State of Racing 2025
Back in early 2023 we wrote a blog post on the old KOC website, “The State of Racing.” The theme then was “green shoots” — juniors swelling the ranks, FWD riding a debut wave, 400 racers across Nationals and KOC, and a sense that stability might return after the pandemic years. That original post is attached, below.
Two years later, 2025 has given us a more sobering picture: the number of racers across Nationals and King of Clubs in 2025 was 261. That’s a significant drop from the 403 we counted in 2022. Vintage racing is by far the most popular traveling series.
The numbers game
In 2022 we pointed out that more people were racing than before the pandemic. By 2025, that surge has faded. 261 drivers marks a contraction. Grids are still strong, events are still running, but the boom we glimpsed when looking forward to 2023 hasn’t carried through.
We lost Crystal Palace circuit this year, and the future of one of the UK’s signature venues — Cotswolds — has been a worry for a while. A new committee has steadied the situation at the venue and there’s optimism, but much of the trackside chat has centred on National entries: down a little in 4WD, and well down in 2WD.
Looking beyond Nationals is vital. The eight to ten asphalt 1/10 electric tracks around the UK can’t be sustained, let alone modernised, on National entry fee paydays. The investment scheme developed by the section in 2025 aimed at the right problem: facilities need to be protected and, in some cases, improved. Week-in, week-out club attendance is the lifeblood of those tracks. We saw some analysis recently suggesting average attendance at outdoor clubs ranged from 15 to 30 odd, including vintage racing classes. According to RC Results, the last club meet at Adur had 13. Aldershot 16, Bedworth 32, Colchester 14, Cotswolds 8, Eastbourne 12, Halifax 12 (TC), Stafford 18, West London 14. If you consider the capacity at a club meeting is, say, 80 or more and this should be the climax of club championship summer series, we are operating at something like 20% capacity. This deserves far greater focus and basing decisions at a section level on the assumption “there’s plenty of racers” is clearly dangerous.
Class fortunes
FWD has been the clear winner of the last three seasons. It’s now the go-to class for many, with clubs like Eastbourne and Bedworth running two or three heats of Fronties every week. That kind of grassroots traction shows the 2023 optimism wasn’t misplaced.
F1 remains stuck. Despite KOC dropping the class to avoid diluting entries with the 2WD Nationals, it rarely mustered more than a single heat at events and continues to look like a specialist’s playground.
17.5 Blinky is still the backbone of Touring Cars, consistently drawing the largest numbers and sustaining most club championships.
41 Modified drivers competed in the Nationals - still down on the recent high of 69 in 2019, but consistent with numbers since (40 in 2021, 38 in 2022). A handful of youngsters coming through from KOC have stepped up and shown real promise. The grids are small, but the racing has real quality. Prestige remains its purpose.
King of Clubs and the regional scene
By 2025 it’s clear that KOC isn’t just “extra” racing — it’s one of the section’s foundations. Its affiliated status gives it freedom to innovate, while still tying racers back into local clubs. Most importantly, juniors continue to come through in numbers. Back in 2022 we counted 58 juniors across the series. In 2025, even with overall numbers falling to 28, junior participation remains a focal point. That may prove to be the most important storyline for the future, but we always wonder where the next group of 60+ juniors will come from.
It’s worth remembering that King of Clubs is affiliated to the BRCA, not a sanctioned series, yet its role has become more central than ever. KOC continues to give racers something they want, clubs something to rally around, and juniors a clear entry point. At the final round in West London, six new juniors were on the grid, and a couple of families we first met at the British Motor Show with RC Vision came along to try racing before joining Aldershot Club for 2026. Without these positives, the contraction would feel far sharper.
The optimism of 2023 was partly right and partly wrong. FWD, juniors, and KOC did blossom. The introduction of a 50+ Masters class is another innovation showing positive signs. Modified is still Everest — hard, rare, but essential. What has changed most is the scale of the scene. 400+ traveling racers may have been a high-water mark; 260 may be closer to the true base level for the next period of time.
Looking ahead
For the second time in four years, the section committee looks set to stand down en masse. With the deadline for proposals and nominations only days away, much will depend on the incoming leadership.
What seems clear is that the foundation of 10th electric circuit racing is smaller than we might think. We often hear about the two big winter indoor series selling out fast — and there are clearly enough racers for that. But that’s only a couple of big events a month. For asphalt touring car racing at permanent tracks to thrive, we need enough racers to regularly fill club events across the eight to ten existing outdoor venues — four or five meetings a week, or more. Right now, we are nowhere near that. An outdoor venue getting 30 racers to a normal club championship meeting in the summer is perceived as healthy. But do the math; 30 racers, every other weekend, 6 month season, £15 entry fee, £5,850 entry fee income. A cursory glance at the entries shows 30 entries is far from the norm. And we hear plenty of complaints about the cost of a club entry fee.
Sustained, collective effort is needed.
The bright side? The classes are clearer, the junior pathway is established, and the community is tight-knit.
The task for 2026 is simple to say and hard to do: turn coherence into growth.
LOOKING BACK — THE 2023 POST:
State of Racing
1 Jan 2023
Written By Andy Hyde
Reflecting on 2022, we see some encouraging green shoots that could blossom in 2023.
We will all remember the year 2020. Everything changed, and all that we knew for certain became the past. Everything we’d endured then slowly petered out in 2021, and 2022 was supposed to be the return to normal. Instead, everything started to crack and crumble. If it didn’t break in 2022, it would become more expensive and hard to get hold of, continuing the feeling left by COVID-19 that normality can leave us at any time and faster than we think.
That said, in our corner of the motorsport world, 1:10th electric on-road, it’s been hard to know what normal looks like in recent years.
A new BRCA section committee took charge in 2022, and wholesale changes took place in the classes. The Clubman's touring car series was replaced with a new two-wheel drive National series, dividing 10EC along similar lines to electric off-road, giving the F1 and the Front Wheel Drive touring car classes a home.
The roll-out of the new series caused tensions between some host clubs and the section, especially amongst clubs feeling more financially vulnerable to losing a big meeting - the 2WD class numbers having been historically low.
The change also meant the popular 17.5 blinky class had a new home, joining 13.5 blinky and modified touring cars to make a new three-class National 4WD series.
This new normal presented questions for the King of Clubs. 2021 was a great season in our regional series, with Oli Jefferies, Chris Grainger and Harley Eldridge leading a group of the country's elite racers joining KOC21. Initially, perhaps looking for extra practice races at Eastbourne and Colchester, but ultimately committing to the full series. With no overlapping tracks and dates and the mainstay 17.5 class joining the National series, people were still trying to figure out what would happen in 2022.
In 2018 the main summer series was the BRCA Nationals and Clubmans, with championships for modified, 13.5 open, 13.5 blinky, 17.5 blinky, and F1. 211 racers competed in the Clubmans and 170 in the Nationals. The Schumacher BTCC series that year had 151 racing, but almost all were also racing Nationals giving a total of 338 individual racers. The 13.5 open class was dropped for 2019, and the total number of racers across BTCC, Clubmans and Nationals fell to 315. There were no BRCA or BTCC events in 2020, thanks to the pandemic, and the FWD class was introduced to the Clubmans in 2021 in place of 13.5 blinky. BTCC never came back. The total number of racers at BRCA events fell to 215.
But in 2022, the new 2WD & 4WD format attracted 249 racers, a decent growth from the previous season.
168 racers had turned out for the second King of Clubs series in 2021, with around 40% overlap to BRCA events. In 2022, 171 racers turned out for KOC with hardly any overlap, just under 10%, leaving 403 racers across KOC and BRCA events - 20% more than the 2018 number.
This analysis is not definitive of course. We haven't collected data on the numbers of 10EC drivers at clubs who don’t attend these series. But whilst the feeling of dysfunction surrounds us and everything we rely on seeming to be either on strike or not working, there is cause for optimism in our hobby.
Underneath the numbers, another story is the fluctuating fortunes of the different classes. A criticism often aimed at 10th electric on-road is “too many classes”, but there are undoubtedly different needs within the section, met by different class formulas.
The front-wheel drive touring car class numbers in sanctioned events grew on the back of an innovative incentive scheme from the new section committee. The realistic look of the bodyshells, the treaded tyres and spoked wheels, and close stock racing all add to the appeal. One hundred drivers frontie in the 2WD National made FWD the biggest drivers championship at any of the series, and by some margin. But as the adage goes, one swallow doesn’t make a summer. Critics questioned who the class was for and whether or not a class could grow without a strong following at the club level. It is well known, however, that the manufacturers are keen to see the class expand. 2023 will be the all-important second album, with the prospects for continued success looking good.
The other 2WD class, F1, appears to be at a different crossroads. The class has a small but dedicated following, with regular F1 races at several clubs. But the numbers for the new National series were very small, with less than one full heat of drivers at some meetings, with just 15 names in total on the championship table at the end of the season. The KOC series also had 15 F1 drivers, with 6 doing both series. Arguments about foam tyres continue to divide the group; some are passionate and committed to the scale realism of rubber, while others believe the performance of foam tyres to be a better bet. The group of F1 drivers are highly valued members of the 10EC community, but 2023 will be a critical season for the future of the class at major events.
The actual F1 of RC racing is the modified touring car class. The Ashes, the Superbowl, the Heavyweight title. The toughest race engineering and driving challenge in RC. The one every driver would aspire to master, but only a handful can.
Olly Jefferies won 4 straight championships before retiring as the National and KOC champion at the end of 2021. A young man still in his early 30’s going out on top. Kyle Branson taking the mantle with a dominant championship win in 2022. To make a point, if only to himself, Jefferies turned up for a one-off appearance in the Nationals at Cotswolds and won with a box standard car.
Sixty racers competed in the mod National in 2017. 69 in 2019. Then 40 in 2021 and 38 in 2022. Ask around at the clubs, and mod racing is a rare sight, nonexistent at the grassroots level. The format has been fiddled with before to make the class more accessible - a 10.5 turn ‘pro-stock’ about ten years ago led to a stellar turnout of 100 drivers for one season. The same handful of drivers winning by the same margin killed the experiment.
The performance of modified touring cars is, some say, simply too much. The car, tyre and aero technology conspire to create the breathtaking performance. In other forms of motorsport, the safety factor somewhat regulates performance. The risk increases when the cars get too fast, and regulations peg it back. MotoGP is a good example. RC doesn’t have that element of danger and therefore doesn’t have those boundaries.
A rule proposal at this years section conference suggested reducing performance by limiting the motor specification and introducing stock electronics, which begs the question: what is the point of modified racing? Do we need it?
It certainly creates a challenge that only the best can master and pushes the race engineering task to a higher level with the electronic tuning of excessive power. A relevant skill across all motorsport and the wider data-driven hi-tech world. While Olly Jefferies et al. have outstanding ability, we last had a British world touring car champion in Andy Moore in 2006, who was the first since David Spashett won the inaugural worlds in 1998. In other words, the ability levels in modified racing just now aren't alien. The need for a lifetime of dedication and single-minded focus to reach their level is typical of any elite sport. Out of the 400 or so touring car racers we counted, if it is just the top 1% who can get there, isn’t that about right?
2023 might not be a make-or-break season for modified racing, but the emergence of a future-focused plan to strengthen the class would undoubtedly benefit the sport.
Also included in the 400 mentioned are 58 junior drivers. A few teenagers have raced for a while (Charlie Colby, Daniel Robbins and Ethan Southall all exciting prospects). Still, most are boys and girls under 12 getting started in touring car racing with Junior-E and the FWD class at the 2WD Nationals.
While our section isn’t booming, it isn’t bust either. Some encouraging green shoots could blossom in 2023.
