- [Announcer] Two, one.

(bell rings) - I was gonna get together with a few of my friends.

We were all getting back into RC.

I'd been in it back in the 90s and raced 'em, then I had a family, got out for whatever reason, (cars buzzing) and I do the services for the HVAC support for this strip mall that were in, and so I had the opportunity, and I went to the owners of it and I said, "Hey, my friends and I'd like to get together "in an empty space here "and just play with our cars one night a week."

And they said, "Sure, go ahead."

Well, here we are, (laughs) two and a half years later and in a minute, it got just a little bit of openness that somebody found out we were doing it, it just compounded into, you gotta open this as a full-time track, and so, here we are.

(announcer speaking indistinctly) - [Reporter] Marc grew up playing with RC cars, and as a teen, his family established roots in the electronic business.

- Every kid's had an RC car in their hand, haven't they?

I mean, the majority of us have to some nature, and yes, it was kind of a passion for me, I always loved it.

And then, when I was 16 years old, my parents bought the Radio Shack franchise, Family Electronics, here in Alma.

And we had that for 25 years, so I grew up with the electronics and all the RC stuff, and they had a really good toy line of RCs for you to play with.

So, and this is in a whole nother spectrum of that.

This has moved up into the hobby or sport-grade type, competition type racing stuff.

- [Reporter] For Marc, interest turned into appreciation as he moved his car from the backyard to the racetrack.

- Once you run an RC once, and you get into that, and then you get it on a track.

We all can take 'em out in the yard and play around in the yard with 'em and bash 'em, and it's fun and all that's really fun, but when you get 'em on a track, goes from being a hobby, playing with 'em out in the yard to more being a sport.

There's big national events to go to with all this now, and we do a lot of training here for those, and we've got teams.

As you can see, we've started a team here for team MMRC.

So, it just compound into a lot bigger picture than just six or seven buddies getting together to play on Thursday night.

- [Reporter] Drivers travel from all over, even internationally to put their car on the starting line and share this experience with others in the RC community.

- I'd say the state is primarily where we draw from, but we've had people come from Canada.

I've got a guy coming this weekend from Canada that comes from Windsor, Canada, comes over, 'cause there's no tracks over there that's close to 'em.

This is closest for him to come to.

There's every mix of person you can think of, comes in and races, and that's the fun part of it is, and we seem to get everybody.

We're all here for the same purpose, and that's to have fun and race a toy car of all things to say it is, but that's what it boils down to.

So, there's nothing to win here other than a, "Hey, that a boy, you got it, you won."

And a picture that goes up on social media that says you won and the bragging rights, that's where it's important.

But all the fun's had in the pits, that's where it's at with the camaraderie that happens in there, the friendships that achieve over...

I know of so many people now that have come together and formed friendships just because of this track being here, and that's what it's all about, (indistinct) it's all about.

- [Reporter] On most Saturdays, you'll find Marc setting up the day's competition.

That includes the challenging task of course design.

- I change the layout once a week.

Every single week we're on a different layout, and we very seldom repeat a layout so far.

It's been difficult at times.

I just go out and start changing things.

We've changed the barriers that we use.

We're using the white stuff that we're using now all clicks together with click-together connectors, and it's really much easier to change the layout than we were using irrigation tile, and that stuff just wasn't as easy to do the layout changes as it is now, so that change really helped with that portion of it.

We don't do much oval racing because we're so small here, but we do do the on-road, which is what we're set up for right now.

And then, so we do that one day, and then we do an off road the next door, vice versa.

Off-road is here too, as we run the same setup.

We've just got jumps and ramps that we put in, and they're all carpeted so that they're not hard on the car and everything is all the same.

You got about the same grip as it is on the regular carpet.

So, it's just harder to run off-road than it is on-road.

It's 'cause you got the jumps, and you gotta make the cars do different things, and it's more complex.

- [Reporter] While batteries power the cars that cruise around the track, it's the full power of family that serves as the motor for Mid-Michigan RC Raceway.

- There's not a lot of money there.

There's not a lot of profits in it.

This is done.

These places exist, because there's somebody that has a passion that wants 'em to exist, and they put their heart and soul in them, and they put a lot of time in them, and we put a lot of time here.

My wife puts up with a lot, puts in with a lot with me and supports it a lot.

My son works here with us every weekend running.

He's our race director.

He runs all the races.

And so, it's a family thing, and it takes that, but it really is from a passion that somebody has to make it exist or it just wouldn't.