I remember reading about this in Radio Control Car Action. The "Stealth" cars that Masami and the other AE guys ran were extreme prototypes, so much so that AE didn't allow anyone to photograph them without the body on the cars. The other drivers also bitched about the low profile 2.2 tires that were used because they were so sticky.
I also dislike modern "smooth" off road tires. It's like they're making them into on-road cars. In the movie, "War of the Roses", the wife Kathleen Turner says she wants an off-road truck with knobby tires. I also dislike the modern ugly cab forward bodies.
This is the kind of track I dreamed about when I was a kid. Not going to the middle of nowhere into some warehouse and racing on hard-packed mud on a characterless track.
I remember when I read about this race in the magazines I was disappointed, because I wanted the Team Losi JRX2 to win. The JRX2 was the best 2WD of 1988 and 1989. I had one.
Masami is definitely a legend in my lunchtime. B¬) I think he has been world champion with virtually every RC car. And yeah, these cars were fast, but you're looking at top pro drivers. Even back in '89 their rigs were costing big bux.
I was there it was a legendary race here in Australia first ever world R.C 1/10th off road championships! Australians placed in lower mains @ the time I was 15 years old ! They were the years of r.c racing ever !
2 things stick out in this video: 1) Trees around the track, epic feature! 2) The speed of the cars is very....Modest! You could probably run this pace now with 13.5 & lipo.
Crazy how they were using the YR31 tire and Losi was trying to play games w/the Xpattern (technically called into question over legal or not b/c it wasnt avail to public at the time). Apparently AE tested after the event with the X and went faster still. -R
Ha! I remember when RC car racing was nothing but MRC/Tamiya Holiday Buggies, Rough Riders, and Sand Scorchers! And then a few AYK Buffaloes showed up...and that weird Hirobo 4WD thing. What a POS that was! Oh, can't forget the Tamiya 'Super Champ'. I had one of those. It weighed a ton and had a terrible rear suspension.
Wikipedia lists the winning car of this race as the "RC10", but that is very misleading. Masami's RC10 Stealth Prototype that won this race was radically different from the classic RC10 that was released in 1984. In a way, it was like a real race car - custom made, not in production, not available to the public, and not mass produced. It was effectively a professional car. It was apparently the only RC10 variant with a double deck chassis, like the Traxxas TRX-3. Apparently that same car won again in 1991. Despite that success, Team Associated never implemented that double deck chassis into any of its later production RC10 variants. All the other RC10s that came later had either a tub chassis or a plate chassis.
perfectsplit Masami also had 2000 mah batteries. I slept with Jay Halsey before he was married. He told me. So, Masami Hirosaka won the 2wd with an illegal chassi, and illegal batteries. iFMAR Rules said you had to have 50 chassi available to compete. Like perfectsplit said, only AE had that chassi. So, AE cheated with a prototype car that no one ever had. When I was a little girl, I gave Cliff Lett a hand job at Break-A-Way Raceway when he was testing the "Stealth Car" prior to the 89' and 91's worlds.
@perfectsplit5515 You can find pictures of each of you search Google. There are many more of the 91 worlds car, though. The key visual difference is that the 89 has the front shocks in front of the shock tower while the 91 had then on the back side. Losi brought a prototype in 91 as well. A few years back some people reverse engineered the Associated 91 world's car from pictures and sold it as a kit (Nixconcepts Nix91). I think you can still buy one, but I'm pretty sure what's out there now is a knock off of the first kit.
@NitroJunkie626 Did not see that much Euro using throttle on the right, but if some do this, it could be due to video games, since Arcade, PCs, Nintendo or other always have buttons for throttle/brake on the right hand, and steering on the left. "Super Off Road" for example was released in 1989.
The way I see it, stick radios for surface types seem more apprpriate on toy rc's. As for Mode 1, I guess I'll never understand why Europe and Asia prefer their throttle on the right.
This year nikko run for the first time I think with the nikko brat, a pro kit that was the one of the only three pro kits nikko had ever produced, it was the nikko sprinter and another I do not remember, I thing dandy.... Something like that..... But I don't know if these nikko rc cars were competitive compared with the other brands, and also I can not find the results..... Does someone know something????
