Figured I'd introduce myself after lurking these forums for some time.
This is a little long-winded but stay with me
Like many of you, I'm a Gen-X'r and pushing 40. I've always been involved with R/C in one way, shape or form since I was little. I got my first R/C car, a Tamiya Wild One for my birthday in 1985 when living in Atlanta. I moved around a good bit as a kid and that Wild One followed me for a couple of years. After bashing the snot of it, my father suggested that I look at a new car.
The Wild One soon became an Optima and then...In 1987, I got a Cadillac gold pan RC-10 and sat down by myself one afternoon and built the entire car by myself at 12 years old. Outfitted with a Parma Eagle body, I too beat that poor thing to death bashing all over the yard and at a local track. Coincidently, my brother also had an RC-10 with the Hot Trick Sprint chassis conversion and later on an RC-10T. It was later that year I saw a Schumacher Cat for the first time.
By then, my father had gotten the racing bug and he began to race competitively with an RC-12. I too got hooked and we both ended up racing MRP GP-10's. Fast forward several months and suddenly we found ourselves sponsored by MRP while racing competively in St. Charles, MO and Cahokia, IL.
The MRP 10's soon became Bolink Eliminator 10's, racing outdoor road courses.
My father scaled back his racing to become the Crew Chief, setting up the car on Friday evenings. He in turn would race on another day that week. He's spend all week balancing batteries, adjusting motors and dialing everything in. I was 13 at the time and not to toot my own horn too much, was consistently winning the majority of my races. I'd accidently launch my Bolink-Schkee-covered-Eliminator 10 off a "dot" at full throttle, go airborne for 20 yards, end up on the roof at the back at the pack, and was able to claw my way back to 1st. The car was just THAT FAST. I always thought that Paragon motor-drip-bottle-thingy mounted to the rear was pretty darned cool
As time passed, we ended up moving back to Atlanta.
Nobody was racing 2WD road courses around here. Everything was oval track, stock car stuff. Thanks Bolink. The cost had gotten too high to continue racing, so we packed it in. It was a good two year run and I have a lot of memories of so many races and friends from Missouri and Illinois. The cars and all of the equipment were sold off in early 90'. 12 years would pass before I picked up a pistol grip radio again.
On my first deployment in 2003, I bought and tinkered with a Losi Mini-T and eventually dropped a Castle Mamba brushless motor in it and lipos. We had a small R/C club that raced, set up by a LTC on the post. Tamiya Midnight Pumpkins, Airtronics radios and all the equipment was generously donated by Tower Hobbies. I bought my own truck and outfitted in Terry Labonte colors (since all the trucks were painted in Nascar schemes for easy identification and LTC Beasley being a Nascar fan too). Got rid of the Mini-T and fell back out of R/C cars since I'm most a plane/heli guy. I decided to pull the Pumpkin out and fixed it back up about a year ago.
I've got the bug again, fixing up mostly old Tamiya models, most recently restoring a vintage Frog. I've got the Pumpkin, 58002 Martini Porsche 935, two Grasshopper II's (one is a Super G), Wild Willy II, and a slew of old radios from Magnum Jr's to XL2P's.
But I've got my eye on aquiring an RC-10, my good ole gold-panned friend. Now, if I could only find a Parma Eagle body to go with it
- Blake
Olympia, WA
