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In the mid 1980’s I watched a R/C car race in New Jersey while visiting our daughter who lived there at the time. I saw some kids having fun, but I also saw many adults racing these small cars. I thought at the time when adults are involved something tends to last. In the spring of 1987 my wife and I decided to add some R/C car kits and accessories to the small motorcycle shop we had at the time. We also built a dirt oval behind the shop and started running races. At the first race in the early summer of 1987 we had 8 entries. By fall we were averaging 50 per week. Needless to say the motorcycle repair business closed before long.
To keep things going during the winter months for the first two years we rented various halls and continued to run races on all kinds of surfaces. We saw the need for a permanent indoor track and in 1989 built the building we are in now and put in a carpet track. In 1990 we purchased our first scoring system. This was the first of three different ones we have had. To help build up the business during the early years we also put on races at other locations; fairs, fireman’s celebrations, block parties, etc. This helped introduce many people to our sport.
In the summer of 1993 we paved our dirt oval. While the pavement hasn’t proved to be as popular as the dirt oval was we continue to run it to this day during the summer months. The same year we built a small dirt off-road track next to our building. In 1997 we had some land next to our building leveled and built a large combination dirt oval and off-road track. A couple of years later we converted it into an off-road track only. Unfortunately, we closed the off-road track a few years ago because it proved to be just too hard for us to maintain properly. At this time there are no plans to build another off-road track although there is still a lot of interest in this type of racing.
Two years ago we introduced something new to the sport of R/C car racing. At least, we think it is new because we have never seen anything like it in any of the R/C car magazines. We started to run a R/C hill climb. This is not rock crawling but a true speed sport run on a specially prepared 190-foot long hill. Each competitor gets a set number of runs at the hill. Each run is electronically timed and of course, the fastest time counts. Why a hill climb? This comes from my motorcycle background. We try to run this event on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. Last year we ran a follow up event two weeks later. We believe this one of a kind event will continue to grow in popularity.
OUR HOBBY SHOP
So far all I’ve written about is our commitment to the sport of R/C racing. We do have a well-stocked hobby shop. Of course we specialize in R/C trucks and cars but we also carry R/C boats, helicopters, and planes. In addition to the R/C stuff we also have a very good selection of plastic models, rockets, and we also carry some train kits, track, buildings, etc. We also stock parts for our most popular R/C cars and trucks and if we don’t have something in most instances it can be ordered. We deal with most of the top distributors and manufacturers in the hobby industry. This year we are starting our 25th year in the hobby business. We hope to be around for several more.
Bill and Dot Marshall
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