TREAD
CREEPY CRAWLING
With its growing popularity, RC rock crawling brings a hobby once reserved for kids to outdoor enthusiasts of all ages.
BY RYLEE PARSONS
Two grown men playing with kids’ toys,” a hiker says as he walks by. Alex Mace hits the brakes on his RC truck and pauses for an awkward laugh. He starts to explain the hobby to this man, as his friend sends a truck up the side of a boulder in the background. After less than a minute, the hiker chuckles and turns to his wife to say, “Now I know what I want for Christmas,” before moving along the trail.
What makes these high-performance radio-controlled vehicles stand out from those that most had as kids is the complex engineering, suspension systems and powertrains. These intricate off roaders provide fun for the whole family and come in various shapes, sizes and types to accommodate different budgets, interests and skill levels.
Hobby-class RC trucks are durable enough to withstand crash after crash and several rollovers. When damage does hit, they can be repaired with basic hand tools and inexpensive replacement parts. The versatile and user-friendly design of RC models makes hours of mudding and rock crawling arguably as much fun as it can be in their full-size counterparts.
Alex Mace, 22, has grown up practicing almost every off-road sport imaginable in the mountains of western North Carolina. Mace was introduced to the RC world through a friend who he rides dirt bikes with, starting a chain reaction of interest. “Since then, the hobby has done nothing but grow for me and the community I live in,” said Mace. Their group of trail riders often take their RC trucks on trips together. Much like many overlanders and off roaders enthralled with the RC hobby, Mace and his friends use RC truck driving as practice for picking lines in their regular vehicles when off road. And the small-scale trucks are easy to find room for when packing for a camping trip.