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Issue 8, 8/19/2006
In The Beginning...
In the beginning, there was a tank. Yes, a tank. It was a Sherman, dark olive in color with white markings. The turret could be turned by hand, and the barrel was removable. It was really slow, and really loud. Thanks to the miracle of eBay, I even have a picture of one just like it:
Yep, that was my first ever RC; it must have been around 1980. Nikko made the thing, though I think mine was bought at Radio Shack. The batteries didn't last long and my folks weren't eager to buy new ones regularly, so I don't remember using it many times. Then again, I was only about 3, so I may just not remember, period. What I definitely don't remember is what exactly happened to that ole' Sherman, but at some point it ceased to exist in my world. RC wouldn't be a part of my life for another 5 or 6 years.
One day I was looking at the black & white ads in the back of a Boy's Life magazine and spotted a really sleek looking off-road car/thing called a "Grasshopper." Now, I was proud of my Hot Wheels, Matchbox vehicles, and Tonka trucks & tractors, but the Grasshopper could actually move on its own, controlled from a distance! Plus, it could hop, over grass & stuff, I thought. Too bad I could never afford it in a million million years. I was left to stare at that picture in the back of the magazine every month and daydream about driving through fields and down beaches, throwing up rooster tails and leaping off of dirt berms and sand dunes. Now that I think about it, I daydreamed a lot back then. Hmm.
Since I'd never be able to afford the car of my dreams, I eventually decided it'd be okay to modify my dreams a bit. Sears graciously helped me out by stocking a rebranded Nikko buggy called the Lobo. I don't recall whether it was an original Lobo, Lobo II, Lobo 3, or Super Lobo, but it looked a lot like this Super Lobo I found on eBay (see right). If I was really good about saving my allowance, did extra chores for an extra few cents here & there, and used the Sears layaway plan, I could do it! Bye-bye Grasshopper, hello Lobo!
Then one day I was at a toy store and saw another buggy that was faster. Then a little later down the line I was at Radio Shack and they had RC monster trucks there. A monster truck! How perfect! It may have been a little slower than a buggy, but it had a secret advantage. In a race against other kids, I'd simply drive over them, crushing their cars into pancakes just like the real monster trucks did! This was it. This was the one. There was only one problem, though. Still no money. Drat.
My eighth or ninth birthday (it's been awhile, sorry) was one of the most amazing days of my life. My folks had bought me a real-life, full-function, RC. It was a yellow buggy from Radio Shack called the Wild Champ, and oh what a champ it was. It was a perfect size, about 1/10th scale from what I remember. Though it was only 2WD, it had spiked tires at all four corners, which I just knew would make it handle like a 4WD. It had a full complement of "shocks," including "independent" suspension up front. Better still, it had a two-speed gearbox. High gear was so fast I had to run to keep up with it. Low gear had better acceleration and worked better on dirt. I even got help in buying a set of rechargable batteries (it took 6 AA's) and a charger, and the next week my dad came up with the idea of building a track in the dirt lot next to the house. The track was a figure-8 with berms in the turns and a two inch high "jump" in the middle.
This was the life, boy, lemmie tell ya. I cherished that buggy more than anything else in the whole wide world. Whenever I was through playing with it, I'd clean it up carefully and put it back in its original box. Over time I became pretty proficient at driving it, and I learned the limits of what types of driving arenas the two gears were best suited for. There came a point, though, when I started wanting more -- more speed, more all-terrain prowess, more something. That's when I started getting curious and broke out a screwdriver. I removed a couple body parts to save weight, but left the wing on for its important aerodynamic enhancements. I peeled off some of the decals and used a couple of colored permanent markers to customize the paint scheme. One day I decided to just make a whole new vehicle out of it, and I took it all the way apart, and I mean all the way apart. I had some experience building scenery for HO-scale train layouts with balsa and styrene, so I was certain I could make something good out of a pile of RC parts. Well, months went by and dozens of ideas came and went, but I never did make a new vehicle. I never even put the original car back together. The pile of parts was tossed, and with the exception of a brief very brief trial of a mail-order micro that ended up only going forward & turning in reverse, RC wouldn't be a part of my life for another 13 or 14 years.
It was the second half of 1999 and my best friend & I were working at Ask Jeeves (now just called Ask.com). We each had the three straight male essentials -- good-paying job, car, and hot girlfriend -- and decided to next look for a hobby on the side. With a bit of deliberation, we agreed to give RC a try. Pumped up & ready to take this exciting new world by storm, we drove down to the nearest Toys R Us and picked up a pair of the most expensive Nikkos they had, 1/10th scale Ford F-150 trucks, along with extra rechargable batteries. Unfortunately, my buddy's interest in his truck quickly waned, but I went all out on mine. Off came the heavy and toyish bumper guard, chrome roll bar, and most of the stickers. I cut out the grille section with a Dremel tool and installed a custom real mesh piece to let more air in. The body was primered & painted with a fade job. I even added working headlights and a flag. Once it was looking good, I started eyeing the chassis for opportunities to improve performance. I replaced the practically useless stock springs with much softer ones with the help of some modifications to the retainers, and did some trimming to increase maximum suspension travel while I was at it. Once I started trimming, though, I couldn't stop; it seemed as if half of the plastic on the truck was unneeded weight. I even trimmed off half of the spokes of the wheel covers and repainted them. Then came more performance mods. I added an external 9th cell holder with a bypass toggle switch, plus an ESC cooling fan wired into the same 9V circuit that was powering the LEDs. The stock tires had to go, so I took the whole thing out to a hobby shop to find replacements and what was I told? "You can't get new tires for that thing; you pretty much can't get anything for it." After quickly showing the dude my modifications to date, I purchased a set of Pro-Line Mashers and went home to custom-cut them to fit. The coup de gras was the mounting of a "hobby-level" lexan Lamborghini Countach body on extended mounts.
So just like that, I was rollin'. For about a month. Then I had an opportunity to watch part of a real RC race, and once I had a chance to collect my jaw up from the ground, it dawned on me that the Nikko just wasn't going to cut it, no matter how much I modified it. And so, sadly, it was dismantled and scrapped, and yet another chapter in my RC life would begin with a humble Traxxas Rustler.
Ah, but the story doesn't end there. Not yet. Almost seven years after my graduation to hobby-level RCs, I was the sole bidder on an eBay auction for an old Radio Shack buggy. For $5 plus $9 shipping, I had gotten myself another Wild Champ for old time's sake.
Some things don't change, even after two decades, like the 4WD-mimicking spiked tires on all four wheels and the cool H/L gear selector, and yes, iit still runs like a champ. On the other hand, some things definitely do change, or at least my preceptions of them do. Take the "independent" front suspension that's actually just a couple of plastic flex plates with a horizontally-mounted spring that doesn't really do anything, or the big rear wing that wouldn't produce enough downforce to make a difference if it was five times bigger. Then there's the little (pun intended) matter of scale. At just over 10" long and 5 3/4" wide, the car is not exactly 1/10th scale as I had remembered. I'm quite certain it hasn't shrunk, so I guess that means I grew. I guess we all grow, don't we.
Do you remember your first RC(s)? Share your memories in this topic on the forums!
-Bamidele "The JANG" Shangobunmi
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3/18/06: "Much Ado About Truggies" |
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