How'd you get into the Hobby?

[atarit3]

Hey I've been looking back this week, and thinking to myself where I got started in Remote Control.

For me it was when I was seven in line at Frys. My dad picked me up from school, and I got a choice of either a chocolate bar or this RC Car magazine that was setting on the shelf, the June issue of "R/C Car Action" with the RC10 on the cover for car of the year. flipping through it kept looking at one ad over and over, the RC10T. The rest is history.

I still have the magazine (below). I've gone through it about 4 million times, but with the magic of tape it's still together.

So, how did you get into the hobby?

[jwscab]

My dad had a simple RC car, I wish I could remember what it was or who made it, it was not a simple forward/reverse-turn car, it had a real steering wheel/throttle control(but not pistol grip) with a magnetic steering system (not a servo). I wanna say it was italian, it was some kind of red car, pantera or ferrari. It used standard battery cells, not rechargeable, and he always kept it boxed up, but on occasion, we were allowed to mess with it.

After that, I used to drool over the sears catalog, they had the lobo, and something else I can't remember. They were super expensive from what I recall( as far as christmas lists for a young kid), but I think I always put one of them on my wanted list.

My cousin who I didn't see too often due to my uncle moving around the states for business also had a kyosho pegasus, which compared to the lobo, was super technical and hardcore, making me want one even more....

one christmas, my brother and I found 2 brand new tamiya grasshopper boxes hidden before the big day. Christmas morning, my lil bro and I got them, with radios, batteries, the whole nine yards.

I had mine built in under 3 hrs, and subsequently dunked it in a storm sewer due to icy conditions less than an hour later. After that I was hooked.

my brother, my cousin and I would spend hours late at night running our cars in my cousin's cul-de-sac.

everything just mushroomed from there.

[xanadu]

In 1985, two older kids had some tamiya cars. I fell in love with "real" shocks and they could jump off of the curbs. That Christmas, I could pick out any car at the mall toy store. I picked the grasshopper based on the box art. I was pretty stupid. I worked on it everyday for a year and I got an rc10 in 1986. I had already cleared out the space on my small desk for it, before I had it. A friend's older brother had one and I asked him to measure the box for me. Two weeks before Christmas, I was under the Christmas tree with a tape measure trying to figure out what it was. I peeled the tape back on the end and it said "#6010 less radio" I could not sleep at all for the next few days. I was one of about 5 kids at school that even knew what r/c was, so it was pretty boring. Others had planes and such, or just bashed their frog around.

[Charlie don't surf]

My father used to race slot cars at Miniature Grand Prix outside Syracuse, one day the owner, Art was driving a Tamiya Porsche 959 rally in the back lot of the S/C track and a few months later ( 1985?) my Dad bought a Tamiya Subaru Brat ( that I never touched that I can remember ). We also rode dirtbikes and Motocross so one day my Dad broke his femur by splitting it lengthwise from the ankle up and needless to say-we stopped riding. That fall we were talking about other things to do ( I imagine to keep me out of trouble ) and RC came up and this was right after Cliff had won the Winternats with the new 10T which was featured in the RCCA we bought that month. I wanted a Blackfoot really bad, and he was talking about the 10T so I could race it- that Christmas I got a 7001 RC10t, Slotmachine motor, Trinity maxilla 1400 scr pack and a Futaba Mag Junior AM from Walt's Hobby- At first I was disappointed that the chassis was black, not red like the ad, but man how cool that truck was ( and still is ).


Oh, and I do remember we used to have a once a month R/C day after school in the gym

[atarit3]

nice!

Yea I remember I had some-off brand car that used a 49mhZ radio. What really finally got me my break is after I broke my cheap one, my cousin saw me trying to get mine working. After seeing what I had, he gave me his original 1984 RC10 with 6 gear tranny. It took me 4 months of saving up some bucks for the electronics but close to Christmas I finally ordered a whole furtaba system with ESC, and it turned over for the first time, almost watered my eyes.

Still got that damn car too, little faster now with a novak 4.5, but I've been trying to go easy on it sinse my parts count is currently a little low.

[Johnboy72]

I had a Radio Shack special that was nothing to call special and the random toy cars here and there. We had a neighbor that had a blackfoot and then started racing cars at Chipmunk hill. This was when they ran Nascar bodies on an outdoor track. My dad was interested. I was hooked. However it took a few years for the timing to be right and my dad bought me a Blackfoot while we were in Fulton. I ran trucks and my dad turned the wrenches. He then picked up a Worlds RC10. He sucked and I got to turn some hotlaps when he would get frustrated. Some of the guys would talk smack and tell my dad to let me race cause he would hack others. My dad then picked me up an original RC10 and the rest is history. I've been interested in the hobby ever since. I've taken long breaks over the years and have lost touch with technology but I'll never fully give up this hobby.

[67falcon]

When I was young my older half brother was always spoiled by his mom. He showed up one weekend with the monster of a R/C truck and was running it all over the yard. So when it was my birthday I wanted something fast and new. I got a RC10T staduim truck, radio and Rooster with reverse ( still have the receipts). I sat in the dining room and built it all weekend and ran it everytime i could. My half brother was so mad he threw a fit and had his mom get him a new buggy. I played with my rc10t till I went to the service and then put it on a shelve. Never got around to fixing it up, always gone or only home for a few. The big joke around the house is that it is one of the only things that has survived 2 marriages, 8 years of deployements and 10 years of storage. I recently took it out updated the motor and new tires. runs like a top. Today My 9 year old son has his blitz, I have my rc10t and we just added a SC8 nitro to the family. I tell my girlfriend... No matter what we will always be kids and we will always have our toys!!!!

[vintage88]

my dad always had cool r/cs i guess being so awesome he had to lol but the one that really made me love the hobby i was about 8 and he brought home a grasshopper from a yardsale and that baby was mine!!!we put every hop up on that thing we even made custom aluminum shock towers and just made it a more "hobby grade" r/c i guess thats why i cant get away from that chassis i still have 4 or 5 of them lol. man i have a cool dad...

[atarit3]

wow, that's a lasting truck!
I've had my Og RC10 6 gear since my cuz gave it to me in sept 95. your RC10T came out around 92, right?

I shit-u-not that truck would still hold it's own at our track with some li-pos and new tires!

Hold onto that truck!

[muck]

as a kid, we all ways had Radio Shack Rcs. Last one i had is the only one i remember..

10 years ago i watched a friend race indoors at a carpet track with his T3. I was sold. I went that night and picked up a Rustler. From that i went right to nitros.. 3 years ago i switched to BL and have not looked back.

[Coelacanth]

I was always fascinated by RC toys, as well as computer/video games. I played the original Atari Pong when I was a child, and progressed through all the major video game stages: Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-Man, Defender, etc. I remember my earliest RC cars did the straight-forward, turn one direction while reversing. It was disappointing even though it was a novelty. I went through several of those junky Radio Shack toys until a new RC jeep was being advertised like crazy on TV commercials, I just had to have one! It had inflatable tires and in the commercials, it was speedily bouncing around all over the place, including water puddles! It was the first I can remember of an RC car being off-roadable. (Unfortunately, Santa never brought me one of those...wish I could remember what it was called, even.)

The first hobby-grade RC in my family actually went to my younger brother. I think I might've pointed out these cool RC kits at the local hobby store to my parents months earlier, but his birthday is Feb. 2, about a month-and-a-half before mine...and guess what, he got the Marui Galaxy. My parents were aware that he wasn't mechanically inclined so I was enlisted to build it and have it ready for his birthday. In an ironic twist, I'm currently restoring & modding that same car for his upcoming birthday.

My first car came on my birthday in mid-March, the Tamiya Frog. I figured this car would be SOOO much better than the Galaxy, but it hardly was. No matter what I did to "upgrade" that Frog, it never performed that well. Upgraded shocks, Thorp diff, ball-bearings...bleh. I painted it with a gorgeous paint-job but didn't regret selling it to some local kid, one bit. It gave me memories, but precious few good ones.

My next car was a Kyosho Optima (original) that was later optioned with full bearings, Le Mans 480 Gold motor, gold celebration chassis, and all the upgrade parts from a Turbo Optima that me and a friend bought for a parts car. I still have that Optima. Nowadays, I had enough parts to build almost 2 more complete cars, so I began building a new Turbo Optima with all the upgrades & mods I could find and fabricate.

So at 42, I guess you could say I'm still fascinated by RC!

[arf]

I rode the Long Island Railroad into New York one Sunday morning on my way to a Jethro Tull concert (can't remember the year) and spotted a club running gas cars in a parking lot. I got off the train at the next stop and walked two miles back to see. Later I bought my first car (RC300BD) from one of the guys who demonstrated it by coming in second in the A main. I still remember burning my fingers on the pipe I was so jazzed to get my hands on it. The Tull tickets were a gift and I completely missed the show.

[Coelacanth]

You know you're old when you remember there was a difference between "remote control" and "radio control"; the remote control cars were connected to the controllers with a tether cable.

[civilguy]

My father started flying rc planes (.20-.40 sized) in the early 1980s. I tagged along and helped (for a loooong time) and once I demonstrated I could respect the dangers involved with nitro engines I was allowed to fly (probably 1983-4). I had several planes and still have a few unfinished projects in storage at my folks. 1985 brought the RC10 and the Hotshot, racing all over NH & MA until 1987. I still have & run both, but only got back into rc about 5-6 years ago when my daughter rebuilt one of my old Grasshoppers with me. I am hooked again, and hopefully my kids will be too.

[dsmith]

some great stories here...

i walk in the local hobby store with my grandpa(i needed back up funds ) and said "i want a r/c helicopter".
hobby store owner said "you don't want one of those,here,try this (tamiya subaru brat)".
then it went:
brat
sand scorcher(raced)
hornet(raced)
rc10(raced-car to the left)

i have all of them(+ some) except the hornet