Tony
Staff member
I'm going to start this story way back when I was young, like 11-12 years old. I had just moved up to Indiana with my dad and we went to a hobby store and I found a magazine (which I still have to this day, somewhere lol). This was an Rc magazine and the one thing that I was hyper focused on was the V8 engine in the back. I don't know why, but I wanted one. The other things in the magazine was cool as well, but that engine, was awesome!
Well we were pretty much broke, living in a horribly shitty trailer in a trailer park in Muncie Indiana and the most exciting thing that happened there was walking through the woods to get to the White River to do a little fishing without a license lol. I was 11 or 12, I didn't know about licenses. Below is an image from 2005 showing pretty much what it was like in '92 although the field to the north was larger but this trailer park is pretty much dead, along with my father who died the same year I moved up there. But then there is an image taken in 2019 that shows pretty much nothing is there anymore.
That far north trailer is where my passion for the Radio Control hobby started even though I could not do anything with it. It was there.
I cannot remember the exact time frame, but I think I was 14 and I was living in Norman Oklahoma and somehow we ended up at a hobby shop off I-40 called RCRC. It was there that I obtained my first high level Rc truck, the Team Associated Rc10t. Yes, the OG. This thing came with a resistor style speed control and it sucked balls. But it was the start of my passion for the hobby. Never ran any races, but ran the piss out of it in my front/back yard. Long story short, that truck was destroyed and funny enough, I still have the aluminum tub chassis lol. But, I got my first real taste of the hobby.
Life, girls, drugs, it all got in the way and I all but forgot about the hobby until 1998-1999 when I met my wife. We were just sitting around and I don't know what happened but we got on the subject of Rc cars and that car that I had when I was younger. This turned into a financial money pit as it all started with my first nitro truck, the Team Associated RC10GT, yes, again the OG with the blue aluminum chassis (still have the chassis lol). And this one, I did race and got pretty good.
Early 2000's I found Competition RC in Moore and RCRC no longer existed. This is where I did my racing. This is also where I got into indoor onroad racing. So purchased a Team Associated TC3 Factory Team and did some racing, got some wins and had a blast. I ended up having the most success with a Team Losi XXXS I believe. Belt drive, just so smooth! But, when it is you and one or two other people running in the front all the time, it gets boring, so I quit racing.
We will skip over the 2006/2007 timeframe where I went to a mall and purchased those fixed pitch helicopters that suck more balls than they are worth.
I think it was about 2009 I saw a youtube video with Alan Szabo Jr flying a helicopter and just the complexity of the head and what that helicopter could do was simply amazing! I had to find a way to get into this so I jumped on the net and looked at forums. I ended up purchasing a clone helicopter that I actually still have, but it is in a bag in pieces because I flew and destroyed this helicopter lol. I did rebuild it with a new kit, but knowing I still have the original CCPM helicopter means a lot to me at least.
I had started posting on quite a few forums (large forums) and I was absolutely destroyed for asking a simple question. I was ignorant, which is a good thing because I can grow and learn from this ignorance. But these sites absolutely DESTROYED anyone that was not an expert. I ain't gonna lie, this turned me off to the hobby until I found a small little channel on youtube that did some helicopter flying and had a very basic website. I reached out to this person (name and website will remain anonymous) and I helped him setup his website to not only allow people to post without moderation, it would let people join without moderation for weeks on end (my sign up took weeks to be approved, this site sucked balls before I got there). This is when I got started in forums, vBulletin to be specific.
I helped this guy grow his site and I started creating videos for HIS SITE. Once I saw there was something here I started looking into creating my own website. Not a forum, just a static website I could put all of my videos and information on. Long story short, I built his website, he was making money and now it's my turn. It's time to take my hobby and turn it into a business. Easy right? yea, not so much, not in RC anyway lol. I sent the other site owner an email and broke all ties and never once used his website to promote my website, never once. His members came looking for me because I just disappeared. And because I was the one answering all of the questions people asked on a DAILY BASIS, once one member found me, that member told the others where I was and they came to my site. I did NOTHING to push them to my site, the put out a search party and found me, and instead of pulling me back they all just made camp with me on my new venture.
This is when I started Rc-Help.com. I had done it, I'm taking my hobby and I'm trying to turn it into a business. And from March 2011, it all started. Website, youtube videos, monetization, I was starting to make money. But the money was no where near what I wanted and I still had to do my day job. At first it was in law enforcement (starting in 2009) that lasted until 2014 when I got back in a truck and started hauling tankers again. Long hard hours and no time for the business. When I stepped back into that truck, that is when my passion for the business started to die. Yea, 8 years ago. But I held onto it.
In 2019 I started my current career and I'm not really looking for another job, but i have been here long enough that if something amazing fell in my lap, I could leave. But it would have to be awesome!. So from what started in 1992, became a reality in about ~1994, was rekindled in early 2000's (2001 I believe) and was made into a business in 2011 is now still a business, Rc-Help.com is still an active website and RcHelpDotCom is still a channel on youtube. But, because it was/is a business, I think about it as a business and this business is not making money. And what do you do with a business that is not making money? You shut it down and move on.
Now hold up swole up, I'm not shutting Rc-Help.com down, I'm saying that is what you do with a business that has not made a profit in years. You close and move on. So now is the time where I'm going to take my hobby, that I turned into a business, and I'm going to try to turn it back into a hobby again.
Don't get me wrong here, I love the hobby, but in looking at it from a business standpoint it has worn me down to wanting to just close it and move on. But, every time I want to close it, that little voice in the back of my head will chime in and tell me that I will regret this decision, but never says why I will regret it. If I close Rc-Help, I will miss those that are on the forum, on the youtube channel, I will miss the friends I have made in the decade+ I have owned this site. So if I cannot shut it down, then what?
Now is the start of the new chapter. Now is when I'm taking my hobby that I turned into a business, and I'm going to try to turn it back into a hobby again. How am I going to do this? By making every part of the "business" and turning it into a hobby. I love Rc, I'm just burnt out because I "HAD" to do it for so long. If I don't have to do videos, posts, articles, then I may just start enjoying the hobby again.
I love making videos, but I hate it when I MUST make a video. So I'm going to try making videos as a hobby. I don't care if people watch them, I don't care if people subscribe or follow, I will be putting videos out for me to enjoy making them and hoping that I can help someone, somewhere.
I love running websites, so I'm going to make that a hobby as well. I have started a couple other websites that I will talk about soon and hope to see y'all on.
With all hobbies, they cost money. I don't care what hobby you are into, it costs money. If I look at Rc-Help as a hobby and not a business, then I don't see a "net loss of revenue", I see "I spent that money to put a smile on my face" or "I spent that money to be closer to friends I have made over the last decade" but more importantly "I spent that money to be happy".
They always say, don't turn your hobby into a business because you will not enjoy the hobby anymore, and they are right. I know first hand. So it's time to get back into the hobby that I was so infatuated with in 1992 by just seeing a picture of a 1/4 scale V8 engine in the back of a magazine.
Well we were pretty much broke, living in a horribly shitty trailer in a trailer park in Muncie Indiana and the most exciting thing that happened there was walking through the woods to get to the White River to do a little fishing without a license lol. I was 11 or 12, I didn't know about licenses. Below is an image from 2005 showing pretty much what it was like in '92 although the field to the north was larger but this trailer park is pretty much dead, along with my father who died the same year I moved up there. But then there is an image taken in 2019 that shows pretty much nothing is there anymore.
That far north trailer is where my passion for the Radio Control hobby started even though I could not do anything with it. It was there.
I cannot remember the exact time frame, but I think I was 14 and I was living in Norman Oklahoma and somehow we ended up at a hobby shop off I-40 called RCRC. It was there that I obtained my first high level Rc truck, the Team Associated Rc10t. Yes, the OG. This thing came with a resistor style speed control and it sucked balls. But it was the start of my passion for the hobby. Never ran any races, but ran the piss out of it in my front/back yard. Long story short, that truck was destroyed and funny enough, I still have the aluminum tub chassis lol. But, I got my first real taste of the hobby.
Life, girls, drugs, it all got in the way and I all but forgot about the hobby until 1998-1999 when I met my wife. We were just sitting around and I don't know what happened but we got on the subject of Rc cars and that car that I had when I was younger. This turned into a financial money pit as it all started with my first nitro truck, the Team Associated RC10GT, yes, again the OG with the blue aluminum chassis (still have the chassis lol). And this one, I did race and got pretty good.
Early 2000's I found Competition RC in Moore and RCRC no longer existed. This is where I did my racing. This is also where I got into indoor onroad racing. So purchased a Team Associated TC3 Factory Team and did some racing, got some wins and had a blast. I ended up having the most success with a Team Losi XXXS I believe. Belt drive, just so smooth! But, when it is you and one or two other people running in the front all the time, it gets boring, so I quit racing.
We will skip over the 2006/2007 timeframe where I went to a mall and purchased those fixed pitch helicopters that suck more balls than they are worth.
I think it was about 2009 I saw a youtube video with Alan Szabo Jr flying a helicopter and just the complexity of the head and what that helicopter could do was simply amazing! I had to find a way to get into this so I jumped on the net and looked at forums. I ended up purchasing a clone helicopter that I actually still have, but it is in a bag in pieces because I flew and destroyed this helicopter lol. I did rebuild it with a new kit, but knowing I still have the original CCPM helicopter means a lot to me at least.
I had started posting on quite a few forums (large forums) and I was absolutely destroyed for asking a simple question. I was ignorant, which is a good thing because I can grow and learn from this ignorance. But these sites absolutely DESTROYED anyone that was not an expert. I ain't gonna lie, this turned me off to the hobby until I found a small little channel on youtube that did some helicopter flying and had a very basic website. I reached out to this person (name and website will remain anonymous) and I helped him setup his website to not only allow people to post without moderation, it would let people join without moderation for weeks on end (my sign up took weeks to be approved, this site sucked balls before I got there). This is when I got started in forums, vBulletin to be specific.
I helped this guy grow his site and I started creating videos for HIS SITE. Once I saw there was something here I started looking into creating my own website. Not a forum, just a static website I could put all of my videos and information on. Long story short, I built his website, he was making money and now it's my turn. It's time to take my hobby and turn it into a business. Easy right? yea, not so much, not in RC anyway lol. I sent the other site owner an email and broke all ties and never once used his website to promote my website, never once. His members came looking for me because I just disappeared. And because I was the one answering all of the questions people asked on a DAILY BASIS, once one member found me, that member told the others where I was and they came to my site. I did NOTHING to push them to my site, the put out a search party and found me, and instead of pulling me back they all just made camp with me on my new venture.
This is when I started Rc-Help.com. I had done it, I'm taking my hobby and I'm trying to turn it into a business. And from March 2011, it all started. Website, youtube videos, monetization, I was starting to make money. But the money was no where near what I wanted and I still had to do my day job. At first it was in law enforcement (starting in 2009) that lasted until 2014 when I got back in a truck and started hauling tankers again. Long hard hours and no time for the business. When I stepped back into that truck, that is when my passion for the business started to die. Yea, 8 years ago. But I held onto it.
In 2019 I started my current career and I'm not really looking for another job, but i have been here long enough that if something amazing fell in my lap, I could leave. But it would have to be awesome!. So from what started in 1992, became a reality in about ~1994, was rekindled in early 2000's (2001 I believe) and was made into a business in 2011 is now still a business, Rc-Help.com is still an active website and RcHelpDotCom is still a channel on youtube. But, because it was/is a business, I think about it as a business and this business is not making money. And what do you do with a business that is not making money? You shut it down and move on.
Now hold up swole up, I'm not shutting Rc-Help.com down, I'm saying that is what you do with a business that has not made a profit in years. You close and move on. So now is the time where I'm going to take my hobby, that I turned into a business, and I'm going to try to turn it back into a hobby again.
Don't get me wrong here, I love the hobby, but in looking at it from a business standpoint it has worn me down to wanting to just close it and move on. But, every time I want to close it, that little voice in the back of my head will chime in and tell me that I will regret this decision, but never says why I will regret it. If I close Rc-Help, I will miss those that are on the forum, on the youtube channel, I will miss the friends I have made in the decade+ I have owned this site. So if I cannot shut it down, then what?
Now is the start of the new chapter. Now is when I'm taking my hobby that I turned into a business, and I'm going to try to turn it back into a hobby again. How am I going to do this? By making every part of the "business" and turning it into a hobby. I love Rc, I'm just burnt out because I "HAD" to do it for so long. If I don't have to do videos, posts, articles, then I may just start enjoying the hobby again.
I love making videos, but I hate it when I MUST make a video. So I'm going to try making videos as a hobby. I don't care if people watch them, I don't care if people subscribe or follow, I will be putting videos out for me to enjoy making them and hoping that I can help someone, somewhere.
I love running websites, so I'm going to make that a hobby as well. I have started a couple other websites that I will talk about soon and hope to see y'all on.
With all hobbies, they cost money. I don't care what hobby you are into, it costs money. If I look at Rc-Help as a hobby and not a business, then I don't see a "net loss of revenue", I see "I spent that money to put a smile on my face" or "I spent that money to be closer to friends I have made over the last decade" but more importantly "I spent that money to be happy".
They always say, don't turn your hobby into a business because you will not enjoy the hobby anymore, and they are right. I know first hand. So it's time to get back into the hobby that I was so infatuated with in 1992 by just seeing a picture of a 1/4 scale V8 engine in the back of a magazine.
There's mud in Joyville 