MOD

Hello Everyone! An update for all those competing in the MOD Grand National West Series. We have a venue change for our next round! Apple Bashing RC Raceway located at 12760 Japatul rd, Apple Valley, CA, United States 92307, will be our venue for the next series round. Currently the dates are set at the original Sept 18-20 but we are solidifying dates with the venue it may shift up or back 1 weekend depending on logistics. We will know by early this coming week. We want to thank our previous venue Speedlot RC Raceway and hope to see them in 2027! For this year we will be hitting up our friends in Apple Valley at Apple Bash RC Raceway coming up in September! See everyone there and let your friends know. Updated flier to follow.

MOD Hobbies / Modspeedshop.com is on site at Thunder Alley for the JBRL! Thank you to all the racers for patroning and supporting, we are here for you! Thank you for the hospitality from Chris Nelson of Thunder and Jimmy Babcock of JBRL. Glad we can help the racers keep running. Come by and say hi! If you dont catch us at Thunder we are open Monday- Friday at MOD Hobbies in Anaheim, CA about 2 minutes from Huckleberry RC Racetrack and SCOR off the 91/55. We got the race goodies ya need.

Happy Birthday America! We hope everyone has an amazing and safe day on this historic 250! Thank you to all that have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms we enjoy each and everyday. GOD BLESS from all of us here at MOD.

We are sad to hear about the closing of ONE Racing. An amazing facility we were able to do live coverage for the INS14 and I believe 13 as well. The owner Mike is an amazing advocate for RC and know they had transferred from dirt to carpet with success. I read through the post they made about their last race coming up as they are closing the doors. It is a continuous cycle we have all come accustom too. The major points he pointed too were too few racers buying from local shops, to many sponsored drivers, not enough people in the doors for it to make sense, and rent going up continuously.

I was discussing this very thing with a good friend of mine about that at least in California there will soon be no more indoor facilities after the current ones are gone (at least for 10th scale). We know this is a cynical take but the math doesn't math with the current state that we are in. Currently speaking all viable industrial style shops are wanting 1.50-1.75 a square foot. On the low end for a 15,000 square foot facility with 5,000-7000 track and the rest designated for pits and hobby shop. That puts you on the low end of $22,500 a month at least here in Socal. With margins from distributors / retailers your looking at 20-40% on product. So for easy math at 30% margin you need to be doing $75,000 in monthly revenue on product just to make rent (not including race entries). That doesn't include insurance, doesn't include employees, doesn't include the product you purchased that is sitting on the shelves, doesn't include all the other expenses for the business or heck the build out cost of the facility which is roughly 100-250K with stocking a shop and getting it going.

And we expect indoor facilities to be able to make it on 20-40% margin and $20-25 dollar entry fees? Most of the time people not buying there gear from the shops? Its a major uphill battle that does not make sense or pencil out for the owner. The part that would make sense is that the owner has a major bank roll and owns the facility and land and loves the hobby. Owning a building is a whole different discussion as a viable facility is around 5-10 million in cost again doesn't pencil out for a small business owner.

So what do we do? How do we get more people into racing without designated race shop businesses helping find the new generations of racers? The answer is we wont. The current generation of racers is much older and we see a large shift to 1/8 as of late because the cost of the business / the land is alot less or someone has a plot or fairgrounds they can get for fairly cheap and can put the money from race entries back into the track keeping their overhead low, this also is usually a side hustle and not their main business.

So moving forward getting new racers through the doors? In our opinion its a hard pill to swallow to buy a $2500 raceable 1/8 buggy / Truggy (car, electronics, radio, charger, batteries) and hand a land missile of a machine to a new young racer, 1/10 is a much more suitable class for this entry level. Besides the fact if your not knowledgeable on the direction to go there is so much information and misinformation out there on vehicles, components and setup that you get lost before you even start. So its awesome to have a local race shop to guide you in the right direction have a knowledgeable staff and get ya off on the right foot, this is what indoor facilities have provided to the racing community it just doesn't math for them as the cards are stacked against them needing a massive indoor track attached.

So thats why you see local hobby shops carrying traxxas, arrma, redcat, axial, a shift from anything competition to something quick, easy, and most likely RTR. The shops nor staff is knowledgeable about racing they look at you like your crazy or we don't carry that here and how can we blame them!? The kit cars are twice the cost and the same margins as a ready to run arrma. Those kit cars in a normal hobby shop will become dead stock or outdated in 6 months as its a dead market for their region as there is no tracks to run them at.

We can go round and round about this but we have a major disconnect of getting fresh blood into our hobby and it starts with the indoor facilities that are open from 9-5 365 for the general public to find and enjoy. The indoor facilities are a feeder group for all other scales of racing we enjoy today.

In a small way MOD is trying to help bridge the gap in our local area. We opened MOD Hobbies in Anaheim as a pure race shop to help with our local outdoor tracks Huckleberry RC Raceway / SCOR Raceway. We as well are met with the same problems just not as much as an indoor 1/10 track as we are smaller. Our rent has continuously bumped now up to 30-40% just from 6 years ago. Used to be a $1.00 a square foot now we are up to 1.43 for our hobby shop and related shops for the business. Putting us at $7400 a month for the shops we currently occupy. And from what we hear our rent is low and will be getting a 5% bump a year for the next 8 years due to inflation and insurance from what they say. Doesn't sound like alot but monthly compounded we are looking at $4000 year one total, 8,000 year two, 12,000 year three you get the gist.

We know this is probably boring to read but its what all indoor track owners and business owners are going through. Margins to low, rent too high and continuously going up, and people buying online (not their local race tracks online store). Soon there will be no shops, owners will try and work from their homes and downsize to save the business, and everything will be online sales, with little to no in person help. A slow death for us all.

If you want to curve this change be the change. Buy from your local Race Hobby Shop, patron your local tracks and go above and beyond to help if needed. These places exist for us to escape the mundane and viscous world we see today to play and compete with your friends in pretty much a real life video game. Enjoy the days you have get your kids and friends into the hobby and once again shop local or at the ones that are directly supporting the local facilities.

- Matthew Olson - MOD

What an absolute blast at this years MOD Grand National Championship round here at Delta RC Hobbies & Race Park . With attendees from all over the West Coast and focusing on our Norcal friends we enjoy making the trip every year. Something was in the air this year and the local 1/8 and 1/5 crowd showed up in a big way topping 140 entries! A recorded breaking number for us for this event here. Thank you to all the racers for the support this year all the Delta staff and all the MOD crew for the hard work keeping the event on track. We will be back around the same time next year. Here's all the podium pictures thank you everyone!