The ultimate Neo Vintage Tamico Off Road Cup Challenge
Chapter 1 - THE RACE AND THE WEAPON OF JOY
It is late February 2025 and the winter finally gave up, packed his freezing cold here in Bremerhaven/Germany and flees with big steps to the southern hemisphere for a well earned vacation. Time to make some plans for the upcoming race season!
One big race in the calendar is the mega-event from the well known German RC Club EDC Kinzigtal.
They host the Kyosho Legendary Cup and the Tamico Off Road Cup in a full 4 days racing event! They also managed to bring some VIP´s to both races. Some big names from Kyosho Europe and also the man behind Blockhead Motors, Jun Watanabe, who made his first stop of his World´s Tour at one of the most beautiful RC racing tracks in the world in the Black Forrest of Germany.
After the King of Black Forest Race in 2023, I fell in love with this track. Maybe the last real Dirt Track in Germany, among the hills and mountains and a beautiful landscape of south Germany.
So I decided to make the long trip again to join the meeting. Because of the lack of owning a Tamiya buggy, I registered to the Kyosho Legenday Race only. My Ultima and my Lazer definitely want to get some dirt under the tires! But to race 4 full days would be the RC heaven. I only had to get a Tamiya buggy! My collection of vintage buggies is still growing, but my shelf is really missing a vintage Tamiya buggy. So an idea growth in my head.
The EFRA Grand Prix at the Hildesheim track from 1988.
At my very first race back in 1986 I ran a Tamiya Supershot. The race was in Hildesheim/Germany, where they held some very important races for the next few years. At the EFRA Grand Prix 1988, where I saw some big names, like Lars Wearn from Sweden, Jamie Booth, Richard Isherwood and many more of the British super stars! Guys, who I met again 30 years later at vintage races and now we are friends!
My first race pit. Tamiya Supershot at the Mazda from my father.
The story of my very first race in Hildesheim was a painful event for me. Everything went wrong and I was so frustrated, that I never wanted to race again after this. Never ever!
It started, that my brand new CS Rocket speedo died, when I wanted to do my first practice run. One day earlier I tested the car and everything was fine. And now it just died even before I could run a single lap. So I panicked even more. I was so excited about the race, that my hands was shaking so hard, that I was not able to hold a wrench, or do other things with precision. My seatmate saw me frustrated and crying and asked, what´s happened. I told him, that my ESC was broken and things went bad for me. He was so nice and lend me another CS speed controller from an earlier generation than mine. Better than nothing! So I tried to build it into my car and it worked! But this costs me so much time, that I only had 1 chance to run a practice run this day. I raced 3 laps and my car stopped. Something blocked the drivetrain. Back on my table I saw the disaster. The speedo was wrapped in tape, instead of heat shrink what was usual these day.
My Supershot with a glass fibre chassis I made some weeks before with a jigsaw, when I was 15 years old.
When I drove my first laps on the track, the tape from the speedo started winding around the mid drive shaft of my Supershot until everything was blocked. It was a total mess inside the car. I destroyed my own ESC and now the one from my seatmate again. It was a horrible view and I was shocked and cried this day a second time. I only can remember, that I wanted to go home as soon as possible. Away from this race. Away from this situation. My father was not amused. He had to pay the shredded ESC from that guy and experienced a catastrophic weekend with his son. I spoke no word on our 2 hours trip back home.
So maybe a project car for the Tamico Cup event can heal my wounds from a traumatizing race 39 years ago?
The Super Hotshot. The car, what could be my therapy.
If you ask me for a good Online Shop for Vintage RC Car parts – especially for Tamiya parts, I would say, Tamico is probably a very good address. The not only sell all the Tamiya and non-racing cars and parts, they started over the last years to get more interesting parts for the Vintage racing scene. So I bought many of my parts there since a while.
To make this project, I sent Joachim Startek from Tamico an email and asked him to support me to write this article to build a therapy-car and to write a race report for the mega event at the Black Forrest. And here we go! Tamico agreed and this is chapter 1 of my very first officially sponsored Neo Vintage RC articles.
To fight your fear you have to confront with it 3 times harder. That´s the therapy. This is the story of my Tamiya therapy.
The fact, that you read this lines means, I gave racing a chance again after this disastrous weekend from 1986. Maybe there is one person, who is responsible for my return and to spend the rest of my life with rc racing and working as rc car designer since 20 years. This guy was a 16 years old boy, named Marco Heinrich.
Some weeks after the Hildesheim Race I heard, that there is a race in Trittau, near Hamburg, where I lived. They made a buggy track inside a Moto Cross track and I asked my father to bring me to the race only to watch. But not to race. I was still frustrated, but also interested to watch this race. So my father drove me to the practice day on Saturday. It was rainy and the track was pretty muddy. But back in the days, that was no drawback to race your buggy in the rain. To clean your car 45 minutes to only race 5 minutes and clean it again and again for the rest of the weekend was totally normal. Drivers put plastic bags over their transmitter against the rain and the more clever drivers had rubber boots.
Find all informations here: https://tamico-offroad-cup.blogspot.com/
So I watched the racing action the whole day and was a bit relieved to not race in this mud. And there was this boy in my age and asked my, why I do not race here. I told him my story from my Hildesheim nightmare and my plan not to race until the end of my life. Then Marco offered my to drive his buggy for some laps and I did it. It seems, I was not slow and could overlap some of the racers. Marco told me, that I am a good driver and I have to race this race on Sunday! My father told me the same. Race it! You can do it! On the way home I finally agreed.
I had a long night to bring my Supershot back to life and we were at the start on the early Sunday. My car was very exhausted after a half year and nearly each day of driving it in front of our house, or other places around. My Supershot was worn until the bones. The drive shafts, the outdrives, the tires and arms. There was huge play on each corner. Other people would through it away. But for me it was my only rc car, what I paid from my hard saved money from Birthday, Christmas and pocket money together. There was no extra money for spare parts, or a fresh set of tires. So I raced this wreck on Sunday and found me in the better half of the field after the finals. I can not remember, what position I made unfortunately. But to keep up with some real “competition racers” was promising. I took me only some months to win my next race. The third race in total. With a Schumacher Cat XLS. But this is another story. Many things in life happen for a reason. Sometimes it has something to do to meet people, who give you a direction. Especially if you struggle. So thank you, Marco!
Friends since 39 years.
The next chapter will show you, what parts I ordered together with my Super Hotshot project and what modifications I did. Not much time until the event. See you soon!
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