Talk-It-Up Tuesday with Gary Katzer

  

Gary: When I was little, like 9 or 10, there was this RC track in town called "Trackside". This is before Scotty owned it as Joel Gish was the guy who started it behind the old "Classic Bike Shop". When I first went there Trackside was at its second location, next to Sammy's Burger Place, across the street from Menomonee Falls High School and they had organized races during the week. Eventually that track closed and I thought it was gone for good. When I was a sophomore in high school my friend Chuck Armelli brought a copy of RC Car Action magazine into study hall and the guys were passing it around. I mentioned the old track and he told me they were still open, just in another part of town. He invited me to come with him to the track one night and I did. Chuck and my friend Andy were each running RC10s with dirt oval conversions and there was a guy at the track selling a Kyosho Ultima Pro with an LTO conversion on it. The main thing for me was it had a 1985 black #3 Mr. Goodwrench Dale Earnhardt Monte Carlo body on it. It was about as aerodynamic as a brick but I didn't care. I was sold. My parents didn't know it but I went to the bank, withdrew my savings to buy the car. Man, were they mad! I got into racing shortly after that and the rest is history.
 

  
 

 

Gary: I'm going to go in 2 different directions here. First I take a lot of pride in being one of the handful who worked on launching RC Driver Magazine. For someone who had only been writing in the industry for a little over a year Greg Vogel and Bob Hastings put a lot of faith in me and it was something I am still proud of today. The fact I convinced Tony Stewart to sit down for an interview for the first 2 issues is definitely a career highlight for me. The timing couldn't have been better as Tony had just bought Custom Works a few months earlier. I remember the interview happened the week before "The Winston" while Tony was in Charlotte and I recorded the audio with my cell phone. I still have the audio and listen to it from time-to-time. Tony was really gracious and fun to talk with. While I'm not writing for them anymore, Greg, Bob, David Baker and crew will always be family to me and I can never show them enough thanks or appreciation.
 

   

 
Racing-wise I've had a mixed level of success. I tend to run stock/17.5T more than anything but I've got a few wins. I won the Stock SCT class at the first Spektrum Race in 2009, TQed the SCB class at the Short Course Nationals in 2012, only to blow it on the first corner and let that Keith Whisler guy beat me. I TQed and won the GT3 class 4-years in a row at Trackside, something I don't think anyone has ever matched. I podiumed in the Mini Cooper class in 2003 at the Novak Race and made multiple A-Main appearances at that race in stock rubber and the brushless class. Now those who know me knew I had to reference this, but I was also the Vice National Champion of the F1 Class at the 2001 TCS Nationals. Vice Champion, meaning I finished 2nd after getting taken out. But honestly, doesn't Vice Champion sound more impressive?

 

Gary: It really varies. I still love F1 and just recently put together an F104V2 that I hoped to run locally. I haven't raced it yet but I've shaken it down a few times. The cars drive even better now than our old F103s did and we were silly fast with those on rubber tires! SCT is fun, and I just captured 2 wins in 2WD and 4WD SCT at our local track's last big outdoor trophy race. VTA is awesome because of the scale looks and the tight competition. In the end though if I could only run one class right now I'd have to say I miss racing my XXX-SCB. The car just worked so well, in-fact I called it my monkey car- any monkey could drive it! Short Course Buggies have all the handling and speed of the trucks but are so much better once you jump them. Amazing cars, really, and Keith Whisler doesn't get enough credit for coming up with the idea.

  
 

  

Gary: Again, going waaaaay back in the day here to a time before LiveRC, before RCTech. There were a variety of RC groups on Compuserve. Yeah, you're chuckling right now, I said Compuserve. Anyways, through the Tamiya Championship Series a bunch of guys from Trackside got to talking to this guy from RC Car Action. We knew him as the RC Car Doctor, as that was his column, but his real name was Doug Mertes. Over the years Doc had come to Trackside for TCS races, we traveled to races together and we had become close friends. I had always enjoyed writing and thought about submitting something to the magazine to see what they thought. Doug convinced me to do it, became my first unofficial copy editor, and I got my foot in the door at RC Car Action. About 18-months later the opportunity came to help start up Maplegate Media and RC Driver and I jumped at that chance. Those were stressful days but it was empowering too. Man we had fun. Then in 2004 I saw a job posting for Horizon Hobby to write full-time. At the time I wanted to get out of Milwaukee to someplace different and Champaign seemed pretty different. A few months later in 2005 I came on-board and have been at Horizon ever since!

 
  

  

  

Gary: Let's see, I don't think I've ever written this out before but currently I create the surface-related editorial content for the Horizon Hobby websites. Sounds easy but that can include everything from filming, editing, appearing in and tweaking videos, shooting the photos, writing the copy, producing associated graphics and more. There's a lot that goes into doing one article/video. I also am the host and producer of our podcast, the R/Cast and, with the help of our air guru John Diniz, run the HorizonHobby.com Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube pages. There's always something I need to be doing which is why my workbench is almost never clean!
 

  
 

 

Gary: The best thing by far is the people. I've been blessed and lucky to have met some of the best people around. Scotty Ernst, Charlie Suangka, Fred Medel, Cliff Lett, Todd Hodge, Bill Jeric, Adam Drake, Paul Lemieux, Dakotah Phend, I am blessed to call these people my friends. Now whether they share that view is another story! Beyond that I have to admit it still shocks me when I go to a race and people stare at me. Not the "Hey, look at the bald, fat guy" staring but the "Where the heck do I know you from?" stare. Then you see the light turn on and I hear "Hey, aren't you the guy...." and then hear about watching me on YouTube. I still find that really surprising, still to this day. To think our videos have been seen nearly 13-MILLION times, yeah, that's humbling. Plus when I go to most tracks and race if I want to hop on the mic and do some announcing most times I get to do it. More than once I've heard "When did Scotty get here?" when I'm on the mic so I guess you can say after racing at Trackside for 20+ years I can do a good poor-man's "Scotty Ernst". Ahem... "Checked out...GONE!" How's that sound?

  

I'd say the worst is something someone warned me about. Before moving into a full-time position I talked to them and asked what he thought about working in the industry. He said the thing that bummed him was that when your hobby becomes your job it is no-longer your hobby. To a point he's right. I used to race 1-2 times a week. I get to race once every couple months. Part of it is the lack of tracks around this part of the state but when you deal with RC during the day you sometimes lose the passion to do it in your free time.

  

 

Gary: I'm known for SCB racing? Wow, I'm glad to be known for anything beyond crashing! Or that one incident at the TCS Nationals where my car went through the sweeper and my tires didn't stay on the wheels. Yeah, like I mentioned I love that class but the class just never took off. It is, in my opinion, the perfect class for someone to progress to from SCT. With open wheels you can't beat and bang like SCT without getting punished. I think if SCB would have become like a pseudo "Super Stock" class it could have been cool. I think if there was a way for someone to run SCB and SCT in the same night at the track and all they had to do was change bodies then you could have seen SCB grow.
 

  
 

One big thing is that you're still competing against all the other established classes like 2WD SCT, 4WD SCT, 2WD buggy and 4WD buggy. I look at when I go to the track and I have my 22SCT, my TEN-SCTE 2.0 and my 22 2.0 as my 3 core classes I have been running. I love running these three cars and classes. Now from time-to-time I like running electric 1/8-scale, so now I add in the 8IGHT-E 3.0. I'm not going to run 4 classes so I have to decide what I'm not going to run that night. The 22-4 is coming soon and I'll have to figure out what I'm not going to run to be able to add 1/10-scale 4WD buggy. At some point something has to give, you know? Short course buggy was super-fun and I'm proud to say I had fun and success in the class but at the end of the day you can only run so many classes in a night.

  

  

Gary: It's not just Vaterra, although the new Hälix is super-dialed, it is also in the new Losi TEN-Rally X! Mike, you and I have seen when a newbie goes into the hobby shop and asks for the fastest car. OK, great, but he can't control the fastest car and really needs something slower but no-one wants to be told that they can't drive a "toy car". What AVC does is reduce the learning curve and provide the helping hand by providing assistance on both throttle and steering to reduce the frustration factor and increase the fun. Think back to when you learned to drive a real car. Did you hop into Sebastian Vettle's RB6 and hit the streets of Monaco or the 16-mile version of the Nurembergring?? Heck no! Why should we, as an industry, expect that for folks who just want to have fun?

Everything is self-contained in the new Spektrum SRS4200 receiver. You just plug your gear in like normal and, through a dial on the radio, you can adjust how much or how little assistance you get from AVC. Will it make you Adam Drake? Uh, no. But it will make it so that you can go fast and not just do doughnuts until you develop the ability to counter steer, modulate the throttle and brakes and really learn how to drive.

  

  

Gary: I really don't think so. Back in the late 1990s IFMAR banned all such devices for competition. For this reason Spektrum has integrated a sort of "blinky mode" which completely disables AVC and race directors can verify this in the same method used for verifying blinky mode on ESCs.

  

 

Gary: This is super exciting and I'm still learning all the details. I do know that the RPG guys just got back from the dunes where they went wild with the Vaterra Glamis Uno and Glamis Fear, along with doing some sick custom wraps for the Twin Hammers. I think we're going to see a lot of cross-over here. I know that RPG and Horizon Hobby will be at the upcoming Sema show in Vegas in early November, King of the Hammers at the end of January/early February 2014 and select Lucas Oil Off-Road Series races in the future. It's going to be dialed!

 

 

Gary: That's like picking a favorite kid, which for me is easy since I only have one. But I have to say I'm a racer. I got into this hobby to race. I still need to get my 22 2.0 going; I just haven't had the time to finish the body and hit the track which has been nagging me for some-time. I've had a lot of success lately with the TEN-SCTE 2.0. I managed to win the last 2 trophy races at our local track here, RJD Hobbies and Raceway in Lincoln, IL with the TEN-SCTE 2.0 so that is right up there right now. Ryan Dunford did an awesome job with this truck and really deserves a lot of credit for the success of many drivers, including me. I mean if it can carry me to a win it has to be good!

  

 

Gary: I have a saying that my mind is always racing, so I don't know that there's much time when I am not living or breathing RC. That being said though my girlfriend Heidi and I are huge Milwaukee Brewers fans so we enjoy going back to Milwaukee frequently to check out games at Miller Park. For the record we're both hoping the Red Sox beat those dirty birds from St. Louis. She's also pushing me to get into shape so going to the gym has been a new routine for me. I keep telling her round is a shape but she doesn't listen. I'm a big nerd so I enjoy the homebrew, rooting and hacking communities around smartphones and tablets along with general video gaming. Beyond that I do have an 11-year old daughter that I adore and we always have something going on. In the last year-and-a-half we've developed a love of our local drive-in theater, the Harvest Moon-Twin, and were even featured on the cover of the Chicago Tribune after it was saved!
 

 

  

Gary: I can't pick one, that's not fair. I admire different drivers for different reasons though. I think Adam Drake is one of the smartest drivers when it comes to strategy out there. I'd hate to play him in a game of chess! Dakotah Phend has gobs of raw talent and WILL win an IFMAR World Title someday. The cool thing is he's still one of the most down-to-earth racers I've ever met. I credit his parents, Doug and Nancy, there. I've seen Masami drive a drift car around the Tamiya America track, with his feet, looking in a mirror. Incredible! I'm also very proud of Paul Lemieux. I can say I remember a time when beating Paulie with an F1 car was easy. Now I'm his huckleberry! Paul is such a great guy and to see someone from my home track do that well on the highest stages and under the brightest lights just makes me happy for him. He's worked so very hard and deserves all the success, and then some!

 

Finally, while not necessarily known as much as a driver but a personality, Scotty Ernst. Scotty and I have butted heads over the years with differences of opinions on different silly things, but look at who and what has come out of that one track. You have Scotty himself, world-wide announcer, race organizer, successful businessman. You have Paul Lemieux, one of the best drivers in the world. You have Chad Due, up-and-coming off road driver. Jamie Tennies, the first-ever PROCAR National Champion, awesome oval driver and new owner of Trackside. Doug Hey, developer of the best scoring software out there in RC Scoring Pro. I wonder if most people even know that RC Scoring Pro was developed and tested out of Trackside. You have me, and while I'm not known as much for my driving I've been involved on the publishing side of the industry since 2001. You have events like the Novak Race, Spektrum Race, all coming out of Milwaukee, all growing and seeing success under Scotty's ownership of Trackside. There's something to it, and since I don't drink it can't be the beer!

 

  

OR for the uber nerds out there: Bah weep granah weep nini bong (let's see how many get the reference w/o Googling it!)

 

  

Gary: There is a right answer to this. Red Head, but only if it is my girlfriend Heidi!

  

  

Gary: There have been so many people that have gotten me to where I am now that I can't thank you all enough. Greg, Bob, Todd, Heidi, Cassie, Sparky, Doc, Marty, Chen Hwa, Fred, Steve, Bill, Scotty, Jamie, et-al thank you. Dave Beale, we all still miss you and the Senna helmet on your F1 car! I hope you're looking down on us and laughing at all us chuckleheads! And to the cast of thousands who watch, read and listen to my antics thank you from the bottom of my heart. The best is yet to come!

 

 

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