How'd you get into the Hobby?

[proffesso]

my grandfather ran a RC boat buisness, made his own hulls and hardware, I was was pretty fortunate in that regard.

if anyone is from australia here, it was Full Ahead Model Boats or along those lines, run out of Melbourne, closed up shop around 95' sold all the molds etc

[Lowgear]

So, how did you get into the hobby?

I was a kid in the 80's pretty much sums it up.

[THE H.P FREAK]

HI!... Back in 1984 when I was 11 me and some buddies were riding around in a park on our bikes. We went over by the baseball diamond, where there was a guy driving a RC car. We noticed that this RC car was extremely fast (for the times). We asking him what it was. He said "A Tamiya Hornet". After that me and my 2 buddies all saved up and a few months later we all had "HORNETS". Been hooked ever since.

[atarit3]

Seems like many of you got exposed by accident, and then it caught on like catching a good disease!

[rocketrandylee]

For Me it was 1985 and I was just winding down My Motocross career at age 24 and I went to the 1/10 offroad nats with a friend and could not belive what I was seeing, I remember Arturo Carbanal racing a brand new Yokomo 834b, he was a team driver for them and I was hooked so I went out and bought a Tamiya rough rider ( Used ) and went racing and raced every weekend I could and practiced all the time and in 1988 got sponserd by the new Race Prep team to drive one of the new Race Prep Pro Radiants that they had just brought in the country and Later drove for Hyperdrive and B&R motors as well. Alot of good memories, Now I mainly restore old RC race cars that I like. Randy

[mrlexan]

Gramps built RC planes most of his life, even in his teens, we'll wind-ups and all that old stuff before the days of gas model engines. I think he took a bit of a hiatus when my mom was growing up, but after she married my dad and moved out, he got back into it. Enter grandkids (me and my bro) which gave him a chance to be the awesome grandpa he was. We used to go to his fly in's all the time in Sharpes, FL with the Spaceport RC Club, his call sign was "Tail-Spin" (my brother named his boat the same). Somewhat un-related, but I remember there was an off road course there too... used to watch dune buggy races all the time to right across the street from the flying field.... 1:1 Scorchers and Rough Riders! Anyway, my brother and I used to flip through all his RC Modeler mags back then, there was no RCCA at that time. I wanted and wanted a car so bad, so when we were old enough, after years of the "toys" from Wards, TG&Y, and Radio Shack, he finally got us the real deal. Xmas 1983, Subaru Brat for me and Holiday Buggy for my brother. The rest is history and look at me know (my wife thanks him all the time in spirit for the collection).

I did give my brother a mint restored Holiday Buggy two years for Xmas in the memory of our grandfather. He appreciated it, but when I went home a month ago, it was in a closet. BTW, my brother still flys RC whenever he is home and not flying 1:1s over the Atlantic. Anyone fly Continental/United from Newark to Europe, look for a skinny 35 year old FO that looks like me, that's my bro.

[kaiser]

85ish for me. i had a cheap "dune buggy".
my dad and i got into 1/24 slot cars. the slot car track had a hobby shop. the top of the wall was lined with tamiya kits.
i used to drool over them. i begged long enough and i got my dad to buy me a used wild one. the rest is history.

[Synergy]

The LHS owner told me it would make me more attractive to girls, he was my uncle, he lied






I never stopped believing it though

[Cronus]

For me it started when I was 5. I got an Nikko Turbo Aero that I thought was just the coolest thing in the world. I used to painfully wait that 2 hours for the battery to charge so I could go out and play for 20 minutes. Then I'd come back in and do the cycle all over again. That was most weekends for me.

Then this past thanksgiving my father-in-law and one of his friends pulled out their r/c cars and helicopters and it got me all nostalgic. My father-in-law brought out his old rc10 for me to race with. (he and his friend had a couple rc10b4's). Then this past Christmas I open up a present from the in-laws, and it's that rc10. So I've been fixing it up, and playing with it since. I guess this is my first real r/c vehicle so I'm pretty new to the hobby.

[littleVETTE]

ok, how about uppin' it one, for everyone? who has their receipt from their first rc10 from the 80's or 90's?

[Nobby]

My uncle established a hobby shop in the 80's and I picked up brochures from the popular RC brands in Germany such as Graupner and Robbe there. Those companies usually sold Buggies from Kyosho or Yokomo for crazy money so I thought I never would be able to buy one with my pocket money. Things changed when a local toy store started selling Tamiya kits. The Grasshopper was way cheper than Scorpions etc. so I started saving all my money, sold my model railway and wished for a radio control gear on my 15. birthday. Bought a Fast Attack vehicle soon and the RC bug bit me immediately. Got into RC Buggy competitions around 87 I guess with a chain driven Optima. Last week I finished restoring an Optima, so the wheel comes full circle

[DougH]

I worked for a small computer comapany that put out a monthly catalog. At a meeting the owner brought in a Tower Hobbies catlaog as an example of a great one and I borrowed it as I had always done models/slot cars etc. Well I got sick with a cold and was home in bed for a couple of days and looked thru that thing many times. As soon as I got well visited the hobby shops and found out about a local racing club. As soon as I saw them run I was hooked and immediately went back to the shop and bought a "state of the art" Tamiya Super Champ (guess that dates me)

[aeiou]

There were a group of us boys growing up that were into model airplanes from an early age. The balsa & tissue rubber band-powered stuff and control line gas planes. I think I crashed every airplane model Cox made at one point or another. I also had a Cox shrike and dune buggy. RC planes came into the picture from there.

But the credit for getting me into RC cars, especially off road racing, goes to my wife's two brothers. One day at a family get together at her parents' house in SoCal, they couldn't wait to show me their new "toys" and tell me all about this new thing called off road RC truck racing. Well, we snuck away from the family festivities for a couple of hours that afternoon and ran over to the Ranch Pit Shop to play on the track. It didn't take long before I was hooked. We met up again later the next week at one of the big LA-area tracks to watch them race, and not too long after that, I was the proud owner of a spanking new RC10T truck.

[RC10resto]

ok, how about uppin' it one, for everyone? who has their receipt from their first rc10 from the 80's or 90's?

You asked

[trkneller]

My cousin turned me on to RC. I talked 'Santa' into a Grasshopper back in '86 and beat it up. I spent all Christmas night building that kit only to find that the six-cell pack connector didn't fit the kits five-cell speed control connector. Built, ready to run, and no way to connect it! Went to LHS the next day and they soldered on a new one and I got a quick charger.

I hopped that 'Hopper up! I was at the LHS playing on the dirt track when Competition Plus came in to write up the track; Summit Speedway, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. (It's long gone, now.) Anyway, they had us stage a mock race. I got second (and a pic in the magazine) to a kid with this awesome gold panned car.

My cousin then got a Cox Turbo Scorpion and asked me to build it for him. Once I saw the independent rear suspension, I knew the Grasshopper had to be retired. (I still have it, though.) I REALLY wanted the RC10. I pushed the folks for one and they ordered it for Christmas of '87, but it was on back order. That car didn't show up until March of '88! I built it, I loved it, I still have it!

In '89 I bought an RC10 Graphite and still have it, too.

Then, in '89 or 'early '90, I bought an RC10L Graphite and played with that for a while. I still have that car, too.

I then had a RC10T2 for a while; it was great, too.

Went on to crashing airplanes most of the '90s and then got an old, used Kalt heli. Airplanes seemed to be cheaper than the cars due to the ridiculous pricing on SCEs and SCRs going on at the time.

The last few years I've added a couple more airplanes, a TC3, Duratrax Evader ST (for the boy), a B4 (for the other boy), and a cheap-o Red Cat nitro car.

Now, I just want to build an old RC10 runner to put modern electronics into. You guys need to go easy on me when I'm trying to win Ebay auctions...