Casey Brake stands with his seven-year-old son, Casey Brake, Jr., in front of his hobby store in downtown St. Ignace. The store, which specializes in radio-controlled cars, opened its doors June 19 in the red train boxcar on the Star Line Railroad Dock on State Street. Nostalgia grips customers as they see the radio-controlled cars in the red boxcar on the Star Line Railroad Dock in St. Ignace. The boxcar is perfect for a modernday hobby shop, says Casey Brake of St. Ignace, who opened his hobby shop, KC Hobbies and Raceway, there in June.

He specializes in radio-controlled (RC) cars, but is able to order any hobby or collectable item through his distributors.

"Pretty much anything that's hobby or toy related, I can get it," he said.

He also buys, trades, and repairs all makes and models of the vehicles.

Mr. Brake has been involved with radio-controlled cars for almost 20 years since 1991, and he began participating in and organizing RC events and races seven years later. Some of his own RC cars can reach top speeds of 70 to 100 miles per hour.

"Any race that happened in the U.P., I've been a part of it," he said. "Basically anything north of Gaylord, I've been involved in."

He organizes races from October to April in a St. Ignace Area Schools gymnasium, and one big race in the spring at Little Bear East Arena which, he said, attracts hobbyists from all over the country. This spring, the event attracted about 150 people to St. Ignace, including, he said, some of the top RC racers in the world.

Over the years he has found that many racers needed lastminute repairs and parts that were not often stocked by local hobby shops. He began collecting those various parts and taking them to races he attended, and gained notoriety on the RC circuit for having and selling those miscellaneous parts.

He said he always wanted to open his own hobby shop some day, and stocking all of those parts over the years made the transition smooth for him.

"It wasn't a huge leap to open my own store, because I had probably 70% of this stuff already," he said, pointing to the inventory in the store. "It had always been my goal to open a hobby store, so I've been collecting displays and cabinets."

Mr. Brake likes to promote hobby shops around the state.

"For small shops like mine, the Internet kind of hurts us," he said about hobby shops that don't sell their inventory online. "There's so many people that are opening Internet-based businesses, but they don't have a building you can walk into to buy stuff. They don't have the overhead that most stores trying to make a living have, so they can sell for pennies on the dollar and out-compete us."

He doesn't sell online, but does remain active in online RC chat forums. He is one of the moderators on a popular RC forum called Hobbytalk.com. There he creates discussion about RC races and events and promotes the monthly racing events he organizes in St. Ignace to attract more RC enthusiasts.

To drum up more walk-in business at his store, Mr. Brake plans to drive a radio-controlled semitruck around the streets during the 14th Annual Richard Crane Memorial Truck Show in St. Ignace September 18 through September 20.