Old School IMSA

Cheesy music but you gotta love seeing the old Group C cars.

Enduro racing returns!

This article ran a long time ago but Mr. Gonzalez stumbled onto endurance racing and loved it. I still wonder why Tamiya who had gone its own way for so long abandoned the ingenuity for conventionalism...

Radio Control Car Action, Jun 1999 by Gonzalez, George M

An exhibition racing class was offered at the Tamiya TCS Regional Race 56 in Aliso Viejo, CA, for the company's new Toyota GT-One TS020, a scale replica of the full-size TS020 that raced in the GT 1 class at Le Mans last year. If you haven't already heard, this car features a simple, efficient direct-drive F103 RS Formula 1 chassis, but it's topped off with a sleek and sexy WSC (World Sports Car) body and Type A reinforced rubber slick tires.

Because the cars are 1/10th-scale Le Mans replicas, Tamiya organized a 1/10th-scale version of the 24-hour Le Mans race. Two 5-minute qualifiers determined the grid order for the 24-minute Main that included scheduled pit stops for battery-pack swaps and, if necessary, driver changes. I competed in this event, and it was one of my most memorable R/C experiences to date.

I finished in third place behind TCS national champion Mark Rebeck, which I consider to be an honor. Of course, I owe most of my success to my great pit crew: Roy Alaan (previous TCS Mini national champion) and Thad Garner, who lapped the field and won the Mini class at the event. These guys got me in and out of the pit lane in a hurry and coached me through the entire event.

I thought that 24 minutes of nonstop racing would be exhausting, but when the race was over, I could have easily gone on another 24 minutes because it was so much fun. In fact, I didn't let my backup driver race for even a single minute (sorry, Roy).

Tamiya has not officially added this new class to the TCS roster, but as new vehicles are released, the chances of this class being added to the TCS venue will increase. (Tamiya plans to release a Porsche 911 GT 1 '98 LM soon.) I just hope that Tamiya keeps the same 24-minute racing format. And how about adding a 50 yard-dash to the drivers' stand, too?

Copyright Air Age Publishing Jun 1999

So here we are on the dawn of a new season of endurance racing. It's tempting to do something bigger than just 4 hours though...

Tamiya Courage body painted like the Audi R8!

It's happening. Le Mans endurance racing is becoming the way to race r/c cars. The days of sprint racing are on the out and a new wave of r/c driver is appearing wanting more from the hobby. Lipo and brushless along with amazing capacity NiMH cells the reason to race for 5 minutes is a dying breed.

Above is the clear Tamiya Courage body set. As soon as it was released we are seeing more and more scale bodies being done up for endurance racing.