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The Backyard – Happy 50th, Mark Twain!
Greetings all and Happy Friday! Welcome to The Backyard! It’s been a crazy week for yours truly, so we’re going to keep things short and sweet today and talk about something cool I got to attend last weekend—the 50th birthday bash for Mark Twain Hobby Center! Longtime readers have probably heard me mention Mark Twain Hobby Center before. It’s one of my [...]
- 9/18/2026
- 1:57 pm
- The Backyard
- By: Doug
The Backyard – Old Cars, New Glory
Greetings all and Happy Friday! Welcome to The Backyard! Last weekend my Facebook feed was absolutely loaded with pictures from the Team Associated Vintage Off-Road Championships in Las Vegas. Friends, industry folks, racers I’ve known for years—it seemed like everybody was there. And looking at all those pictures, I had a thought: somewhere along the way, vintage RC racing became one of [...]
The Backyard – What Makes a Good Re-Release?
Greetings all and Happy Friday! Welcome to The Backyard! Friends, we are living in the golden age of the re-release. Tamiya and Team Associated in particular have been digging deep into their respective back catalogs in recent years, bringing back all sorts of vehicles that many of us grew up building, racing, bashing, or simply staring at longingly in hobby shop [...]
The Backyard – Old Trucks, New Problems
Greetings all and Happy Friday! Welcome to The Backyard! Well friends, apparently we’re old now. I say that because JConcepts has just released a pair of new monster truck bodies featuring a 1999 Ford F-250 and a 2001 Chevy Silverado 1500. Yes. Trucks from 1999 and 2001 are now retro RC bodies. I’ll give my fellow elder millennials a moment to process that. Okay. [...]
The Backyard – I’ve Got the Bug
Greetings all and Happy Friday! Welcome to The Backyard! Well, Tamiya sure knows how to get my attention. Earlier this week, seemingly out of nowhere, they announced the new Volkswagen Dune Beetle Cross, based on the new BB-02 chassis. And friends…I absolutely LOVE this thing. What made the announcement even more fun was that I didn’t see it coming whatsoever. We normally have a [...]
The Backyard – That New Kit Smell
Greetings all and welcome to The Backyard! It’s a happy day, friends, for my Tamiya Lunch Box EVO has arrived! My shop originally had it listed as backordered until September, so I was pleasantly surprised when I got the notification that it had already come in. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again—there aren’t many things in this hobby that give [...]
- 8/14/2026
- 4:24 pm
- Tamiya
The Backyard - By: Doug
The Backyard – Red Plastic and Big Dreams
Happy Friday all! Welcome to The Backyard. Earlier this week, Tamiya announced the return of one of my all-time favorite RCs: the Clod Buster. This time around, it’s coming back wearing its original colors with red molded plastic, white wheels, and even the classic-style box art. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. The Clod Buster is my definitive favorite RC of all [...]
- 8/7/2026
- 4:15 pm
- Tamiya
The Backyard - By: Doug
The Backyard – Well, I Went and Did It
Greetings all and Happy Friday! Well, I went and did it. I purchased a Tamiya Lunch Box EVO. Long-time readers know I’m a massive fan of the original Lunch Box. Here’s a link to my Mr. Yuk build that I did years ago. As a matter of fact, that truck is sitting on the shelf about five feet from me as I write [...]
The Backyard – I Didn’t Expect a Tugboat
Happy Friday all and welcome to the Backyard! Every now and then, someone sends me something that completely catches me off guard. A few days ago, my friend Jason Worthley did exactly that. Jason is a hardcore nitro monster truck guy, so I usually expect a video featuring one of his monsters. Instead, he sent me footage of two scratch-built workboats locked [...]
- 7/24/2026
- 1:05 pm
- The Backyard
- By: Doug
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The Backyard – When Did I Become “The RC Guy”?
Hello everyone and Happy Friday! Welcome to The Backyard. I started in RC back in 1993. At least as far as hobby-grade vehicles go. I was nine years old, and while a lot has changed since then, one thing hasn’t- RC has been a part of my life ever since. Looking back though, I don’t think I became “the RC guy” [...]
The Backyard – Uncomplicated Fun
Greetings all and Happy Friday! As we head in to mid-Summer, it feels like “what’s in” is uncomplicated fun. Just look at some of the releases we’ve seen recently. The Tamiya Lunch Box Evo is finally arriving at hobby shops, taking a beloved classic and giving it a few meaningful updates (finally!). ARRMA just announced the Freedom Flyer, which looks like it [...]
Monster Truck Madness: Building a JConcepts Reactor Monster …
Greetings all! I hope everyone here in the States has a great Fourth of July weekend! Rather than a traditional Backyard this week, I figured I’d combine it with another installment of Monster Truck Madness. The Reactor has officially made its competition debut, and after all the planning, building, and tinkering, it’s finally time to talk about what it’s like [...]
- 7/2/2026
- 3:20 pm
- Monster Truck Madness
The Backyard - By: Doug
The Backyard – Why You Should Go to Your Local Hobby Swap …
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! A couple weeks back I stopped by a swap meet hosted by my local hobby shop, Mark Twain Hobby Center in St. Charles, Missouri. This wasn’t just a couple folding tables with old junk on them, either. It was a well-organized event where vendors reserved tables and brought everything from vintage R/C kits and [...]
The Backyard – When One Legend Pays Tribute to Another
Happy Friday and welcome to The Backyard! One of the more interesting releases to generate discussion lately has been the new Team Associated RC10 Retro 80’s Ultra Fox. If you’ve spent any amount of time on social media over the last few days, you’ve probably seen it pop up in your feed along with a whole lot of opinions. The reason people [...]
The Backyard – Ready for Race Day
This week’s Backyard is going to be a quick one because I’ve got a busy weekend ahead. First off, if you’ve been following along with my JConcepts Reactor build, Part 2 of the build series is now live. I’ll drop a link right here for anyone who wants to check it out. It’s kind of funny how quickly this project went from [...]
