WHERE'S WALDO: How do you describe your hobby?

I attended my first RC club race twenty years ago, and have been active in the hobby ever since. Sure, over the last few years I’ve spent a lot more time pounding keys than I have turning wrenches or pulling a trigger, but the radio-controlled car industry is as big a part of my life as it has ever been - after all, it’s my job. In fact, looking back at that transition from racing as a kid, to covering the industry as a career, is what sparked the topic for this week’s column.

 

I was in grade school when my father and I got into racing RC cars. I had grown up on the pegs of dirt bikes and ATVs, but the accessibility of radio control made it easy to become totally immersed in a whole new world of competition - and with three tracks operating in San Diego at the time, it wasn’t uncommon for us to race four times in one weekend. As long as I kept my grades up and behaved well in school Monday morning through Friday afternoon (who are we kidding? I was always a book nerd), I knew where we were headed when the clock struck 5:30 PM and the weekend started. I spent my spare class time doodling RC cars with my paint job on them, daydreamed about being world champion, and told all my teachers and friends how cool it was - that my dad and I raced really fast radio-controlled trucks on dirt tracks with big jumps and huge berms. Looking back now, I realize many of them probably thought I was nuts.

 

Even at the age when many young racers begin to lose interest, as they find other hobbies or discover girls, RC stayed at the front of my consciousness - and it didn’t hurt that I was getting pretty good at it. I played Little League baseball, ran cross country, dabbled a bit in basketball, and was regularly involved in Boy Scouts and various school groups, but everything eventually took a back seat to racing. I even used to explain to girls that I had been racing RC cars longer than I had known them, so that’s where my priorities were. Because I wasn’t around much during the weekends I didn’t go to many parties in high school, and even missed “Homecoming” weekend my senior year to attend a big race, where I made all three A-Mains, TQ’d two classes, and won one. The decision paid off, too, because that race earned me a few sponsorship offers from companies that just a year or two prior had suggested I gain more experience racing at a regional and national level. That’s what dominated most of my conversations with people outside the RC industry, especially class mates and the teachers that forgave me for missing class by letting me make up work or bringing my cars and trophies in for show-and-tell - that the world of radio control car racing on purpose-made tracks was actually pretty serious, that the cars were fast and could be built and adjusted anyway you like, and that there were people who not only were sponsored to race RC cars, but even earned a paycheck. By this point I had already contributed articles to RC magazines and blog sites, so that only gave me more to talk about.

 

 

 

One month before I graduated high school, I finished in the top ten at the ROAR Nationals for the first time - as the only driver in the A-Main not on a 100% travel team. The next year I finished fifth. At that point, I was describing what I did by combining the two explanations above - that I raced radio-controlled cars on off-road tracks, that they were much faster and more technical than your wildest dreams, and that I - as one of the top ten drivers in the country - was among a group of people who were sponsored by manufacturers to attend these events.

 

A few years later, scorned by the stress of turning my hobby into a job that I felt had little chance of turning into a sustainable career, I hung up my team t-shirts and took my first media job. I went back to strictly club racing for fun - and had some of the most fun I could remember having at the track. And although I was reluctant at first, I went back to thrashing non-racing vehicles around open lots, hiking trails, and bike jumps for the first time since I was a young kid. When people asked what I did for a living, my answer was much shorter than before. I simply said, “I work for a magazine about hobby-grade radio-controlled cars, testing new products and covering events. They’re bigger, faster, and more expensive than what you find at a toy store, but it’s not as fancy or important as it sounds - I literally play with toys for a living.”

 

It was during this time of my life that I started paying attention to how other people - and especially racers - described the RC industry. The ways that local club enthusiasts to factory pros, and everyone in between, talked about the industry to those on the outside covered a wider spectrum than I could’ve ever imagined. I heard everything from “I race RC cars,” to “I compete with highly sophisticated, infinitely tunable, high performance racing machines.” When employed in a risk/reward social situation (read: a pick-up line at a bar), I’ve heard things like “I race off-road trucks,” and “I perform research and development for a specifically focused electronics company.”

 

I bet you can guess which one worked more often.

 

 

 

I’ve learned a lot about how those thoroughly entrenched into RC feel about what they do by listening to how they talk about the industry to people who know nothing about it. There are certainly those who aren’t embarrassed to gush about loving what they do, and don’t play it up into something it’s not - and this group almost always describes racing RC cars with a smile on their faces. It surprises me how many people stretch the definition of racing radio-controlled cars - whether it actually stems from a skewed perception of reality, or being ashamed of admitting (to a stranger or themselves) of how they spend their time and, in many cases, money.

 

I get it. It’s tough to explain that we’re not driving Tyco cars around in a circle. And while many people can easily identify with someone who has plays softball, builds furniture, practices the guitar, maintains a garden, restores classic cars, fishes, hikes, takes photographs, or golfs, the reaction an RC racer might get from someone who doesn’t understand can be less than enthusiastic.

 

Nowadays, I spend a lot of time traveling on airplanes (and in fact, that’s where I started typing this column) and the subject of why I’m flying often comes up in friendly conversation. My response has evolved to something much more simple:

“I work for an online news site that broadcasts radio controlled car races on the Internet...yes, I’m serious. It’s probably the biggest industry you've never heard of. Here, open a browser window on your smart phone and I’ll show you.”