Ladies and gentlemen, start your (RC) engines!

Rich Palzewic

Staff

July 7, 2025

BIG FLATS – Already offering “a ton of amenities,” Chris Mehring, owner of Pineland Camping Park in Big Flats, said he decided to add another one.

“We recently opened the Pineland Camping Park Raceway,” he said. “It’s for off-road remote control (RC) cars and trucks, and the track is a clay-dirt mix. We’re learning on dry days, we need to keep it wetted down because it gets dusty. We also found a glue-like solution which helps hold everything together and keeps the dust down.”

Mehring said the vision of adding an RC raceway goes back even before he and his wife, Shannon, bought Pineland in 2022.

“We saw an RC track at a different campground, and we thought it was pretty neat,” he said. “Looking back now, it wasn’t even that much of a ‘wow’ factor, but it was unique at a campground. We were also seasonal campers [in the past] and from following different campgrounds on Facebook, we saw a couple others had RC tracks.”

So, when they bought the campground, Mehring said adding an RC track was already on their radar.

“I got lucky last year because one of our seasonals had a lot of experience with RC tracks and cars,” he said. “His wife is our kitchen manager, so we spent most of last year talking about it. Finally, I said, ‘Alright, let’s do this.’”

Mehring said work on the track began this spring – building it on a section of the campground not being used.

“It’s on the north side of the kids’ area,” he said. “We scraped the ground, brought in the clay-dirt mixture and molded the track – it’s a fun design. We built a deck so the kids can watch. We also put a snow fence around it for safety.”

Though the track has been in operation for less than two months, Mehring said it’s been well received.

“Everyone seems to be having a blast,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for kids who have their own RC cars to bring them and have a place to race where they know is safe and made for that. We’ve got six rental cars right now, so other guests can rent. I bought two extra RC vehicles to sell in the store, and they both sold.”

Mehring said he’s noticed more of the seasonal campers are showing an interest in RC vehicles.

“When we first opened the raceway, only three or four of our seasonals had RC cars, but now, I’d estimate we’re up to 15 or 20,” he said. “A bunch of our seasonal campers want me to help put together a group order.”

Mehring said building the track didn’t take as long as he thought it would.

“When we had the dirt delivered and scraped the ground, we had it up and running in four weeks,” he said. “We’ve been tweaking it a little bit as we go, but we took that baby from a grassy, sandy area to an RC track in about a month.”

Going back several years

Before they decided to buy Pineland, Mehring said he and his family had no connection to Big Flats.

Mehring said he was the former owner of a CertaPro Painters franchise in Waukesha County, and that helped the couple eventually purchase the campground.

“I was born and raised in Mukwonago, and my wife is originally from Burlington,” he said. “I was the first person to bring CertaPro to Wisconsin about 26 years ago. I was raising my family in the Milwaukee area, but when the opportunity to sell the business came along, we decided it was time for a change.”

Knowing that owning a campground was always an interest of theirs if an opportunity presented itself, Mehring said they went “campground shopping.”

“We were seasonal campers at a campground in Stevens Point and knew we liked Central Wisconsin,” he said. “We liked the area, but it’s also not too far from everything. It’s 90 minutes to Madison, 90 minutes to La Crosse, 90 minutes to Appleton and Oshkosh and less than 90 minutes from Wausau.”

With his family being avid campers, Mehring said they had experienced various campgrounds in the state over the years.

“We did the county parks and the state parks, but we found we really liked the private campgrounds for the extra amenities they offered,” he said. “Also, the whole seasonal camping thing intrigued us. We were seasonal for six years at two different campgrounds. We did one year just to get in somewhere, and then we spent five years at River’s Edge [Campground] in Stevens Point.”

Mehring said they loved the community feel of seasonal camping and having a home away from home.

“We had time to sit around the campfire and discuss which amenities were nice and how big of a campground we wanted,” he said. “We knew we wanted to have more than 150 sites, but we also knew that once you get to 250 or 300, it’s a lot bigger to manage.”

Based on what they wanted, Mehring said they started researching and working with different realtors, and as their search commenced, Pineland popped up on their radar.

“Pineland began operations in 1972,” he said. “We liked the amenities Pineland offered, but they just needed to be spruced up a bit. It has almost 200 sites, so it checked that box, too.”

Amenities, amenities, more amenities

Mehring said private campgrounds often specialize in the amenities they offer, and Pineland is no exception.

According to its website (pinelandcamping.com), some of those amenities include:

• Full bar/kitchen
• ATV/trailer parking
• Heated pool
• Golf car rentals
• Free Wi-Fi
• Arcade
• Laundry room
• Volleyball/basketball courts
• 18-hole mini-golf
• 6,000-square-foot kids’ clubhouse with concession stand

After purchasing Pineland, Mehring said that’s when the real work started – some of which included remodeling and adding more amenities.

“We wanted to maintain the look of the campground, but it needed a lot of work,” he said. “We put some new pads down for the [camper] rentals that were here before we came along, we gutted many of the buildings, got rid of all the old campers and brought in five new ones, painted, brought in 10 more golf carts – we’re now up to 16 – and redid the mini-golf course. The arcade was moved to a different location, so now it’s three times the size it used to be.”

Mehring said Pineland also has 14 different rentals available.

“That’s ranging from campers to cabins to park models,” he said. “All of them are fresh, clean, comfortable and very livable. Some of them were really showing their age [when we bought the campground].”

Mehring said he’s also “obsessed with keeping the pool clean.”

“We have one of the hardest pools in Wisconsin, as far as I’m concerned, to keep clean,” he said. “It’s underneath trees, so I have to remove leaves, pine needles, pine cones, cottonwood, etc. I bust my butt keeping the pool clean, but I know it’s really appreciated by everybody.”

Mehring said the campground’s weekend foam parties are also popular.

“It’s funny, because when we turn the foam cannon on, the kids go running but so do the parents,” he laughed. “The parents just stand around and take pictures and videos. I think they enjoy it just as much as the kids do.”

Even with a plethora of amenities and the recent addition of the RC raceway, Mehring said that doesn’t mean they are done adding more fun.

“We’ve been talking about putting in a zip line,” he said. “A couple of years ago, when we were on a vacation of our own in Alabama, the campground had a zip line a couple of feet off the ground. It wasn’t high and was something our kids could do by themselves. My kids played on it for more than an hour and had a blast.”

Mehring said it’s their goal to make sure Pineland has enough activities to keep guests of all ages occupied.

“The last thing I want to hear around here is ‘I’m bored,’” he laughed. “I think we have enough stuff going on beyond the amenities.”

Mehring said he thinks Pineland also does a good job with its themed weekends.

“Other campgrounds do it as well, and it’s a big thing at private campgrounds in Wisconsin,” he said. “That’s one thing I think Shannon and I do very well – our themed weekends. Maybe it’s Christmas in July, Pirate Weekend, Halloween, etc. We pack it in and make sure the activities revolve around the theme. We plan different activities that get people involved – scavenger hunts, poker runs, etc.”

Mehring said their Around the World theme has been a big hit with campers.

“Everybody gets a passport, and you go around to sites that have different foods and drinks,” he said. “We make sure our themed weekends provide something for everybody to participate in. We want to make sure it’s memorable.”

Business is good

Mehring said in the post-COVID-19 era from 2020-22, campground activity “just exploded.”

But, as people started returning to normal travel with their vacations, he said many campgrounds took a downturn.

“While some campgrounds have seen a decrease, we’ve actually seen an increase in people staying here,” he said. “Our seasonal sites are full, but there are a lot of campgrounds that are still working to fill their seasonal sites.”

For more information on Pineland Camping Park, visit its website or find it on Facebook.