New Year, Renewed Passion

 

Hello, 2024. Good to meet you.

    It's been a minute, but it feels good to type words again, and even better to start 2024 with renewed interest in a hobby that has provided so much for me for most of my life. It's a nerdy love affair that off and on has spanned just south of three decades. Hard to believe my oldest son is at the age I was when I was introduced to this wacky world of scale racing. Kinda boggles the mind when you think about it.

    When I sit back and reflect on my favorite bits from this hobby of almost 30 years, my mind goes straight to two things: The builds, and the people. While life has its ebbs, flows, triumphs and time sucks, this hobby has always personally stood the proverbial test of time. It may not always look the same, but it's there. Never far away, and always available when I'm ready to return.

No mercy, Kinwald-style.

    Looking back on my early days in RC, my influences rarely matched my activities. While most of my RC racing centered around Tamiya TCS-style racing and On-Road in general, I was hooked on RC through the countless issues of RC Car Action and the Off-Road wars of the 90's. Touring car racing was still in its infancy at the national level, but the 2wd buggy and truck battles waged by Team Associated, Team Losi, Schumacher, Yokomo and others were front and center in every issue.

King Richard.

 

At the tender age of 12, I couldn't tell you what use I had for long division, but I COULD tell you about the back-and-forth rivalry with Brian Kinwald himself and the entire Team Associated. I could also tell you about Richard Satxon's dominance in gas truck, or Jukka Steenari's seemingly unstoppable XX-4 buggy. I could also tell you about how I thought the XX CR was unstoppable, but how I was an Associated guy a heart and pined for a Factory Team RC10 B3, because that was my allegiance. This was a Ford vs. Chevy, East Coast vs. West Coast nerd turf war, and it was all at my fingertips through the pages of a magazine.

    While Off-Road was where the bulk of the hobby (and most of my interest) centered, the local (and much more geographically convenient) club raced On-Road, and that's where I started and stayed for years. It's the same club that provided some of the best camaraderie, competition and lifelong friendships that a kid could ever hope for but couldn't quite understand. That club was Burien RC Racing. The perfect place to ingite a passion.

Burien RC, our little imperfect slice of heaven.

    Racing at Burien RC was just about as unique as the club itself. The track was set up under the service department awning at Burien Toyota, while the pits were located in the service department itself. During the winter months, the track was kept under the awning resembling an oval with a center chicane. It was crude but effective, allowing us to run year-round regardless of the weather. On weekends when it didn't rain, the track was extended beyond the awning, giving more of a full road course, albeit with uneven asphalt and the constantly slick concrete service drive pad. It was low-grip, it was quirky, and it was a challenge, but it was home... and it was awesome.

    Practice would start on Saturday around 4:30pm and would run until whenever the last racer was done. Sometimes we'd actually practice, sometimes someone would bring a playstation to play in the service waiting room, sometimes we'd just shoot the shit and maybe charge a pack or two just to keep things "official". It was like some sort of self-policed daycare for adults centered around good friends, questionable conversations and toy cars.

Burien RC fun in one picture.

    It was during these practice nights and subsequent (although far less important) race days that I truly learned the importance of people and the role they have within our nerdy activity. Without good people, good friends and general banter/conversation, this hobby would be no different than sewing. Sure it serves the purpose of passing the time between life's moments, but where's the fun in that?

    Where fellow racers and questionable lessons and conversations helped shape (or warp) my adolescent mind, I found an equal, if not larger enjoyment in building the cars themselves. From my earliest days in RC, I've never enjoyed something quite so much as opening a fresh kit and tinkering & tuning until it was nearly perfect. It's a passion that has never faded in the slightest through the years. Wherever I am in life, whatever else I'm involved in or no matter how little time I have to make it to a track, I can always build and tune. There's a personal satisfaction in completing a new kit, working the bugs out, tuning and learning, and finally ending up with a competitive race car. 

So what do these have in common? 

    In racing, without cars there's no people. Without people, there's no cars. They go hand in hand regardless of the scale of racing or the discipline you practice. I've been immensely fortunate to race against some of the finest On-Road racers the Pacific Northwest has produced and raced some of the most fun On-Road cars that the industry has produced. It's been 28 years of memories that will last a lifetime.

SSI, in all its Vegas glory. Pre-whipping.

    With the onset of Covid in 2020, coupled with positive changes in my personal and professional life, RC car racing just hasn't had the accessibility that it used to, and that's ok, to be honest. Priorities change, situations change, even interest and energy levels change. 2023 was possibly my leanest year, with only a handful of laps at a racetrack over the course of 12 months. The lack of allocated nerd time has me itching like a hooker with crabs. I miss the hobby. I miss the people, and I miss the cars. So, with a new year, comes a new vision for me within this sport: We're taking it back to the roots. We're going to have fun with the time allocated. We're going build new cars, try new things, meet new people, and get back to what makes this hobby so great, in my opinion.

You never know who you'll
meet at a RC race. Tonya Harding?

    Going back to the early days of this hobby for me, On-Road was my love, but Off-Road was what I followed. Although I've dabbled with buggies several times over the years, I've never truly given it a fair shake and my full attention. That changes this year. Now being a permanent South Puget Sounder and Tacoma RC Raceway being my new geographically convenient option, I feel like it's only fitting to switch gears and renew an old interest. I'll probably suck for a while, but that's part of the fun of jumping into something new. 

    On-Road is what I know, and when the opportunity presents itself, I'll be there. In between those seemingly rare occurrences, I'm going to enjoy the new surroundings, making more friends, having more questionable conversations, and making more memories with this most awesome of hobbies. It feels good to be excited about RC again, in whatever capacity I find myself in. 

My brand new Schumacher LD3. 

Hello, 2024. Good to meet you. It's gonna be rad. Thanks to those that read this and to those that I call friends through RC. 

-Jesse