Everybody’s Scalin’ – Father’s Day Weekend Edition

My dad helped me get into the hobby back in 1993. I was 9 years old and he knew how much I enjoyed playing with my toy store grade trucks so he brought me to a hobby shop for the first time. All Season’s Hobby and Raceway (RIP) in O’Fallon, MO to be exact. I didn’t have a car, but he’d take me up there on Friday nights to watch the races. My dad wasn’t into r/c in any way, mind you, he just knew I enjoyed them.

The racers let me corner marshal and eventually I got the gift of a shiny new Traxxas Hawk 2 under the Christmas Tree. Soon he was taking me up there on practice nights as well so that I (and my eight year old brother) could learn to handle the track. Soon enough we were racing in the kids league.

Some of my favorite childhood memories were made at that little track, learning to turn laps on the track and then turn wrenches with dad back in the pits. There was never any stress, it was just a good time. Thanks dad!

While my earliest hobby memories were forged at the race track, many young hobbyists now experience it for the first time while going scaling with their dad (moms too!).  I’ve seen it being used as an icebreaker between step father/sons as well to fantastic degree. It’s always great to see this.

The slow speeds of the vehicles combined with being outdoors and the general non-competitiveness of a trail run is the perfect recipe for exposing youngsters to the hobby and getting them hooked.

I’ve been doing it long enough now where I’ve seen kids that started running with us turn into young men and women. While it makes me feel old, I think it’s pretty cool that even as other interests in their life may change (chasing girls or boys, primarily!) they are still digging crawling just as much as they used to. In most cases still hitting up the trail with dear-old dad!

In my case, I have three young girls. My oldest is in first grade and has been helping me “durability test” our review units for about 2 years now. She’s starting to tire of crashing things and has been taking the time to actually learn how to drive as of late and it’s been a ton of fun to watch. The ECX Barrage that we reviewed last year has found itself to be the perfect learner’s vehicle for her.

While I hope that she gets hooked, whether she does or doesn’t is sort of irrelevant. I just want her to have a good time with the hobby, as my dad did with me.

Happy Father’s Day to all dad’s and father figures, the ones with us and the ones that sadly are not! Keep making this hobby great.