INGALLS — Growing up with the sound of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway just outside his windows, it is easy to understand how Scott Rance got hooked on racing.

He couldn’t get away from it.

It was the pre-air conditioning days. Parents and school teachers ran their homes and classrooms with the windows open in the month of May.

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“I grew up outside Turn 4 of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” said Rance, whose elementary school and home were just a few blocks away from the famed track. “I went to my first race when I was 1 year old (in 1963).

“When you can sit there and listen to it all day, it’s kind of ingrained in your blood after a while.”

A different IMS is Rance’s home away from home now.

He’s the president of IQSR (Indy Quarter Scale Racers) and the Ingalls Motor Speedway.

Inside Inter-Urban Park in Ingalls, the Ingalls Motor Speedway is a track to race quarter-scale, radio-controlled race cars.

The IQSR group, established in 1988, is the second oldest group of its kind in the country. Rance and his racing friends take their 30-pound radio-controlled toy cars and compete across the Midwest and other portions of the country.

The Indy group races in the Interstate Racing Association Series, which includes the track in Ingalls as well as facilities in Lansing, Michigan, Machesney Park, Illinois (home of the oldest club) and Altoona, Iowa.

On Saturday, it was Ingalls turn to play host to racers from the other three tracks. More than 30 entries in four classes competed in heat and feature races throughout the day.

From April to October, the Ingalls track offers 12 race days, during which RC drivers race replica cars resembling those from NASCAR and sprint car series.

Rance said most everyone competes for fun. There are few big prizes. During the points races at Ingalls, winners get stickers to put on their cars.

For the IRA race last week, victorious drivers received a trophy and a jacket.

Still, it’s a very competitive and expensive hobby.

RC drivers use the same terminology and some of the same techniques employed by drivers and teams in professional racing series.

These toy cars will slide with cold tires, just like the NASCAR and IndyCar racers do on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Rance said RC drivers set up their cars with negative camber and positive camber to adjust tires to angles on the track. They also adjust tire stagger for different circumference.

The cars also use a special racing fuel.

At Ingalls, the cars go up to 30 mph on straightaways and are capable of up to 80 mph on bigger tracks.

The thrill can be expensive. A new RC car can cost $2,000 to $3,000. Used racers can be bought for $700 or $800.

Chris Stump from Shirley worked for the railroad that runs by the location of the Ingalls track, just off State Road 67. About five years ago, he decided he wanted to see what it was all about.

He stopped by the track one day and talked to then-president of the track. He’s been hooked ever since.

“The first initial cost is pretty expensive,” Stump said.

“But, once you start going, you end up with five cars,” he added with a laugh.

Stump said he has six cars now and has spent nearly $15,000 on his hobby during the past five years.

He said he loves it. His job takes him on the road, and he takes his cars with him to work on.

More than the competition, Stump said he likes the camaraderie among IQSR drivers.

“It’s a lot of fun off the track and on the driver’s stand,” he said.

Chris Hogue, who grew up in Greenfield and spent time running go-karts at Comet Kart Sales, might be considered one of the ‘ringers’ in the field.

His background is an impressive one.

He spent 15 years in IndyCar as a mechanic, lead mechanic and crew chief. He’s worked for Ed Carpenter Racing, Dreyer-Reinbold Racing and others. He started in 2001 for Panther Racing and won the Indy Racing League championship his initial year with Sam Hornish Jr. as the driver.

“The hours were going up and the pay was going down,” Hogue said of his stepping down from the IndyCar scene. “The math didn’t work for me.”

Hogue, a 1998 graduate of Greenfield-Central, has won national championships in RC racing the past two years. He’s been involved with it for more than 30 years.

“What I learned in RC (racing) as a young guy kind of translated to IndyCar, and as I got older, what I learned in IndyCar has kind of translated back to this,” Hogue said.

“Everything down to build practices, set up knowledge as far as chassis dynamics, engineering, material usage — I took a lot of the knowledge from IndyCar … It’s amazing what you pick up hanging out with some of the best and brightest engineers in IndyCar.”

Hogue and his father now run a company called WCM Racing. They make parts for the RC cars.

Another IndyCar veteran, Jeff Grahn, is usually among the racers, but he wasn’t in attendance on Saturday. He’s a former chief mechanic and still works for Andretti Autosports.

He was at Laguna Seca for the IndyCar season finale. He was chief mechanic on Dario Franchitt’s 2007 Indy 500 winner.

The racing season wraps up in October.

Rance said they’ll be back at it next spring and are also looking at the Ingalls track as a possible site for a future Quarter Scale Auto Club (QSAC) national championship race.

“Everybody told me you drive (a quarter-scale car), you are going to love it, and you’re going to want to get in to it,” Rance said. “They’re a lot of fun to drive. They’re very unpredictable. They’re like a real car.”