Konichiwa everyone, and welcome to my race report of the 2009 Tamiya World Championship!
This has been a race I have dreamed of driving in since I was 11. 13 years ago, A friend of mine Scotty Ernest won the Tamiya North American Finals (Formerly the Tamiya Nationals) in September of 1996 and went to the world championship in November that year and it has been my dream to compete in this race ever since. Watching my friend Scotty win the nationals was an uplifting experience in my life and I had stuck to making it to Japan ever since, and finally this year I won the Tamiya North Americans and earned a spot on the North American team to represent the United States.
My team got up early on November 14 and headed to the Tom Bradley Terminal at the Los Angeles airport, we rode on Korean Air and took off to Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan 10:10 AM it was a 12 hour flight but it went quick due to the fact there were movies that were playing on the throughout the flight from Transformers 2, to movie called “Rescue Wings” A Japanese movie about a Japanese girl serving in the Japan’s self defense forces who strives to do well in her military and win the hearts and her respect of her fellow soldiers.
Our team arrived at Narita Airport in Japan around 4:00PM Tokyo time We got off the plane and went through customs and headed down to get our baggage, they were being sniffed by golden lab and black lab dogs but they were quite friendly there was one dog was sniffing me and my dad quite a lot and wouldn’t leave, he seemed to like us a lot.
We then left for the train to take us to the bullet train downtown Shizuoka City, we were on the regular train for about and hour and 40 minutes, and then we got on the bullet train next to Shizuoka City, seeing all the neon lights and the interesting cars was very awesome to me. Our team got off the bullet train and headed to our hotel. The name of the hotel was called the Century Shizuoka. We checked into our room around 10pm after hat we then unpacked everything and headed to bed.
The next morning, our rose early to get some breakfast, and then we boarded a bus to Kakegawa Raceway, a racetrack located and hour from our hotel in Shizuoka. While we were on our way made a stop at a rest area where we at lunch and had a little green tea ice cream, after that we then got back on the bus and headed off tot the track and arrived then 20 minutes later. The track is very big. The drivers stand is 20 feet tall and the track is as big as a football field, the drivers stand was big but it wasn’t as bad as thought it would be and I handled it well, this was the track that Scotty Ernest, my friend, raced at in the Tamiya World Championship in 1996, It had actually rained that day so the track was a quite wet, me and my dad managed to borrow some squeegee tools a dried off the track there also was another track maintenance person that helped squeegee off the track as well. The Tamiya staff had rental gas power RC cars that we could drive on the track, since we were not really racing we only just did driving on the track, the track was still wet so there were some puddles that I had to avoid. The Tamiya staff fired the once of the cars up for me and I drove out of the pit lane and drove onto the tack the track, the track was very slick so I had to be easy on the throttle so I didn’t spin the car out, I was actually handling the track well however my car kept on stalling and had to be restarted quite a lot, I also got to try my teammates which he brought to the track car out as well too which was even more faster and was electric, he had a very fast electric motor in there and it just absolutely screamed down the 100 yard back stretch when he drove it, when I was driving his car I was just trying to be easy on the trigger and not tried to over drive the car. My teammates also had problems shut down in the rain; due to lack of sealing the electronics to keep water out. After the international drivers short practice run, we got back on the bus again drove back to the hotel for dinner and got ready for the first day of practice by cycling battery packs for the race. Cycling is charging and discharging packs to see which pack has the best number in voltage and other numerous stats.
Our team had breakfast early in the morning and then got on the bus for the twin messes arena, we waited out side the arena to be let in, once the doors opened, every racer from every continent went to their pit area and set up shop. There everybody began to charge up their batteries for their first round of practice, my first round of practice was coming up and I got ready to head to the tech area with my father in tow and then went through inspection and then waited for our practice round to come up, the round before us concluded and then the race organizer allowed the racers onto the drivers stand.
As I walked up, noticed the drivers stand was tall but I was tall enough for me to not get rattled by the height, I could see the track quite well. I then said a little prayer and then got ready to drive for my first practice session. I am starting the first row on the inside line
The horn sounded and raced off while leaving the to the side of me behind the track a was a little slick but I was managed it quite well, the first lap I thought I was doing good but as the first few laps came in I noticed that I was not doing as well in my heat. M y motor was very slow and I was being pulled down the straight and corners. When time expires, a checked flag is waved to signaling the end of a race as everyone crosses the finish line.
The next practice round we were a little worried about the performance of our motor and we knew we not as doing as good, as qualifying started I still noticed that I was not doing as well as could and there were a few decent number of cars hat were passing me by. In the final free practice round me and my dad got the car a little better setup however it was still a little slower than most racers.
Next up was qualifying practice rounds; this is where practice rounds are timed like qualifying to see who is the fastest so far and who is going to be the top contender for the title. In the first qualifying practice round you are required to do a practice stop and go penalty, let say if you take someone out from behind and you spin them around someone will show a yellow card in your range of view like that of soccer/football where you have to stop in a area of a track called a stop and go penalty you are to stay there for 10 second until the official lifts the flag and you are free to go, you do not want this to happen to you which will cost you a great deal of time.
Before the first practice round of qualifying practice, drivers are told that they have to stop in a corner of the track that has short entrance and exit in that where once you are shown the card; you are to drive into that area. The first round of qualifying practice beings, I have noticed the traction has picked up the car was a little easier to drive, I was still down on power thought. Halfway through the round one of the officials shows me the card, I nod and then drive into the penalty area, as I enter a official drops a flag in front of my car as I wait 10 seconds before the official lifts the flag and I drive off and finish the last two minutes of the race. I found out that I am a second slower than everyone else so now I have to pick it up.
The next qualifying practice round there are no practice stop and go penalties however the race is still being timed and I still have to drive my fastest, once the qualifier being and I get few laps in I am a second faster than my previous round, still am last in the my heat however there are a few racers that were in the previous heat before me that were slower than. Unfortunately I still am at the bottom of the order, the good thing to mention is I’m still driving clean and not making any mistakes. When the end of the qualifier ends as I look at the results sheet for the GT2400 class I end up 12th overall which happenings to be the cut line for the A main. But my and I father were still worried about our motor speed issues.
We asked one of the race officials if we could buy a new motor for our car to use in qualifying tomorrow, the race official check with the tech inspection area and yes but you have to buy the motor 15 minutes before you pack up and leave for the bus back to the hotel. Which we were in the process packing up and we didn’t have enough time to get a motor before the qualifiers. Now we had a bad motor to deal with the entire race.
The next day which was Saturday November 21st, my and I father were getting ready for the first round of qualifying. In the Tamiya World Championship, you are allowed a 4 minute time limit to make a single fastest lap that will determine where you stand in the final A main. Every round where you place with your fastest lap you are given a point, if you come in 1st one round you get 0 points, if you come in 2nd two points, 3rd 3, 12th 12, and so on. I am sitting first on the grid on the inside on the front row, when the race starts drivers on each row will take off twice, as well as the next row and the next row after that. They used this method in yesterday’s practice rounds as well too. The first round horn sounds off and me in the first row speeds off I have the inside line and let the other racer go for few seconds and drive off. I start to get accustomed to the track like second nature and make a huge to get into the A main. As two laps pass by the announcer reads the lap times and says that I am once again at the bottom of the heat, I have to let other cars pass me by and tag in behind them, time expires and my fastest lap of the qualifier is a 19.827, there was another racer who had the exact same lap time by the tenth, hundredth, and thousandth of a second. I am able to edge him out by just a few ten thousandths of a second, less than a blink! This is the narrowest I had ever beaten anybody for a position.
In the next qualifier my dad and I were just sitting on bubble of the A main and we had to turn some faster laps if we want to have a good cushion. There is a pro racer from Japan that is helping us get the motor as little faster which I hoped would give us more speed. During the second qualifier, my motor is still slow and still have the slowest time of my heat and of the GT2400 class, I now try to cut the corners tight to make up time, but still have tot keep a distance from them to not roll over, at the end of the qualifier I end up 14th with 14 points.
The last qualifier of the day is where traction now was starting to get quite grippy and cars were getting up to speed. I decided to put a little more steering into my radio to make the car rotate just a little better in the 3rd qualifier, it did work and I was turning in better, in the end I only managed to finish 13th which calculated my total to 25 points, the guy in 12th place had 22 which I really needed tomorrow to pull off a stellar run.
On Sunday it looked pretty grim that I would not make it into the A main but I still had not given up hope, but I also realized that this could be my last TCS race ever so I had to give it a very good run to put it in the show.
The forth and final qualifier came up my dad charged the battery up to 12 amps just for me to have a good chance of me getting into the show. This time sitting I’m last on the grid on the back row on the outside, my plan it to let the car next to me go first so I can have a good qualifier. I say a prayer and wait for the announcer to give the command.
“Drivers….at the tone!”
The first horn sounds off, then the second, the third and then the forth, I wait for the car on the inside to go but he is not moving, 3 seconds pass, he still in not, I decide to go but the goes as well and we hesitate for a few feet ten I decide to let him in front of me. This would cost me an great deal of time I now really had to move, with 30 seconds into the race I am really doing well my fast lap is a 19.402, there is a car that hit a board and slowed down that is right in front of me, I am only 2 car lengths behind him, For strategy in the Tamiya World Championship, if someone is blocking you and is not letting you by, you have to slow down and wait a few seconds for him to get ahead of you so you have more room to make good clean lap, that’s not the case and I am being just a little impatient and staying on his bumper I am trying to make sure I don’t rear end him so I don’t get called for a penalty. A lap later coming into the straightaway the car in front of me clips the corner and I get tangled in with him and we have to be marshaled a little bit, right now, the little accident with driver in front of me, knocks a good deal of juice from the battery and it becomes hard for me to pull off another fastest lap. But for the rest of the last qualifier I drive clean race and cross the finish line with the checked flag waving. Now we get to the results.
I head to the results board and try to see if I have made the A main. I am tied for qualifying points for 12th, I have missed the A main, by best lap, by 3 hundredths of a second.
For 5 hours and the rest of the racing event I had to sit out and watch my teammates and my newly made racing friends from Japan race in the A main finals and the awards ceremony. I was quite devastated by the fact that I did not race in the finals that I had tried to get into for 13 years. It didn’t matter I had made it to the Tamiya World Championship that I had been trying to make it to since I was 11. That is all that really matters. I may not have made the finals, but inside I felt like I had won.
After our team got back on the bus back to the hotel, we then headed on down to the main lobby and all the international driver’s gathered with the Tamiya staff and then headed to a local tavern which we then had dinner and then got to talk about our racing experiences, during the end of the night, everyone played a little game of “rock paper scissors”, because one of the pro racers was giving away one of his racing body shells that
He used in the professional world championship race last year. Everyone played… and I won! We then took a little walk around Shizuoka to see all the sights and the numerous buildings, cars, lights and parks that were around then we walked back to the hotel and then went to bed. Then next morning everyone packed their bags, checked out and got on the bus and we took a 4 hour ride to Tokyo. There were a few rest stops along the way that we took to get something to eat or drink, one of those stops, in front of it, was mount Fuji, I couldn’t how big the mountain was due to the fact that I had never seen a mountain that big before up close, me and my father got our picture taken in front of the big snow covered mountain then headed back on the bus to Tokyo, our first stop was a Buddhist shine, It was quite crowded there but people didn’t mind you being so close together, we got a few art pictures there where we then got lunch, we got back on the bus to tour around the city again we then got to walk on the streets of the big city. It was Japan’s labor say where a mile of one the streets of downtown Tokyo was shut off to traffic, there was also I time where someone on the street that asked me to be on Japanese television, he wanted me to pretend that I was a baseball player hitting a home run in the world series and a little kid pretended that he was throwing a baseball to me, after I ran around imaginary bases then did pretend interview with me asking how I was feeling and I pretended that I won the world series and thanked my team, I felt so happy being on TV. After that we went to another tavern had had I believe a 5 course meal and had talked about racing some more, after that we walked to one of the Tamiya stores that sells RC racing cars in downtown Tokyo and we got to take a look around that place as well then got back on the bus which was waiting for us pick us up. We headed tot the hotel in Tokyo near the Narita Airport, the city was beautiful at night, all lit up with pretty lights, everything around me was so memorizing that I could help but to have a smile on my face. We then got to the hotel and checked in and then my dad and I washed up for the night and went to bed. The next morning we got up, had breakfast, gave the Tamiya staff a big hug, checked out of the hotel then headed to the airport, our fight would be ready for another 5 hours so we just wandered around the apart for awhile, one of my team mates bought a lot of souvenirs for himself. When it was time to get on the plane and head on home, I really felt sad because I really didn’t want to leave, because it was such a wonderful experience there that I felt almost at home. When I looked out the window I noticed 3 Japanese airplane control officers waving at the plane they waved and waved and then bowed, I bowed back, and then the plane took off into the sky, back to the USA.
Thank you so much for reading this race report of the Tamiya World Championship, I welcome comments and I will be willing to ask any questions.
21 Nov 2009, 6:17 am
