Team Novak is closing it's doors.

[uniquenamehere]

Oh man, that's a bummer. Such an iconic brand from back in the day.

[bgruen]

Bob Novak invented the ESC. Truly end of an era. I feel very old today...

[RCveteran]

How long now before vintage Novak ESC's are selling for $1 million dollars.

[clm]

How long now before vintage Novak ESC's are selling for $1 million dollars.

Just wait for Dr Evil to get a hold of some sealed vintage units....

[tamiyadan]

.

[jeepy2013]

Sad news for sure, I've been a Novak fan and customer since the 80's.

[THUNDERSTRIKE1]

How long now before vintage Novak ESC's are selling for $1 million dollars.

Just wait for Dr Evil to get a hold of some sealed vintage units....

muhaha 1million dollars!!!!!! holding pinky up !!!! i have an nib 8-28 novak esc DON

[tamiyadan]

.

[Lonestar]

I remember when the BL crazed started... Racers would all buy Novak mills for a good reason: they were the cheapest rotors to replace when they blew up

[soniccj5]

Noticed prices for motors and ESC are about 10-30$ off. Just picked up a Vulcan 6.5 for $70.00 which I plan on using in a future 4wd buggy build(model undecided).

[duckhead]

Oh man, that's a bummer. Such an iconic brand from back in the day.

To say the least...

I was pretty shocked when I came back to the hobby after all those years that Novak and Tekin pretty much faded into the distance. I asked around the local track and it just seemed the brushless stuff from Novak, especially early on had a lot of issues, even doing things like starting fires, etc. and they never recovered as a brand from that point on.

Agreed, very sad and an end of era...

[bgruen]

It's funny how a brand will dominate a geographic area. Novak was very popular / the dominate brand in the "Metrolina" (Charlotte, NC) area. Being cost conscious, some racing classes even mandated Novak branded equipment (when the competition came out with adjustable electronic timing) to limit the cash register race.

It is interesting that Bob didn't sell the company. Even if a stalwart company like Novak is struggling it's brand usually has enough marketing value to make it an attractive buy.

Novak was one of the Pioneers, and probably the last of the privately owned RC companies. So many brands have come and gone in the last 25 years, it's hard to imagine.

Bob

[tamiyadan]

.

[yellowdatsun]

I wouldn't say that kids have no interest. At our local track, SRS, kids play a big part of the attendance there. Sometimes annoying on the track due to their lack of experience, but you gotta remember that I was at that point once as well. I'd wager to say that kids, or at least those in the younger bracket, take up about 30% of attendance there on any given day.

[Lonestar]

speaking of brand geographic area;

on the east coast novaks didn't flood in until about 4 years after original release in about 1985, the rc-10 didn't flood in either till 88 or 89.

you relied on distributors and hobby shops had no idea stuff existed, no internet, BBS didn't cover this, AOL started in 85 but people didn't see it until the 1990s. prodigy started in 84 but again didn't reach the east coast till 1990.

most Tamiya's and kyosho models were unknown until 1990 as well.

with Novak i remember in 1989 suddenly the stuff floated in and got affordable, before that other then a MSC or a hybrid stuff there was nothing. the DELTA Autodrive was super expensive and rare. i remember the novak started off in the 120-140$ range and quickly got into the 30-60$ range. then Tekin came in.. and something happened all the ESC stock dried up you couldn't get anything around 1991. Duratrax came in with a novak clone for 39.95$ and i remember those selling like hot cakes since you couldn't get a novak or a tekin.. Slowly other companies trickled in thanks to magazines reviewing products like LRP and KOPRO etc... this was around the time that there was that Nitro plant explosion down south and you could not get Fuel for glow engines, and there was a major disruption with O.S motors production where they shutdown for 6 months and you could not get any .10-.21 glow motors for anything. it was this really weird time in the hobby 1988-1991 where it was really taking off and you couldn't get your hands on anything you needed it was all sold out or had production shutdown. black monday in 1987 also had a lasting 2 year effect on the hobby. black monday also took out 'worlds of wonder'.

in the mid 1990s distribution really got rolling the prices shot up on everything. distributors got there act together as well but at this point about 1995 the hobby started it's down ward spiral. Distributors started to see a dip in profits the internet was into its start.
1993 started the big swing in the computer industry 1994 universities really started to provide internet access in dorm rooms.
1995-1996 the distributors started to sell directly to customers undercutting the hobby shops. this accelerated the down spiral in the hobby.
tracks were closing and hobby shops started to fold up. cost on ESCs shot right back up. in 1996 the novak cyclone cost 249$ it was like another 100$ for the 3.5" disk version of the programmer and serial to ESC wiring.

things dried up even more into the 2000s (I sold my hobbyshop since i saw the writing on the wall)

Brushless, digital and Lipo came along and kind of saved things or delayed things for a year or two with each release so the hobby limped along in the mid 2000s things short peaked in 2005 and then started to drop again 2008 the big collapse cratered it.

the hobby is basically in zombie mode now so it is no surprise companies folded up or sold to china. All the American manufacturers sold out years ago.

Team associated sold to thunder tiger in 2005
Team losi sold to horizon in 2001
Tekin original owner literally went insane and killed the company in 2001 then was sold and came back in 2003
Yokomo folded up external distribution in like 2002 they only sold in japan but more recently they started to see outside of japan however they do not have the distribution they had in the mid 1990s.
Kyosho even folded up distribution in the mid 2000s they ended the contract with great planes and tried there own distribution which failed badly so they came back to great planes after 2009.
Dahm's went under in about 2002 i bought out the last of there bodies and talked to the owner back then.
BRP got out of R/C the website is all broken and i spoke to Bud last year.
CRP and autographics are in the hand of the kids of the original owners and they have been trying to liquidate old stock online for 10 years now.

it was a surprise novak hung on as long as they did Bob did it out of love but he wanted to retire finally and there is no real future in the company. Look Competition electronics pivoted out of R/C and into competition shooting products in like 2007.

I'm in a dying business myself outside of the hobby. New technology renders companies with no future.
in my case print is dead, in the future 3d printer home appliances will kill off a ton of manufacturing. companies that made circuit boards are all but gone because the process is so easy now you can manufacturer at home.

Kids today do not have interest in the hobby there will always be some but you don't have the numbers growing like they were starting in the 1980s. thus each day you lose more then you gain all hobbies are dying the shops are dying. the brands we all remember are long gone.

better to go out with a couple bucks in the bank.

larry the liquidator said it best.

Spot on, Dan... Thanks for putting it so crisply together. Sorry to hear you're suffering, too.

The hobby is more affordable and reliable than EVER. China-made products are cheap and best-in-class now. Sad to see it isn't where it should be, still, because to get to that level of performance/price, it had to be killed first

Yellowdatsun - at my track(s) too, I see more kids than before. But this is because us 40-something RC-addicts (for 30 yrs now...) finally bring our kids to the track. My 9 y.o. daughter took "Rookie of the Day" title at the track last saturday. I was a proud dad. Bus still they aren't truly 100% "new" blood