Benefield: Remote control rock crawling at Santa Rosa park tests skill, mettle

There is a judge, holding a clipboard and stopwatch, calling out penalties and giving time updates.

All eyes are on a small vehicle inching its way up a rock at an almost unfathomable angle. It makes short spurts of zipping noises as its driver, Adrian Diaz, gently squeezes the throttle on his remote control.

The truck stops for a moment, seemingly glued to its spot on the rock, then topples over. Penalty. Diaz tries again, but again, the truck falls backward. After a number of tries, Diaz picks his vehicle up from the ground, smiles and calls it a run.

“I got nervous,” he said, smiling.

Diaz, like most of the 20 or so guys running their remote control cars and trucks over a course mapped out over large rocks Sunday at Flat Rock Park in Santa Rosa, isn’t here to compete, but he does want to see what he and his car can do.

“It’s a mini competition,” he said, using air quotes around competition. “But it’s great to have fun, good times and enjoy the day with more people.”

“It’s good people, it’s really a good community,” he said.

That’s how Frank Dunn, the guy with the clipboard and the stop watch, wants it.

Dunn has been running remote control cars for 14 years. He’s raced all manner of vehicles but zeroed in on crawlers, vehicles that go slow and wend their way over steep rocks, down drops and over naturals obstacles.

“It’s just the person and the car,” he said. “You are on your own, you don’t have to bounce into another driver.”

He takes it seriously, but keeps it fun. Yes, he has a clipboard and jots down scores, but he also offers advice as he makes his way around the rocks with the drivers.

The group swells on the second Sunday of each month when these official scorekeeping sessions are set up. But Dunn says drivers come to this area every day of the week to test their skills or try out new rigs.

Most people on Sunday say they come for the cars and the skills and the beautiful setting, but it’s the people, too.

“The atmosphere is fun,” Jesse Ramsey of Ukiah said. “Just hanging out with everybody. Yeah, it’s just pretty cool.”

And the courses Dunn crafts (he changes them monthly) are challenging enough for the old hands of the group but aren’t so rigorous as to scare off newcomers.

And there are not trophies or cash prizes, maybe just a bit of bragging rights at days’ end.

That low-key vibe fosters an air of support rather than competition. Drivers offer tips on lines and trade tools when things break.

On Sunday, as one driver was making his way through the course, another called out for advice.

“Where did you have the most problem?”

The answer?

“Everywhere.”

Laughter.

“This general area, right here,” Mark Strong said, sweeping his arm wide over the whole course.

More laughter.

Strong, in town from his home in Florida for a three month power-line clearance job with PG&E, said he bought a crawler to what the group calls Second Sundays at Flat Rock Park a couple of weeks ago for something to do outside on his off days.

The group was friendly, offering advice and tips on how to get started.

“I came out here and they told me what would break and sure enough it did,” he said, laughing.

But he’s been able to gauge advances in his skills and technique even in the short time he’s been doing it.

“Last time I couldn’t do that rock and now I can, so that’s cool,” he said.

Terry Hatcher of Santa Rosa comes out regularly. As he should. His collection has grown to 35 vehicles, including the same car he built with his son, now 36, three decades ago.

Hatcher, a truck driver, brings remote control vehicles on his runs and pulls them when he is waiting at delivery spots.

“It’s a good way to meet people,” he said.

On Sunday, the group of drivers swelled to 20 people. Some groups worked their vehicles through the rocks partially submerged in the water of Santa Rosa Creek. But the bigger group hung out at the course marked by Dunn.

There are challenges and time limits and particularly hairy portions on the course that make spectators go silent as drivers gently adjust their remote controls while contorting their bodies, willing their vehicle to hold the line.

Beto Mendoza of Santa Rosa was having a good run when his truck toppled. Spectators keener than I knew immediately it wasn’t good.

Mendoza shook it off.

“Basically if your truck doesn’t break, you didn’t have any fun in here,“ he said.

And the fixes — the tinkering, the upgrades, the modifications — time spent doing that to each of his vehicles is half the fun, he said.

When I asked which part he likes best, the mechanics or the driving, he stopped.

“It’s two different experiences,” he said, pausing to come up with an analogy to make it clear to a non-remote controller.

He read his audience and used food as an example. Good choice.

“It’s basically like having your two favorite foods at the same table,” he said. “You are going to try to get as much as you can of one and as much as you can of the other one because you don’t get enough of any of them.”

Mendoza is here for fun and the friends, but he’s serious, too. When his first vehicle broke, he made a run with a second one. He tries to improve his skills each time out.

“If you mention that you come and bring little trucks to play in the rocks, people think ‘Oh that’s for little kids or something,’” he said. “But honestly, if everyone comes and gives it a try they are going to see it’s a hard sport, it’s a hard hobby.”

Looking at his broken rig on the ground, he had another thought.

“And expensive, too.”

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.