Pro Remote Control Car Racer Austin “Joker” Snyder
Remote Control Car Racing has exploded in popularity and Austin “Joker” Snyder is becoming one of the sports’ most recognizable names. We talk getting started in RC, the sports’ growing popularity and 200 MPH cars. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Things You Don’t Want to Lose.
Austin “Joker” Snyder: 01:30
Pointless: 32:06
Top 5: 49:56
Interview with Professional RC Racer Austin “Joker” Snyder
Nick VinZant 0:11
Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode racing and stuff you don't want to lose,
Austin "Joker" Snyder 0:20
be a kid again, really, we're just grown ass men and women playing with toy cars from start to finish after I bought the kit, the engine, the tires, Starbucks, the remote, the receivers, that's $2,200, they have one and people have taken it. And I've seen like GPS speeds of over 200 miles an hour.
Nick VinZant 0:44
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So our first guest is one of the most recognizable faces of a sport that has exploded in popularity over the last couple of years. What I find so interesting is that it's something that I think a lot of us did as kids. But when you do it on a professional level, it gets intense. This is RC racer, Austin Joker Snyder. So when we look at these kinds of cars, right? Are they the kind of cars that like everybody played with as a kid? Or are these completely different kinds of cars that we're talking about?
Austin "Joker" Snyder 1:39
Oh, no, these are leaps and bounds different. For instance, this one, this one's a pain car doesn't have any electronics or motor or anything in it right now. But I mean, it's metal chassis, all carbon fiber parts, spec tires, change gearing. With the cars that we raised, if you break something, you have a whole box of spare parts, you take it, take it apart, put it back together, fix it and, and get back on track and keep race like it's nothing whereas you break your Walmart car you throw trash to go buy another one.
Nick VinZant 2:13
I think the biggest thing that would jump out to people is like cost difference, right? I'm used to kind of RC cars like okay, 30 to 50 You got sent in this lease gonna work these kinds of cars are gonna cost you what
Austin "Joker" Snyder 2:26
so much cheapest car and and it's what I push a lot of people towards when they want to get into racing, because I do a lot more off road stuff than anything else. But I also do oval and on road racing. And a lot of times people will show up. They're like, hey, you know, I this this is really cool. I want to get into this and then I put up my natural buggy and I'm like, yeah, that's, that's $2,200 Like from start to finish after I bought the kit, the engine, the tires, started box, the remote receivers, fuel servos all this stuff. It's like you're probably looking at about at least two grand, my ye buggies probably 1500. And so it pushes a lot of people away because they're like, Oh, I can't afford that. But you know, that's that's me. That's what I spent all my stuff because I do spend the extra money to get the really good remotes, the really good electronics and all that stuff. And I do have sponsorships that helped me. But a lot of this I pay out of pocket. But with the oval classes, we have one class or cheapest one is about $250 to buy the car, and you buy it and you have the exact same thing that me who's been raised for 22 years has the exact same thing as our local pro drivers. It's a spec class, you buy this car, you take it out of the box, you put it on the track and everybody's running the exact same thing.
Nick VinZant 3:56
What What would you say is kind of the appeal of it to most people kind of get into it as kids and then just stick with it or people come to it later in life.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 4:06
We've seen a little bit of both. I started I started when I was about five or six years old. I started the same time my dad started, we were actually in a local park and saw this weird, like just bunch of dirt and stuff and we didn't know what it was at the time. And then we had shown up and saw that they were racing and started asking questions. We got into it. And that was 22 years ago. So I got into as a kid and stuck with it. My dad got into it and stay doing it for for this whole time. We actually both we both run a track now in South Carolina.
Nick VinZant 4:46
What do you like about the
Austin "Joker" Snyder 4:49
competition the community? I mean, it's one of the first questions we always get is Oh, do you make any money off that you can go to races where you might win some money. But realistically, if I go to a race, I win $500, that doesn't pay off a 10th of what I have in RC stuff. It's just, it's something to get out of the house, on a weekend, go somewhere. And that would just be a good again, really, you're not, you're not focusing on your work, you're not focusing on work, you're not focusing on, you know, what you have to do Monday morning, or all the chores to have, the only thing you're focusing on is sitting here. And, you know, being a kid playing with, we say a lot when people ask us stuff about it, because there are people that take it really seriously. But most of us we've taken it as we're just grown as men and women playing with toy cars,
Nick VinZant 5:49
like everything, I think that once you get into it, there's a massive variety of everything and all kinds of classes. But what would you say are like, okay, these are the main kinds of RC racing. These are the main categories, that kind of stuff.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 6:05
I mean, every every category falls under a main category. But the easiest way is, you've got onroad, oval, drag racing, off road, and then you have crawlers. I'm probably there's probably going to be somebody that listens to listens to this, as Michael Hayden mentioned, Matt Eden mentioned by kind of racing, I'm probably forgetting one, but you probably have five major major works.
Nick VinZant 6:36
Is there one that's like that dominates of those five ones like alright, but this is the big one, right? Like I think of Olympic sports. There's a lot of Olympic sports. But in the summer, it's like it's track and field.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 6:50
Not really, it's just everyone has one that dominates for themselves. Like for me, it's off road racing. I competitively race one eight scale off road. And I, I do other racing. Like I said, I also do dirt oval. I do carpet oval, and I do carpet on rope.
Nick VinZant 7:11
How popular is this?
Austin "Joker" Snyder 7:14
It's a lot more popular than people think. Like I mean, it's a it is a worldwide hobby. We have like we have world champions, we have governing bodies that govern rules and ethics involving involving racing, just like just like f1 does, just like NASCAR, motocross, whatever, whatever you're into. The biggest thing that holds us back and why we don't have this big worldwide following is, nothing is televised. And it is but you have to know where to find it. And to know where to find it, you have to know what RC racing is,
Nick VinZant 7:57
does it work like any other kind of racing like fastest car
Austin "Joker" Snyder 8:02
at time. So we do that a lot of times in with oval racing, where we'll say, hey, it's a 35 black race. But with how we work with this with the constant equipment failures, and everything else. If you went by laps, your leader might get 35 laps, and the next guy might get 32. Because he's done that three times. So we do it with oval racing. I'm going to mount but the main way we do it is based off time. So say for qualifying, hey, you have five, your five minute clock starts when you cross the line. So like if I'm the fifth one to go. My five minute clock doesn't start until I cross the line. So we always say hey, you're racing the clock, you're not racing each other when you're in qualifying. Because just because I pass somebody on the track doesn't mean I'm ahead of them in in the positions. It's all about what pace you're setting. The best example is like if I finished add a we would call it a 10 506. So if I finished at 10 laps in five minutes and six seconds, and you finished at 10 508 which would be 10 laps and five await if five minutes, eight seconds, then I will be ahead of you but two seconds on the clock. The heads up racing doesn't come along until the main events
Nick VinZant 9:25
the winner is it the driver or is it because they have the better car.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 9:30
I've seen people take substandard equipment that have bearings locked up engine that barely runs and beat the field by two laps. I've been beat by people with substandard equipment. I mean it's it's all about the driver their knowledge of setup because I mean, I wish I had an offer car with me that I could show you. You know we have four full aluminum shocks. We can change spring rates oils pistons inside the sharks, did foils, there's anything you can change on natural racecar, you can change on an RC car a lot easier. So having the knowledge of hey, this is how my car is driving, it's doing this I don't like that I'm going to do, I'm going to make this change, it's going to fix that oversteer issue. Little things like that, having that knowledge of setup. And then also, the consistency in your driving is what's going to help you when it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're you spent $500 on a car or $1,500 on a car.
Nick VinZant 10:40
Like where would you rank yourself put all humbleness aside, right in terms of like drivers? Are you at the top? Get into the top? Middle? Just a guy having fun? Like, where would you say that you are.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 10:53
I'm a guy having fun. But it all depends on how my race days villain I mean, I've gone to the biggest race in the world and made the a main, which is the head pain. And in my electric truck class, which is the best one of the best classes that I run, and then finish seventh or eighth overall. And then I went to the same race the next year. At a I think we have like 60 Something trucks and I finished seventh grade. So and then I went back the next year, and I didn't get out of the beaming. So it all depends on you know, who else are competing with but for the most part, I'm a local mid pack Pro. And that's about that's about the best I can expect. I'm about as fast now as I've ever get beat.
Nick VinZant 11:42
How come? I guess why can't you get faster? Do you feel like you know, that's just about the level of my ability, or this is the time that I've got to put into it or it a lot of it is time
Austin "Joker" Snyder 11:53
that I've got put into it. The guys that you see be the fastest in the world. They're their kids that have been, you know, like me racisms, six years old, but had the ability, like parents had the finances and sponsorships and everything, to get them all of the best equipment and everything. And I didn't necessarily have that. So I had that when it came to life. I did not have that when it came to RC racing because RC was not the priority. It was not where we needed to where my family wanted to put off all of its money. So even though I've been racing for a long time, the guys that are at the top have had access to the best equipment and access to pro level drivers their entire career. Whereas you know, I was started racing. 22 years ago, there was a seven year break in the middle came back to it, everything was different had to relearn it. And you know, now being an adult, I work a full time job RC racing, it's my, it's my hobby, it's not my job. That's to work a full time job. It's just, I don't have all the time and effort and everything to put into it. I could get a little bit faster. But realistically, I've accepted that. Barring any other circumstances, I'm as fast as I'm ever going to be content with just going out and having fun.
Nick VinZant 13:22
I mean, you sound like you're pretty damn good at it to be honest. Like if somebody from the outside like, I mean, I've seen some I looked at your Instagram like you got you won some races, like you're selling yourself short, man.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 13:34
I've won some but I mean, like I said, that's that's where I'm at as a local mid pack Pro.
Nick VinZant 13:41
How nice. So somebody that does didn't like professional, full time for a living? Are they making a lot of money? Are they just kind of like, No, I can do this for a living.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 13:53
I've seen some bad houses there. They're making a good amount.
Nick VinZant 13:56
How is there that much money in this?
Austin "Joker" Snyder 14:01
You got to think I'm one person and I probably have 20 grand with our stuff. And that's just in my possession. How much I've spent on it is probably more because you know, we buy and sell cars constantly. But you know, between sponsorships, and this, this other stuff you've got like with one company, they sell their cars all over the world. So you could have two entrepass People buy in your $700 kit. And that's not counting them buying parts than buying tools and all the other stuff that they need. So you're looking at him making a couple billion a year on the companies and then they're passing that down to their top drivers.
Nick VinZant 14:51
Yeah, that makes sense, right? I guess the thing that I would kind of compare it to is like we interviewed a while ago, professional disc golf player A He was getting, I think it might have been 4 million a year. It was in the millions. And that's for a sport that's also not on TV. That sounds like a much cheaper sport. So there you can see were like, Oh, wow, that can add up.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 15:18
It sounds like a cheaper sport. But I've had some friends that have done it as like you spent $130 on a couple Frisbees. Like they're not Frisbees, they're flying discs and Frisbee. Went through the whole spiel of frisbees were made by the Hasbro company. This one isn't by Hasbro, so it's not a Frisbee. Okay, all right, whatever. It's like, you know, I I can't judge on stuff like that. Because how I look at Disc Golf. That's how people look at RC racing.
Nick VinZant 15:53
Do people who do it? Do they fit a kind of certain demographic, they live in this part of the country, mainly men, mainly women, mainly this age,
Austin "Joker" Snyder 16:03
primarily, you're gonna see mostly mostly men. But there's no age. I mean, we have a good friend of mine, Katie Carmody, she runs the race like girl program. And her whole focus with this race, like a girl event is to go around and find the girls and the women that are that are racing racing competitively. I mean, there's a girl in her early teens, that is way faster that like, I can't beat her a home. And then you know, Katie is is our speeds of if I'm on it, our speeds are very competitive with each other. You know, you have girls, right? Like, my daughter is four years old and loves coming with a track, she can drive a car, just don't let her race one yet, because I don't want to pay a lot of money to fix it. But, uh, you know, you've got kids as young as four or five, six years old, racing boys and girls. And then you have I mean, those guys that are still racing, they're in their 80s. Like, when when you talk about this, you think, okay, it's childish men playing with toy cars, when people think about it, and then they show it to a race. And I mean, everyone, it's, it's so we're very inclusive bunch of people. And doesn't matter what part of the country you're in. What part of the world I mean, we, we just had a World Championships in South Africa. We've had World Championships in China. We have one coming up in Brazil, America, the UK, there's no one set demographic,
Nick VinZant 17:50
when you do like a race, is it just one continuous thing? Or do you have to do pitstops and that kind of stuff.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 17:57
Um, so we have electric and we have nitro classes. And it all depends on on distance. So most people can get seven to seven and a half minutes on an on a tank of fuel in in an actual class. Some people can push I mean, I've seen people get 12 minutes on a single tank of fuel. If you had seen any of like my videos on Tiktok or anything like that. It's all a lot of my more popular videos are people hitting RC cars.
Nick VinZant 18:30
Yeah, I saw some of those, like, what did they do? And it looks like they're injecting, I guess, what are they doing?
Austin "Joker" Snyder 18:36
So our fuel tanks are 125 CCS, so you're not going to see somebody with a giant gas can come in. Like fuel bottles. It's a bottle with a metal spout. And some people use that but most of us have gone to fuel guts that companies have actually put 1000s of dollars of r&d into to figure out the best way to get it to work. And we fill it up we have a measurement on fuel. So filled fuel gun, we open the tank and all it is is a pool and the tank is exposed. So we'll pull the tank open set, put it down, pull the trigger on it, fuel drop out into the tank, and then while they're doing that, the drivers up on the driver staying keeping it running, they're keeping the revs up and then as soon as we drop the tank we've been cleared out for a second and then we throw it out. So
Nick VinZant 19:32
it looks intense, right like it's much when I first saw some of those videos I was like gods are see racing like I was expecting like a bunch of people in lawn chairs. Like no that looks like people aren't like nobody's messing around.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 19:46
Yeah, I mean we have a whole driver stand to stand above and be able to see the entire track. Our drivers day in is a Konnex with special wooden building ups. up, but there's, yeah, it's, I, I'm with you, a lot of people think, you know, they're gonna think of people in the backyard playing around. And then they come up to a race. And like I didn't think that any of this was, was what it was. I mean, most people show up to the track if we're not there, and they think it's a BMX track. They just think it's a small BMX track. Because that's all they can wrap their heads around, and then they come out and see us racing, they're like, Oh, this is what y'all do.
Nick VinZant 20:31
That's what I assumed is that it was just like a converted BMX track.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 20:36
Now that there is a purpose built track that's specifically made for RC racing. How much does it cost to build a track? We did the rough estimate, couple months ago on how many loads of dirt we have. Because it you don't just like, dig up the dirt around. Gotta get shipped in? Yeah. So we use where we are, we use South Carolina red clay, because it packs in really well like grooves up, you can lay rubber down. So constantly running around the track will lay rubber over the surface and bring traction up. So we have roughly somewhere between 60 and 80 truckloads of dirt. Dam. And you're talking anywhere between 250 to $500. A load?
Nick VinZant 21:32
I can't do that math.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 21:34
Call it 100 grand. Right? Yeah, at least.
Nick VinZant 21:37
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Go for it. What would you say is the best track in the country,
Austin "Joker" Snyder 21:48
even though I'm biased, and I would love to say, you know, my personal home track. When you're talking about best track in the country, you're probably going to have to go to California. And there's two that come to mind. It's Thunder Alley raceway at Palm Desert, I believe. And then the dirt, which is a Paris, California, there's two of the biggest races in the worlds not counting the World Championship. One is the dirt nitro challenge in California. And the other one is psycho nitrile. Blast in Tennessee, white pine, Tennessee,
Nick VinZant 22:30
fastest our RC car.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 22:32
I think the current speed record is held by the armor. Our armor makes their bashing company. So they make cars that are specifically just to you by and you take to your backyard you take to field somewhere and just go fast, hit jump stuff like that. They don't make race, you could race their cars. But that's not what their cars are made for. They have one and people have taken it. And I've seen like GPS speeds of over 200 miles an hour.
Nick VinZant 23:11
With an RC car.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 23:14
Yeah. Over 200 miles. These are guys that messed with weight gearing. bigger motors. I think one of them actually had don't they put dual electric motors in it. And yeah, there's over 200 miles an hour is somewhere around like 212
Nick VinZant 23:33
feet, like you should need some kind of like, license or training to take any Cournot fast, you know, a concrete wall like yeah,
Austin "Joker" Snyder 23:41
probably Yeah.
Nick VinZant 23:42
Yeah, that can be a little bit dangerous, right? I mean, anything going 200 miles an hour is generally like you got to be kind of careful with that. So then what part of the car would you say is the most important? Is it the obvious one of the engine? Or would you say like, No, this is really the most important part of the car,
Austin "Joker" Snyder 24:03
the servo. What steers the car, I think it has a lot more importance of what people think. Because a lot of people are like, Oh, it turns my wheels, which is what it's supposed to do. So I'm good back yet, but this one is going to turn my wheels faster, it's going to be more responsive to my remote, it's going to do what I want to do when I wanted to do it. There's no lag. There's no fade in a longer run. So I would say that the servo has more has a lot of a lot more importance than what some newer drivers think. But I mean it's between your motor, your speed control servo remote receiver, that's an important thing as well. Your battery which battery you're running, if batteries put out different amounts of power. So,
Nick VinZant 24:55
um, who's kind of the Michael Jordan LeBron James of it? Who would you says like, oh, that's the best,
Austin "Joker" Snyder 25:01
Masami Yasaka, the Japanese driver, who? I can't remember the exact era, but I think it wasn't. It was like right when they started actually having like, a world ranking system and a world championship race. He dominated for years in everything from off road racing to on road racing. I don't know if he did oval, but he did a lot of on road and off road racing. And the I think he won everything that there was to win at that time. Why was in the US? Yeah, Bill, friends, Adam. Great. Probably Adam Drake is one of the ones most people are going to know best at between Adam Drake and Ryan lots.
Nick VinZant 25:51
So the the Japanese competitor, what why were they so good?
Austin "Joker" Snyder 25:59
They just did that. That was before my time. He's, he's still alive. He's still around. But and he still goes great ages. I don't know if he races anymore. I think he just kind of shows up for support. He's a, he's one of the big developers for the car company he'll show. But I don't know what made him tick. I think. I mean, he was a smart guy. I mean, he works for the development of a an actual car company like he builds and designs. They're the improvements that they put on their cars. So I mean, he had to have been a really smart guy and have been able to work out the, the mechanical engineering aspect of these cars and figure out what makes them tick and what makes them better. So
Nick VinZant 26:49
just knew how to do it, right.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 26:52
I'm just have the knowledge. Now, do people cheat? Is there cheating? Oh, yeah. Yeah, but it's to be cheating. I mean, it's, you see it more in oval and on road than you do with off road racing, because of off road racing. So not really a lot of rules. I mean, we have a mod class, which means Hey, as long as it's a 10 scale, to drive buggy, run it, you can run whatever motor you want, whatever battery tires, it doesn't matter, you can, you can run it, whereas the stock class, it's like, okay, it's got to be a 75 turn motor. But it can be any of them. Like, the rules and offroad are so laxed that people who are caught cheating, it's not even cheating, it's just not conforming to the rules. A lot of times, their battery might be taxed at slightly above voltage, the IR rating might be a little bit off their motor, although it's not even the fastest motor that's there, it's not on the approved list. So it's not allowed to be run like, It's little things like that, I don't go to those races where I have to, like my car gets disassembled to be making sure it's under the the it's following the rules. And I don't go to those races, because that bothered me. But you see a lot more of the rules with onroad and oval racing, because it's a lot more specific, but it has to be this motor, you have to run this tire your weight, like I mean, we have a minimum weight, for on road race, your car has to meet this weight requirement. So if you're below that weight requirement, you don't get the race because you had to go back, put weights on your car reweigh. So you do see cheating, but even then it's you, you do have some people that blatantly cheat. But then a lot of times the people that quote unquote, aren't conforming to the rules are guys that are pushing the envelope trying to get their car, you know, their motor is close to that resistance levels, they're allowed to have it and then it just goes a ticket. People are trying to get their batteries as close to that, you know, 8.44 rating, and it goes 8.45. So, you know, it's very marginal, and nobody's trying to break the rules. They're trying to conform to the rules. To The Max extent,
Nick VinZant 29:21
yeah. So I get that right. Like you want to push it, there's a line and people push it right up to the line, and then sometimes they go over.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 29:29
I've seen it with over racing, where the way people do tech, you know, it's like you have to run this battery, you have to run this motor. But they only check that before the race weekend. And at the end of the a mate. So people would put they would get a legal motor attacked, but then they wouldn't run a legal motor all through qualifying because they weren't checking. So they would run an illegal motor to get in da main. And then before the a main, they would swap back to a legal motor. So that if they went when they went to tech after the main that if they won they could pass so they're running illegal cars to get into the a main and then making them legal once they were in the AMA, but I told a buddy of mine what they were doing. He's like, No, I don't believe that they're doing that. I was like, watch the lap times that they like if they're running, you know, five sixes in in qualifiers. What they might break, they might get to like six twos in the main. Yeah, like that sounds kind of blatant. I mean, in an end it happens and when it's happening everyone like it's not a secret
Nick VinZant 30:41
is this the last one we got? Is their trash talk.
Austin "Joker" Snyder 30:46
Oh, all the time. But it's most of the time it's just friendly banter between between friends.
Nick VinZant 30:55
That's pretty much all the questions I got me anything anything you think that we missed or anything like that?
Austin "Joker" Snyder 31:01
Um nothing that I can think of. If if anybody wants information on, you know, helping find their local racing racetrack either I know somebody either have the answer. I know somebody that does. And you know, they can reach out to me on on Instagram. I don't know if they can message me on Tik Tok. But it's, it's Joker Snyder racing. It's on Instagram. And on Tik Tok, I can be reached. If anybody has any questions, shoot me a message and I can do the best that I can to try to find out some information if somebody's interested in getting into.