Vetting Hosts

I agree--this is getting ridiculous and hurting the sport.

I get that life happens ... real life before wheel life ... but still, there has to be some accountability here.

Someone mentioned sending the car, and not including actual money, using PayPal for return shipping costs. While the car would be lost if the host flakes, the exchange of prepaid money would cease. Only when the host is ready to ship back the cars does he get paid to do so.

Also, as much as I hate to say this, we need a blacklist of untrustworthy hosts that do not communicate or return cars. Again, I can understand that life happens, but if you can't at least communicate with your racers to let them know what's going on, then you shouldn't be hosting races.

I appreciate reading about all the instances of races gone wrong, not as cautionary tales so much but as incentive for me as a new track builder and race host to uphold my responsibilities and obligations to all of you. 

It was said by many of us that this is for fun and not for anyone to capitalize on, but at the same time we all take this seriously and I recognize and respect that immensely. I have no doubts that my upcoming race is going to go smoothly and I feel like my biggest challenge facing me is editing the footage in a timely manner. Even if all goes well, I think I am going to stick to my original focus of building a local community around my track and have mostly in-person races. I'm happy to have the opportunity to share my track with you all and in return for all of your trust in a total stranger, the absolute LEAST I can do is honor that trust by making a trip to the post office when the race is over.

I look forward to seeing your cars arrive over the next few weeks. I hope to be named as one of the tracks/hosts that are trusted and regarded as worth your time and money.

-Nick

Were kinda beating a dead horse at this point but communication is critical in this hobby, we understand that irl things can happen out of no where and take your attention and time away from the hobby, but it shouldn't be difficult to so much as simply sending a rld post or YouTube post "hey racers, sorry x/y/z happened and the tournament will have to be temporarily postponed until further notice" I would rather wait longer with the knowledge that the host simply is busy with something else rather than being left in the dark wondering if my car is even gonna be seen on the track. It's as simple as typing a couple sentences, it's not rocket science.

The concept of paying upon return seems to make the most sense. Whatever you can do to reduce the pre-payment, the better. Ideally, I'd like to think the only "risk" being taken is the $5-$10 spend to ship the car. 

However, the post-payment method could shift the policing to the hosts rather than the racers. So if the honor system now changes to being on the racer to send Paypal to the host after everything is done, if the racer does not pay up, the host now has to start his own blacklist of "I'm not letting Brian race here anymore because he doesn't pay." I don't know if this is bad or good...I mean, it all boils down to an Honor System of some sort regardless.

But lets not forget that each racer/sender has the ability to make "demands" as well. If I want to enter a race but would prefer to pay them online after the fact, I can ask about it - "Can I pay you after my car is returned?" - and if the host says, No, then you don't have to enter. Simple as that. Dare I say, a lot of the power here lies with the people sending in cars. You don't have to send anyone money up front, it's a choice. 

And I maybe shouldn't play Devil's Advocate here but I might also suggest that if a host is iffy or unproven, don't put as much effort into your car builds. That's pretty easy too. Maybe skip the lengthy harvesting, axle tubes, and testing...just add weight, graphite, and be done. Send in a cheap build and hope for the best, especially for tracks that you're unsure about. Build with the expectation of not getting it back until you know better.

Personally, I don't send cars to tracks or hosts that do not have an established YouTube channel with videos showing their track and how they conduct their races/tournaments... Unless they're veteran builders who've shown their dedication to the hobby and are now hosting their first mail-in. The work it takes to get that far to begin with will show builders that they are serious. Any newbie who posts a tournament and hasn't had a tournament before or are new hosts/RLD members get an automatic pass from me. I also will not send in rip-and-race cars or stocks to a new channel - that just screams scam to me. Plus, I'm on a fixed income and have a disability so my time and resources are budgeted.

Perhaps an anonymous poll or page where tracks are listed and can be ranked by category (communication, hosting, returns, etc) would be helpful. Add one final text box for overall feedback. I recently suggested using PayPal or Venmo for return shipping/entry fees. This gives both the hosts and the builders a legal avenue for any problems that may arise. 

I guess I didn't realize how bad of a problem this has become. Sorry so many of you are having this problem. The reason I don't know and the only problem I have with dr.dodge post is the required host to have built cars and send them to other tracks and host. I am not a builder I am terrible at it. I also don't have the time to be building cars. I work full-time and host basically full time.  I love hosting and love watching other host videos. And seeing so many of you race on other tracks after having you at my track is really cool to me. If the landscape of this is changing then let it be I will change the best I can with it. But I will never be a builder. I am not looking to make $ but I definitely can't loose money doing this. Sidekick Sandy would have my backside as I spend enough now hahaha

Because it's relevant, and RedlineDerby brought it up earlier ....

www.redlinederby.com/topic/whats-the-best-way-to-rate-and-review-races-hosts/6304

Even established tracks can run into trouble and shut down for any number of reasons, but I agree new tracks would be in the higher risk category.

I'm not aware of any issues at my tracks with races not being run on time, and we don't return cars which is make explicitly clear in the rules. There have been some people that sent me cars on the off chance or because they were sending me cars for another event and so included a car for something else, but I've never guaranteed those would race. Even running the DIRS multi-track series, I stayed on top of each track host other make sure all races were published when they needed to be and we didn't miss one race across 8 months and 8 tracks.

I also think communication grades need to be both ways. You get racers that sign up then ghost, which messes with tournaments, so mark those people as risks as well.