My Biz: Crash’n’Bash Hobbies embraced by RC hobbyists

As retailers move online from brick-and-mortar stores, Forrest Ward and Aaron Nelson found their business shifting in the opposite direction.

“At the beginning it was probably 80-20 (online), and it’s flipped around,” Nelson said one recent afternoon. “We turned our focus to the local customer.”

Nelson, 44, and Ward, 43, didn’t plan on a storefront when they launched Crash’n’Bash Hobbies in 2015. Avid owners, racers, and builders of radio-control (RC) cars, they were looking for parts and supplies as locally-owned hobby shops closed.

“We thought it would probably be an online business,” said Ward.

“We were into the hobby, so we thought, ‘What a great way to get parts cheaper! We could sell parts and use some of those parts,’” said Nelson. “Doing a brick-and-mortar at the time wasn’t an option.”

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Nelson was working as a dispatcher for CRST, with a successful eBay business on the side. Ward was doing good business on his own eBay site after earning a degree in supply-chain management. Crash’n’Bash became their full-time jobs as it grew.

“We started very small, just large enough so that we could get orders from distributors,” Nelson said. “We started the website. I have a two-stall garage that wasn’t being used, so we stuffed it all in there and built shelves for it.”

They soon learned some of the better-known RC manufacturers wanted dealers with a physical store.

“They would like to make sure you’re a legitimate business,” Nelson said. “They also don’t want people competing with somebody who has the overhead of brick and mortar.”

So Ward and Nelson opened a small shop in Marion in 2017.

“We got what we could afford,” said Nelson. “We didn’t advertise. We didn’t even have a sign on our building. We just began to exist and we sat down at our desks and went back to work.”

Local RC enthusiasts found them, partly through their suppliers’ own websites.

“People would look up their products, find we were a dealer, and just show up without us advertising,” Nelson said. “People in this hobby are pretty passionate about it.”

Business grew so rapidly that when Ward bought a house intending to manage it as a rental property, it became a warehouse instead. They went online-only in 2020, but as COVID pandemic restrictions eased they looked for a larger store. With help from their customers, they opened across the street from Hawkeye Downs in 2021.

“When it came time to move everyone stepped up,” Ward said. “We got them pizza and that was the community.”

“What kind of business can you be in when you can ask your customers who are paying for your product to help you move to a new location?” Nelson said.

The move from 2,000 to 13,000 square feet enabled them to hire their first manager and sales staff. Crash’n’Bash now employs seven, three full-time, plus Ward and Nelson.

Stocking everything from miniature monster trucks and dune buggies to detailed scale car models to boats, aircraft, and quadcopters — and parts for all of them — business continues to grow.

“Being helpful and humble is what developed our customer base,” Ward said. “They trust us. When people come in and they really don’t know what they want, our response is, ‘Don’t buy something just to buy something. Watch some YouTube videos and understand what you want to do.’ When you do that, they come back more and more. Online transactions aren’t like that.”

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Out back of its showroom, Crash’n’Bash hosts competition on an 80-by-48 track in that’s reconfigured for different types of cars or trucks, with weekly races in the winter and summer. There’s a rock-crawler section for casual joyrides, and beginners can rent cars to give the hobby a try. For grassroots marketing the team participates in parades and community events, often with an inflatable track.

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“We take it out to these events and let children try it,” Nelson said. “Once they get engaged with it, it’s only a matter of time until they get Mom and Dad to come in. The thing for Mom and Dad seems to be, once (children) get captivated by the hobby it gets them off the screen. They’re not messing with the phones and the video games as much because they’ve got an RC car that goes 30 mph and the whole neighborhood wants to see them drive it.”

With most kits and parts manufactured in Asia, tariff issues are a concern, although Ward is optimistic.

“Our biggest manufacturer increased their prices 10 to 20 percent, then 30 to 55 percent,” he said. “We just got an email from them that they’re rolling back prices. They overestimated the costs.”

“The cost increases that have happened have been in line with what you see in other industries, and people understand it’s not us increasing prices,” Nelson said.

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