The Backyard – Welcome to Build Season

Greetings all, and Happy Friday! Welcome to The Backyard.

We’re sliding into that time of year when the temps drop, the trails get muddy or frozen, and a lot of us quietly migrate from the backyard to the workbench. This is the unofficial start of bench racing season — when the trucks get torn down, the parts bins get reorganized, and new builds start taking shape while the weather outside does its best to keep us indoors.

And if you’ve been in the hobby for more than five minutes, you know exactly what happens next: we start browsing. We start scheming. We start telling ourselves we’re just “looking.” And then suddenly we catch ourselves pricing out axles, comparing chassis plates, or convincing ourselves that this winter’s project should just be a totally fresh new build.

It’s funny how R/C collections grow. Most of us never set out to build one — it just kind of happens. A crawler here, a basher there, a vintage project you swear you’ll finish “one of these days.” And as soon as you start a new build, the others somehow feel brand new again. Something about the ritual of wrenching reignites everything else sitting on the shelf.

And yes sometimes we sell trucks too, but those type of “downsizing” adventures somehow usually result in different vehicles exchanging places for the dearly departed.

That’s part of what makes this time of year so fun. The community starts swapping build ideas, trading parts, and showing off winter projects like proud parents. Someone’s reviving an old Clod Buster. Someone else is finally converting that backyard basher into a proper race machine. The quiet months become the most creative months — when the hobby turns inward but somehow feels just as alive.

And hey, I’m no different. This is exactly the season when my imagination gets me in trouble…or gets me another truck. When it comes to R/C, idle hands tend to spend money!

At the end of the day, an R/C collection and that inevitable “next purchase” — at least to me — feels a lot like that line from Kenny Chesney’s “You and Tequila”: “One is one too many, and one more is never enough.”

A quick shout-out to my friend Kris Hackenson for letting me use a photo of his epic vehicle collection! I plan to do a Backyard on that collection sometime soon!

OK, that’s it for me this week. Until next time, keep it on all 4’s!