In 2011 we saw Atsushi Hara make an impressive, one-time, appearance at the 1/8 ic onroad IFMAR World Championshis. He qualified in 2nd overall behind current World Champion, Robert Pietsch. The man behind this participation of Hara in 1/8th scale onroad is known to be his friend Mr. Kazuya Yurugiwho runs the company producing mainly foam tyres, Zac Products. Masami's car
This time around it seems that the same person has his sights on another legend, the one and only Massami Hirosaka. Masami took part last weekend in the famous KoPropo Grand Prix. It seems he did rather well, running a Mugen MRX-5 and a very intersting power unit called STS. Have a look at the videos below and pay attention to the inside of the engine and the exhaust pipe..
Could all this be a hint of things to come and maybe see Masami compete in the upcoming 2013 World Championships in Japan? Rumor has it that Atsushi will participate again so lets see..
Last weekend was the 1st race of 2013 for the
1/10 scale EP Touring class. We had nice weather with only a few clouds, a
bit of wind that made things complicated and temperatures varying from 16
degrees to 26 within the day, depending on cloudiness.
I arrived at the track on Saturday around 4 in
the afternoon, managed to do a few runs and left the track being pleased with
the progress I had made during practice. My first run had lap times around the
19.2 sec range and in my last run I had dropped to 18.0 flat. That was 0.5
clear of my nearest rival on the day, Nick Geo who amusingly chose to register
his AMB with a different name, Andreas.
Sunday of course is raceday and nothing is won on Saturday so I knew that
everything is open.
And so it proved to be.. “to finish first, you first have to finish”
1st Qual run, stuck behind slower car of Andreas for 3 laps, then an error of my
judgment resulted in contact with him that striped my tyre which then broke
into pieces in the front straight.
2nd Qual run, small stone hits the spur right before the start and my run is
over before it even started
3rd Qual run, started well, had to go through all the cars starting in front of
me, still running at a comfortable TQ run pace till my battery decided to say goodbye.
All Qual runs were done and I was out of the Amain, sitting dead last in overall
standings.
That pretty much summed up my luck of the day which continued all through the
finals.
I take some consolidation from the fact that my
pace was very good and I am confident that with the package I have I can be competitive
even though I can only afford a few runs on Saturday prior to each race.
Leaving my performance aside the race was one of the best races in this class
we have had in years. A record number of participants, many new racers and many
more returning back into the action with respectable performance and a lot of
different car manufacturers represented, in combination with strong anticipation
from racers and spectators on who is fastest had set the scene for a memorable
race.
We had entries from: (alphabetical order) Cars AWESOMATIX
HPI/HB KYOSHO SCHUMACHER TAMIYA TOP XRAY YOKOMO
Tyres LRP NOSRAM RIDE SOREX SWEEP
Electronics:
ADVANCED ELECTRONICS
HB HOBBYWING LRP MUCH MORE NOSRAM SPEEDPASSION TEAM ORION
If I forgot any manufacturer, please feel free
to add into comments.
Being also part of the organization and being the chairman of the category it
was a great pleasure to receive such positive feedback from the racers and have
their support in our efforts to provide well organized races. My only regret is
the delay in the time schedule which we will try and improve considerably for
the future races.
The 3 Amains provided little action at the front as current National Champion, Nick/Andreas
“the kid” Georgiadis left no margin for any challenge of the lead from the
other racers and won comfortably the race. The B and C main finals on the other
hand provided plenty of action with many lead changes, strong comebacks and remarkable performances.
Next race is on the 26th of May at a great track about 3 hours away from Athens
and the locals will make sure that their winning performance of last year will
be repeated once more.
Soon more photos and videos.. A Final Run 1
My crappy luck also hit my video recording and only now realized that I did not record the whole 2nd A Final. Still you may enjoy most of it below:
