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TEAM 420 RACING

By Bruce deWaal

Hello folks, my name is Zig, and I’m a member of Team 420 R/C Racing, and I’m also a Canadian Medical Marijuana exemptee.

We race 1/10 scale short course radio controlled trucks in a competitive venue. There are five senior and one junior (minor) members locally, and we are always willing to expand our local membership, and also welcome new chapters to join.

We’re all relatively new to this sport, having only begun racing this calender year, but our team has turned out to be quite successful. In the last series of six races member Mekkasneet took first in his class, with myself coming in third, and our junior member Rocket taking second in the novice class. Currently Mekkasneet and myself are running first and second in our class and regularly running in the A main final—quite an accomplishment considering our rookie status.

Personally, this hobby has been a great relief for me. I’m disabled with a chronic illness, and have suffered from multiple major traumas from a couple of accidents. Since becoming ill, the trauma I suffered in the accidents has worsened, leading to pain filled days coupled with the exhaustion and nausea associated with my illness. R/C racing has allowed me to participate in a competitive atmosphere and perform to a relatively high level. I look forward to many more years in this sport, and encourage others in similar life predicaments to try this form of entertainment and hobby.

The R/C car industy has evolved greatly in the past few years with the introduction of Lip and Life batteries, brushless motors, and 2.4 ghz radios.

As well as Short Course racing, there’s also Drifting, Roadcars, Dragsters, and Rockcrawlers, in a variety of different scales.

As I mentioned in the beginning, I’m a Canadian medical marijuana patient with an exemption from the federal government allowing me to possess and produce my medication. I’ve had my exemption for six years now, although it took me two years to find a doctor that would sign for my exemption, forcing me to grow my medication illegally for those years.

While I had been using marijuana for pain medication for quite a few years, it became even more important to me after going through chemo therapy. It was during this time that I began to show extreme reactions to pharmaceuticals, resulting in an inability to continue, not only, chemo therapy, but also the regular medications that I used for pain. This left me with marijuana as a medicine—one that has served me quite well for the past several years.

It may also be worth mentioning, that I race successfully at this level while theoretically “impaired” by a drug that I would be arrested for had I been in the operation of a full scale motor vehicle.

And on that note, I wish you all good life and good racing! Take care all.