Tamiya Racing Factory
Tamiya and their racing team, Tamiya Racing Factory (TRF), have evolved into one of the most successful racing teams on the electric scene of worldwide R/C racing over the last few years. They are most famous for their work in the field of 1/10 scale electric touring car racing.
In 1999, at the request of many Tamiya enthusiasts, Tamiya started work on a car made purely for racing to replace their aging, gear-driven TA03R-TRF and TA03F David Jun Edition cars. The car that resulted was the TRF414X (built in very small numbers), which evolved into the TRF414M, and then to the more popular TRF414M2 (and the budget-oriented TA04 series), all employing the then-novel twin-belt drivetrain layout, with the center layshaft mounted above the motor. The TRF team's reputation shot up after the 3rd IFMAR ISTC world championships in Mogale City, South Africa, in 2002. The Thai driver Surikarn Chaidajsuriya shocked the world by winning the world championships driving a modified Tamiya TRF414M. The car he used was eventually released to the public as the TRF414M-World Championship Replica, of which only 1500 were built making it one of the more desirable Tamiya kits from the last 5 years.
Since 2002 the TRF division has continuously been growing with an expanded team in Japan and worldwide. In late 2002 Tamiya released their third shaft driven car called TB Evolution III (or TB Evo3) which won the YamaYama Cup in Japan two months later, with Satoshi Maezumi at the wheel. On the European scene the Dane Steen Graversen, along with Surikarn Chaidajsuriya and team manager Kiyokazu Suzuki, managed to join the A-main of the big LRP Masters race in Germany during April 2003. Surikarn then won both the 23T stock and the Modified classes in the Thailand International Touring Car championships (TITC) using an updated TB Evo3. Surikarn's Evo3 was eventually released to the public as the limited-edition TB Evo3 Surikarn Edition (SE) to commemorate the victory. It features red anodized aluminum components, new upper arm mounts, titanium turnbuckles and screws, delrin differential halves, a thicker 3 mm carbon chassis, and a new one-way carbon gear brace. The TB Evo3 SE was eventually replaced with the TB Evo4 in the first half of 2004. The Evo4 addressed the Evo3 owner's complaints about their car's bevel gear durability by incorporating a three-piece center shaft design, doing away with the Evo3's single-piece center shaft. The Evo4 was also equipped with Tamiya's lightweight reversible suspension set, incorporating smaller wheel bearings, stiffer material and reversible longer suspension arms which allows more cornering speed and more precise adjustment of the car's suspension characteristics.
The same year Tamiya discovered a new young star, a boy named Marc Rheinard from Germany. Rheinard debuted at the indoor race DHI Cup of 2004 with Tamiya's new belt driven car (designed in conjunction with Tech Racing) the TRF415. He and Steen Graversen finished 2nd and 3rd, proving the capability of this newly designed chassis. Two months later Rheinard won the LRP Masters world's best drivers. Things looked good for the upcoming 4th World Championships in Florida, USA. Few believed that Rheinard would actually win the world championships at thr age of 17, but he did. Tamiya took their new and improved version of TRF415, the TRF415MS which stands for Maezumi Satoshi, one of the car's designers and a Tamiya factory driver. The new car had improved handling characteristics on asphalt through the adoption of a thinner chassis and thr Evo4's lightweight reversible suspension. Rheinard took pole position and won two of the three A-mains. The other Tamiya driver in the top ten was former world champion Surikarn, driving the TB Evo4, who finished 9th.
After the 2004 World Championship Tamiya released the upgrade kit for the 415 containing the direct center pulley (as opposed to the center one-way included in the standard 415 and 415MS kits) and narrowed suspension mounts, further improving the 415 handling and acceleration. In early 2005 Tamiya released an updated version of the TB Evo4, called the TB Evo4MS. The Evo4MS was equipped with one-piece aluminium bulkheads (as opposed to the Evo4's 4-piece bulkhead), aluminium center brace and one-piece center shaft input cups (as opposed to plastic ones in the Evo4).
In July 2005 Tamiya further updated the TRF415MS by releasing the TRF415MSX. They released both as a conversion kit (for older 415s) and as a complete kit. The design featured a three-piece bulkhead for easy maintenance, a lowered and shortened upper deck that runs under the belt, and the removal of the middle decks — all of which contributed to a lower center of gravity and an increased "tweak" resistance. Marc won the World's Warm-Up in April 2006 with a revised version of the MSX sporting a new set of lowered rear bulkheads, shock towers, and steering mechanism. Unfortunately he only placed 4th overall in the 5th IFMAR ISTC World Championships held in August 2006 in Collegno, Italy, but his car was eventually released to the public as the limited-edition, asphalt-racing TRF415MSX Marc Rheinard Edition (MRE) in August 2006. It incorporated new alternated (having more widely-spaced teeth) pulleys, a new lightweight delrin solid front axle, new internal drive ratios (through the adoption of the new pulleys), and the new steering mechanism. In July 2006 Tamiya released the TB Evolution 5, their next-generation gear-driven touring car, replacing the Evo4 MS. The Evo5 did away with the Evo4's front main shaft input cup, using a CV joint instead (but retaining a rear input cup), and also incorporates the new short arms for the lightweight suspension, which further increased the cornering speed and helped sharpen the car's turn-in. It was also equipped with a new, more precise steering mechanism (seen also in the TRF415MSX MRE), and a lowered top deck. In November 2006 Tamiya ceased the production of the MRE and released the updated TRF415MSXX. This car returned to the standard front one-way differential (unlike the solid axle included in the MRE) and came with new thinner upper and lower decks (altering the chassis flex characteristics), and a new aluminum air scoop to help cool the motor.
Read more about this topic: List Of Tamiya Product Lines
Famous quotes containing the words racing and/or factory:
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“... you can have a couple of seconds to rest in. I mean seconds. You have about two seconds to wait while the blanker is on the felt drawing the moisture out. You can stand and relax those two seconds—three seconds at most. You wish you didn’t have to work in a factory. When it’s all you know what to do, that’s what you do.”
—Grace Clements, U.S. factory worker. As quoted in Working, book 5, by Studs Terkel (1973)