When the news (prematurely) broke last week in Italy that the 2016 IFMAR Worlds for 1/8-Scale Off-Road would be held in Las Vegas, the Internet immediately burst into flames with angry keyboard cowboys lambasting the decision and scrambling for justification for their complaints. It's okay, though - I enjoy poking holes in their arguments on Facebook.
I, on the other hand, breathed a sigh of relief. And not just because it’s (by far) the closest, in both mileage as well as overall traveling time, of the three bidding facilities to my home.
The RC industry constantly plays tug-of-war with itself, grasping and yearning for more publicity while desperately clinging to the comfort of its anonymity. There’s a disconnect between those who cry for RC racing to be shown on network sports television, yet would rather its largest events be held in relative obscurity. You simply cannot have growth without giving up some of that privacy and warm “members only club” comfort.
This is not a dig at either Silver Dollar R/C Raceway or Thornhill R/C Circuit. Both are amazing racetracks. Thornhill did an incredible job with this year’s ROAR Nationals. Silver Dollar threw an absolutely spectacular Worlds for 1/10-scale electric off-road in 2013. These are two established, proven facilities that would go above and beyond what it took to host an IFMAR World Championship that would make U.S. racers proud.
That’s not at all what this is about. And it’s not about who “deserves” it, either. There should be no stigma around earning the right to spend/lose tens of thousands of dollars simply for the prestige of hosting a race like this. It’s about doing what’s best for the RC industry and for the IFMAR World Championships. That is all that should matter.
Conversations within LiveRC’s chat room, the Naxos World Track pit area, and social media were ablaze last week about the decision to hold such an event at a facility hidden within in a tiny Italian town, for a number of reasons. Shouldn’t the appropriate response from the U.S. be to perform the complete opposite, seizing the opportunity we get once every eight years to go in a completely different direction?
The IFMAR Worlds attracts hundreds of people from all over the world: racers, mechanics, officials, team managers, company representatives, members of the media, and spectators. I’m sure someone will nitpick on this statistic, but I bet it’s safe to assume fewer than 5% of those who attend the average IFMAR Worlds in any capacity are local to the track’s immediate vicinity. Wouldn’t it make the most sense, then, to put these races in tourist-friendly areas?
As remote as the vacation getaway town of Giardini Naxos is, it was less than 40 miles from the airport in Catania. And the hotels where a majority of the traveling circus stayed were just blocks away from the Mediterranean Sea (technically, it's the Ioanian Sea - thank you, Tyler Vik). That’s about as appealing to visitors as “middle of nowhere” can get.
You’d be hard-pressed to convince me that these races should be held anywhere outside of major cities like New York, Los Angeles, Orlando/Miami, or Las Vegas. I don’t care if it’s million-dollar facility that’s been around for decades, or a temporary track in the parking lot of a casino (which worked out pretty darn well in 2000). In fact, hosting the races at temporary tracks might make the most sense - you don’t risk bankrupting an existing local track and forcing it out of business, which has happened too many times after IFMAR Worlds and ROAR Nationals over the last couple of decades. But that's not the argument here - it was about choosing the best place (and not necessarily the best track) to host RC's largest bi-annual conglomeration.
Putting the 2016 IFMAR Worlds in Las Vegas raises its potential impact on the RC industry higher than anywhere else, regardless of the current state of the facility. I’m confident that Chris Tocco and RC Tracks Las Vegas will host a terrific event, and I will offer any sort of assistance that I can provide. We, as an RC community, would do well to help the event be a success rather than complain and try to drag it down because it won’t be in your backyard.
10/1/2014
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