if I stuck with one type it would be less startup cost etc. and of course easier to manage classes. From what I can tell IROCC seems to have ample experience with Victoria's market and knows how much intrest there is, or could be. I came across that slot car site a while back, and thought about contacting him too. gotta start somewhere though. So any thoughts or concerns are welcome, let me know. Would you be willing to come by and have a cup of coffee etc, would you be intrested in playing a couple of rounds?, rentals or no rentals?, track fees?, upgrades onsite? etc. help me kick around some ideas, and possibly prevent me from sinking my life savings into some sort of fantasy that no one would end up going to. Or am I on to something here? I know from some research I've been doing that these Xmods are already big in the States, and until recently Canadian's could not get them due to radio shack's name problems. unless of course you get them direct from the states like I have. Well gotta go, but I look forward to taking in your opinions and advise. Perhaps I should stop by the track sometime, maybe someone will let me into there fun bubble :-) until next time.

[Grinder]

I'd definately be interested in checking it out - but then again I said I'd race and Elmo doll if it had four wheels...

Dave ran his slot cars as a business and its a really tough go here in Victoria.  Dave is also a member with the IROCC.  I'm sure he'd be willing to give you his opinion.  

Its a tough go for almost any retail/entertainment type business here in Victoria.  I worked as an electronics tech at JZ's arcade downtown for five years.  I talked to a lot of the local businesses and a lot of them struggled and many went under.  Downtown has been hurting for a lot of years unless its tourisim.

If you want to sell parts, etc you have to sell them at a competitive price.  Otherwise people will get them elsewhere and have to wait for the parts, etc and absent clients is loss business for you.  You also have to have a reason why people want to drive all the way out to your place instead of playing at home with the neighbours, etc.  A track is an excellent start.  How will you record lap times, etc?  We use a transponder system with our cars and some special computer software.  The transponders we use are likely too big for your cars but the personal transponders that are available may work as they are much smaller.

Rent and staffing is the major money drain.  Where will you make your profits from?

Its likely that it will be quite seasonal.  I know personally while racing is in full swing during the summer I'd be there less frequently as we have practice on Tuesday eve and racing all day Sunday.  Winter racing is only Saturday nights.

If you read through our forums you should be able to extract a major gem of knowledge for the sucess of IROCC.  That would be our Stock class electric racing.  A major part of the reason it is so sucessful is that racing comes down to driver ability and not who has the most amount of money to spend on their car.  Unless there is an even playfield there is no competition and without competition there is no interest - no interest no clinets - no clients no money.  On the other hand there are people who like to trick their x-mods out so how do you attract and keep those clients?

I personally bought an X-Mod here in Canada at Christmas but I took it back and got my TC-4 instead.  I was gonna put the Spinbrush motor and mod the FETs on the speed control....

Hey what size bearings do the X-Mods use?

If you think x-mods are fun you should come out and try 1/10th or 1/12th scale racing

[jarrodH]

the slot car store that dave owned with my dad and a few others was going really well, considering where it was. but people differences got in the way of it all

[VictoriaXmod]

Grinder, Thanks for the input, I appreciate your honesty. Victoria's intrest in Rc's and xmod's in general is what I was mostly worried about. I felt that would be the most important factor in this whole thing. As far as the shop goes I would have to make the Coffee/shop part secondary and make the main focus the track. I've already made a sizeable order with www.microtracksystems.com which of course I'd use myself if the bussiness idea doesn't take off. Like you said if there isn't something like an ever growing track to get people to come back then poeple would probably just show up once and buy elsewhere and then of course settle for some backyard racing. There are people using lap timeing devices for Xmods, I think they use some sort of reflective tape on the antenna. I would have to look into that a bit more. Perhaps I should take your advice and just start racing with you guys. Then I would have a better idea if victoria can handle another track/club. as far as your competition concern goes, I figured most people would start with the stock class, which in most cases is fast enough for a beginner, and then from there of course I would have to have modified classes etc. Well I gotta go now and see if I have the winning bid on an ebay Xmod yet, check it out and let me know what you think :

http://cgi.ebay.ca/AtomicMods-Los-Alamos-XMOD-Turnkey_W0QQitemZ5996375197QQcategoryZ2565QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[Grinder]

Personally I wouldn't go with that type of system.  There is a lot of nice stuff on there but there are two things that stick out to me.  I know the Li-Ion batteries are a common mod for the X-Mods but they are a dated technology.  Li-Ion are usually only capable of 1 or 2C.  For example if you have 1400 mAh Li-Ion you can draw 1.4 to 2.8A continuous.  Li-Poly batteries are able to source up to 20C so a 1400 mAh battery will give you up to 28A continous.  They also have a high voltage under load.  The other thing I noticed is they are using a brushed motor.  These are noisy (electronicaly that is - reducing the range of your receiver) and inefficient.  A brushless system will give you a lot more power and longer run times (not that these cars don't already get excessive run times!)  I don't know what is available for these cars in brushless but for 1/18th and 1/10th scale they are amazing!

For that kind of money you could get an X-Ray 1/18th scale and a brushless motor and eat that car for breakfast.  Of course if its an X-Mod you want I'd try and get a brushless and Li-Po into it somehow - it would walk away...

[snap2]

VictoriaXmod,

Just wondering if you've considered a 12th scale track in addition to Xmods? We are in need of a new location right now. Here's a link to the current thread, if you haven't read it already.

http://www.irocc.ca/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=632

Cheers,

Damon

[OX]

Jarrod is not quite correct in his assumption for the reason of the demise of the slot-car store that I co-owned with his dad, his Uncle and Barry L. Jarrod was quite young at the time and wouldn't know what really happened, he may have overheard some talk, but that didn't tell him whole story. Yes there were some personal differences in the end amongst the partners that I'm sure could have been worked out if we had been making a profit! It started out great, we were all getting along and we were open for a couple of years. The breakdown was that we did not make one cent of profit or wages, at first this was ok and expected with a new business, then it became stressful for all of us, we would make money in the Winter and spend it all and more to survive the Summer. It was our first business and we all made a few mistakes, we all lost money! and we all worked our butts off! I personally have no hard feelings towards the partners about the whole deal, and try only to remember the good times.  

In my opinion there are problems with running this type of business that you or anyone else considering should watch for. I think R/C  racing would have similar issues as a slot-car business would have, so here are some of them.

1. Real-estate is way too expensive in Victoria, doesn't matter if your buying or leasing, let's face it, landlords here are greedy. Landlords would rather have an empty building for years then rent at a reasonable rate, too many tax breaks for them in my opinion, one way or another they will try to screw you unless you can partner with a building owner. Unfortunately slot-cars and R/C cars require allot of square footage for track layouts, our first store was over $3000 a month rent and my second attempt started at $1600 a month for 1/3rd of the space of the first store. Don't forget the bills! heat, electricity, advertising, handicap access, washrooms, banking charges, Government licensing and insurance... and more. Make sure you have allot of money for advertising!

2. Victoria's weather is much too moderate, our Spring starts early and our Summer ends quite late, people tend to spend at least 6 months doing outdoor activities. In cities in Eastern Canada and the States it's quite a different story, a business like this flourishes because the extreme weather forces people to stay indoors for a good portion of the year, in fact they even do well in the extreme Summer heat if the store has air conditioning.

3. From my experience if you have too many different racing classes going on it will help to kill your business. You need to listen to your clients to some degree but don't jump on every whim they have, they don't know how to run your business, you must make your own business decisions based on hard financial facts. I recommend you decide on 2 or 3 racing classes and stick with them, anymore than that and you end up with just a few drivers in each class and allot more money tied up in inventory. You can always stop a class that doesn't appear to be attracting racers at the end of a season and try something new, or run test races to see what interest there is for a new class. It's way more fun for everybody involved when you have 20+ racers with 1 or 2 different classes then if you have only 4 or 5 racers in several different classes. IROCC is doing it right by only having stock touring and gas touring in the summer and only 1/12 carpet in the winter. If the IROCC members could override the executive and have their own way they would have about 10 different classes and the club would last about 10 minutes.

4. Wholesale hobby prices are high and mark-up for this industry is low, ask Garnet of BC Shaver, you wonder why his prices seem high until you try to run your own hobby business. A good example from my slot-car store was when we bought some slot-car race sets from our wholesaler and then we noticed they were on sale at ToysRus for less then our wholesale price, how can you compete with Walmart and ToysRus who buy by the train load, and now you have eBay to contend with as well, the only way is to sell what they don't sell, but is that enough. Most of your stock will ship out of the US and some suppliers demand minimum orders that are in the thousands before they will sell to you. You will find that your customers are loyal until they find something for a couple of bucks cheaper somewhere else and they will also think if they spend $200 or $300 bucks at your store that you owe them some sort of big discount for being the best customer or something like that Returns are something that the chain stores give too easily these days and now all customers expect a return if they are not happy with what they bought. A small store cannot afford to give refunds unless the product is defective from the factory because how can you re-sell something that has been opened or used to someone else and still make a profit, you can't send it back to the manufacture unless it is defective from the factory.

5. I think you should build your own tracks, it will be allot cheaper then buying them. Check out Adam Baxter's Mini-z track on my video page and my 1/24 scale Nascar slot-car track, both these tracks are home built and allot of fun. http://homepage.mac.com/slotcar/Menu3.html

6. You won't make much money off of the racers, they like to think they are the bread and butter of the operation but the truth is it is the casual drop in renters and families and the children's birthday parties that will keep your store alive, and perhaps some team building corporate bookings if your good at selling yourself.

7. Oh and while I'm giving my personal opinions, I think Xmods are not very well built, the lack of detail sucks and they have very little turning radius out of the box and the factory controller is garbage. Mini-z's are much nicer looking, handle better and have much nicer hand controllers and you can buy a module to use an Airtronics M8 controller. There are other small R/C cars with Lexan bodies and four wheel drive that would most likely stand up better to rental abuse.

I hope this helps you VictoriaXmod.

[VictoriaXmod]

Indeed that does help Ox, I thank you for taking the time to provide me some of your advice. And by thre sound of it, your advice is from some hard earned, blood and sweat. although by the sounds of things, if a few curcumstances where different you would have yourself a very nice hobby/bussiness. I have for the past 5years been very invloved with a local computer store chain, so I can apreciate where your coming from in respect for location costs and cost of supply/returns. without boring you all with the excat blueprints of my bussiness (which if you couldn't tell by now is mostly all in my head, except for my personal stash of xmods). I wasn't really planning on providing goods to the extent of shavers, or that of a regular store.  I think I was thinking more along the line of providing stock cars, and access to parts via me and a US supplier. I agree with your point on family and drop in's being the main focus of the bussiness. I figured the first place I'd give cupons etc would be to big brothers and big sisters, or something to that effect. Any of course the track being the main attraction, if the track can develop over time, It will keep people coming back, I'd call it a form of advertising. So many good points to respond to but I wouldn't want to waste everyone's time on this board reading it. Although I wouldn't mind picking your brain even more. Like how much was alot of money wasted, or even see if you could think of ways around our problems, like lets say it's not a bussiness etc. save money on govermental fee etc. perhaps my bussiness could be a traveling bussiness, using town halls, peoples big yards etc. You kinda sound like you've thrown in the towel along time ago, forgive me if I'm wrong. Perhaps you'd like to give it another try, perhaps if only through disscussion, I will try to keep people updated as I know there's alot of people still looking for places to race. I'll look at the other post that was recomended a little closer, I think that guy was looking for some donations in the form of a warehouse or smoething like that.

[VictoriaXmod]

Indeed that does help Ox, I thank you for taking the time to provide me some of your advice. And by thre sound of it, your advice is from some hard earned, blood and sweat. although by the sounds of things, if a few curcumstances where different you would have yourself a very nice hobby/bussiness. I have for the past 5years been very invloved with a local computer store chain, so I can apreciate where your coming from in respect for location costs and cost of supply/returns. without boring you all with the excat blueprints of my bussiness (which if you couldn't tell by now is mostly all in my head, except for my personal stash of xmods). I wasn't really planning on providing goods to the extent of shavers, or that of a regular store.  I think I was thinking more along the line of providing stock cars, and access to parts via me and a US supplier. I agree with your point on family and drop in's being the main focus of the bussiness. I figured the first place I'd give cupons etc would be to big brothers and big sisters, or something to that effect. Any of course the track being the main attraction, if the track can develop over time, It will keep people coming back, I'd call it a form of advertising. So many good points to respond to but I wouldn't want to waste everyone's time on this board reading it. Although I wouldn't mind picking your brain even more. Like how much was alot of money wasted, or even see if you could think of ways around our problems, like lets say it's not a bussiness etc. save money on govermental fee etc. perhaps my bussiness could be a traveling bussiness, using town halls, peoples big yards etc. You kinda sound like you've thrown in the towel along time ago, forgive me if I'm wrong. Perhaps you'd like to give it another try, perhaps if only through disscussion, I will try to keep people updated as I know there's alot of people still looking for places to race. I'll look at the other post that was recomended a little closer, I think that guy was looking for some donations in the form of a warehouse or smoething like that.