Rain usually cancels the regular meetup of Central Coast radio-controlled (RC) car enthusiasts at a home on the Nipomo Mesa. But it wasn’t quite raining on April 7, more of a drizzle, and plenty of diehards still made it out.
The heavy fog didn’t slow down Tony Drake or his black and red-striped Traxxas RC car from kicking up damp dirt across the backyard racetrack.
“Usually there’s a pretty good turnout here,” Drake said. “There’s not too many people because of the rain, but usually we’ve got 15, 20 people out here.”
The group usually meets on the first Saturday of the month, explained Simon Smith, who owns the the property that includes the oval racetrack, jumps, and other paths. Smith has tooled around with RC planes and cars since the 1980s, he explained, and has raced with plenty of locals who get bit by the racing bug.
His yard has morphed and changed over the last year or so, Smith said, and with help from several of the regular attendees of the meetup, they’ve expanded and developed the racing and stunt space.
“We graded the oval portion of it, we ran that portion for a while, and then built this infield portion, and we ran that for a while,” Smith said. “Then we put the wall up around the oval and built the driver’s stand. The whole process was incremental.”
One of the racers that helped out was Buck (not his real name), who began racing RC cars about a year ago. He said he gets “about 2 1/2 to three hours of laps” in on the days he races at Smith’s.
“Sometimes there’s some real racing going on and actually some very talented drivers that show up here,” he said. “People who know what they’re doing.”
It’s an expensive hobby. So far since he got into RC cars, Buck said that he’s spent between $1,500 or $2,000 on cars and supplies.
Others have spent more, and on different vehicles. Some have flown RC planes, others boats. Most had battery-operated cars, but somebody brought one that was gas-powered.
Part of the expense comes from damage done during races, stunts, or even an impromptu “demolition derby.”
“It’s fun, everyone helping each other, getting real competitive,” Pete Edone said. “It’s kind of stockish—everybody’s trucks are about the same, real competitive—it’s fun.”
Buck said that people of all ages and skill levels join the meetup. One person there, Mark Blair, said he’d raced with Smith since the 1980s. Another said they’d first started visiting six months ago.
Everyone helps out to keep things interesting and fun, like pitching in to keep up or expand the course, Smith said. Everyone is there for the love of it, he said, and to become a better racer.
“One of the coolest things about this is watching people get better,” he said. “Like Buck, when he first started coming out, he’d never driven RC before, so the year before he started coming out, his skills—all of our skills—have gotten so much better.”
Jeremy Wirth is a local photographer and owner of Wirth Photography. Managing Editor Joe Payne can be contacted at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 19-26, 2018.