2005 - JMRCA

Japan Nationals in 2005
Brushed motors
NiMh batteries
6 cell packs
8 min runs

No warm up laps, not even a meter do the cars roll prior to start.
Tyres prepared and cars positioned on the grid and then each run starts.
Battery packs, charged till the very last minute, with warmers to have more punch

Just look at the equipment in the pits.

Team Orion powerhouse for round 2 National Champs

Something a little different..

Masami Hirosaka & 1/8 track

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 Yurugi who 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..

Source: 
1)Asiarc.info
2)haobike (via facebook)
3)rctech.com.tw
4)Team Silverstone WB/RC (via facebook)

National CUP 2011 - Video

Here is a video edit from the first A-main of our National Cup. Track is pretty big and cars reach high speeds. In this Amain I suffered from cold tyres in the first few laps and had very little traction. Additionally my electronics had a conservative set up as I hadn't tested more boost and timing. I increased these two parameters for the 2nd Amain and car was much faster, improving by a considerable margin over the qualifying and first Amain runs.
Video recorded by friend, Chris Zotalis

Yokomo's Yatabe Arena video after ATS race

A nice video from YOKOMO at the great facility of Yatabe Arena.

IFMAR HISTORY 1/10 Electric 2wd & 4wd

A little of history.
Clearing up my old room, I had to throw away a bunch of old magazines. Some of them had some nice articles so I decided to keep them as files in my computer.
Now I decided to share some to the public... so here you go.

Masami's 1989 winning Yokomo! (I highly recommend clicking on the photos for the high resolution image)

 

In 1989 Masami also won the 2wd IFMAR World Champion title and he did so using a prototype car for which a lot was written. Team Associated was very smart to name it 'stealth' car, a name that had a nice impact on the market, creating a lot of mystery and anticipation around the design of the car until these photos were published.