The Backyard – What is your favorite winter hobby activity?

Hey everyone and Happy Friday! Welcome to the first Backyard proper.

Cubby came out of retirement this past Wednesday with some (great!) opinions on carpet racing, and one of the things that spurred on said opining was the fact that indoor carpet racing used to be a thing that he did over the winter, after outdoor season was over.

As the temperatures around me are rapidly dropping, that got me thinking about what my favorite winter hobby activities are.

In the past, it used to be indoor racing. Back in the day I used to race 1/10 off-road indoors on both carpet and clay tracks. There were a couple years where the scaling group I ran with would pick a few winter days and go scaling in the snow. In more recent years, I would race solid axle monster trucks all winter long in a variety of spots.

The past few winters have been simpler for me- they’ve been spent at the bench working on r/c projects as well as static model kits too. I’ve come to realize that this also happens to be my favorite part of the hobby for me these days- building stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, I love getting out and running and racing. I’ve found that I seriously need the time at my bench though during the winter to recharge from the lunacy of summer racing and bashing.

Like many of you, once outdoor season hits, barring some repairs that I absolutely HAVE to make if I want to drive a truck, whatever happens during a given season of driving is usually just triaged or ignored until the winter, when I can then slowly go through all of my trucks (be it racing monster trucks, scalers, tanks, minis- I’m talking my whole collection) to get them ready for next year.

The “main event” of my “winter indoor bench season” is usually some kind of new build. This year, I’m leaning towards building a day cab Tamiya King Hauler, but I’m not sure yet. I usually make that decision around December.

As I mentioned before, I’ve also re-discovered my love of static models in recent years, and those are a lot of fun to build in spurts. I’m a big Tamiya military model guy, but I also like building warships and regular vehicles. Planes, not so much!

I’ve also started to dabble in Lego kits, which is a whole other kind of rabbit hole to fall into.

Whether it’s r/c or something else hobby-related, my winter bench time is basically my therapy. I like to put on a podcast, audio book, or YouTube video, and then go to town on whatever project is there in front of me. It’s absolutely my favorite thing about the season.

Gotta say though, by the time we get to late March or early April, I’m dying to get outside and do some running!

What’s your favorite winter hobby activity?

Until next time, keep it on all 4’s!