Saturday, 09 June 2007

• My Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM 2000 Team D2 RC car

  Hey, everyone.  How was everyone's weekend so far?  Mine is still ongoing (hee hee) as it's still Saturday here where I'm at.

  Nywhoo, wanted to post about my recent RC car info, since it was long overdue.  *sigh*  Yeah, I was supposed to have posted about this a heck-of-a-long time ago during the T&T Channel@ vid clip showing but, who cares.   I'm gonna post this anyway. =)

  Well, for those of you who have wondered what Tamiya is or what an RC car is, let me explain.

  

  

  For starters, I'll tell you all about the hobby I started into many years b4 I even knew T&T had gotten involved. lol  I had gotten into the sport ever since I married my hubby back in the early 2000's.  I've since gotten involved and took a heavy interest in it since I also find racing (cars) facinating and fun too.

  I also met Mr. Tamiya himself and got his autograph & business card.  His office & official Tamiya HQ resides in Shizuoka, Japan.  Got his autobiography book and had him personally sign it as well.

  

  

  I own a Tamiy rc car of my own and it's a Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM 2000 Team D2 silver rc car. (w/racing stickers)

  

  It's an XB, meaning it's an 'expert built'.  It comes ready-made like this when you first purchase an XB one if a person chooses to not paint/put together the rc car itself. (like me...lol)  Now, I know I'm supposed to paint my own body shell, put together the entire car, etc. but at the time I got exposed to the hobby, it discouraged me completely to have to put the entire thing together.  One, it's time-consuming and two, I had NO CLUE how to put it together!   Are u NUTZ?? lol  And my hubby wasn't about to put another one together 4 me either so, he bought me one that was already done 4 you by Tamiya.  It was ready to race and all u had to do was take it out of the box and it was set to go. ^_^  Pretty cool.

  Well, then as I got more involved with this new hobby of mine, I've come to learn all about the sport and how serious it is around the world.  Now, I've included two writeups all about Tamiya America USA and the Tamiya HQ in Japan.  I know these pics are blurred and you're unable to view them well.  But, if you click on them, it should show up 100% better.  These two articles I've collected from the showroom itself and talks all about the two HQs.

  ***(rescanning articles for better quality; will post them later)***

  I've also come to know that there's a Tamiya America HQ (headquarters) located in Southern California, nestled in an upper-class town of Aliso Viejo.

  

  In back of the HQ is their own racetrack where anyone (the public) can race their rc cars around the track when there's no competition race or special event.  But, there's one catch; all rc cars that play here 'for fun' has to be made by Tamiya.   Lucky for me, mine is a Tamiya.

  

  Now, I've also been to several Tamiya Cons (conventions) already in the past as well as two competition races.  One race I attended had the winner end up in Shizuoka, Japan for the World Championships...sugoii!!!!

  

  So far, it's been really fun and we've even brought our daughter along as well.  She loves watching them race around.  It was funny because the first time we brought her, she actually has said 'Go! Go! Go!' OUTLOUD too I might add.   Ohh gosh, it was quite hazukashii but everyone who was there ended up chuckling to themselves because they all were very used-to hearing young toddlers or children yelling like that. (I immediately thot to myself, if only T&T heard/saw her do that, I think they'd think how 'kawaii' she was.)

  Our daughter has even played with a few hoppers we own.   She was so cute shown here playing w/them back then. (I think she was only 2yrs. old at the time I shot these pix of her.)  Good thing she isn't afraid of them. lol

  

  Ok.  Now for the good stuff.  I even ended up meeting someone who also happens to live here in Cali where I'm at.  We met each other at a recent rc car championship race @ Tamiya in Aliso Viejo.  They just so happened to be walking in front of us and we ended up talking to each other w/our children.  One thing led to another and before I knew it, we swapped email addy's.

  Well, here are a few pix I took too of the race itself while we were there.

  

  *credits Tamiyausa.com for #'s 2-4 pics*

  They live in Lake Forest area and her name's Sachie. (kireii name, I thot)  Her husband is Akihiro but he's known in the rc car business as 'Aki'.  They have one daughter, Yuta who's Preschool age (4) and a son, Shota who's 2 1/2 yrs. old.  Kawaii names for their children ne~  I spoke to Yuta in Japanese, chotto, and she understood. *yoshhh~*

  

  Now, Aki works not only for HPI (High Performance Industries; another rc car company) but races for the company too.  He also helps martial their races as well.  Here is the car he used during the '07 Greedy Nat'l Championship RC race we recently went to not too long ago (May).  Isn't his blue car sugoii??

  

  I've also included a couple of pix of a silver Lamborghini I saw driving by us while on the way to the race itself. @_@ *faints*  I know this area is chotto-rich but, geez.  To have a Lamborghini whiz by us on the way over to the rc race was SUPER cool.   Sorry these pix aren't much and are slightly 'blurr' but, hope it's enough.  They were taken from my keitai (cellphone).  Gomen -_-

  

  And, I've included 2 cool videos as a 'sample' on HPI and Kyosho (2 rc car companies) in case some of you have never heard or seen what they can do or what an rc car is.  Enjoy~ XDD  To view them, just click on the 'video' tab bar above my site.  You'll find two of them for your viewing.  Hope they load properly.  Let me know if it's having problems or you were having trouble viewing it.  I totally recommend watching these because it's quite cool, esp. the music too to go along w/the video.

  Well, for now, that's about it.  Tell me what you think and hope to hear from ya.  Dun hesitate to tell me your thoughts. =D

  *Reiko-chan*

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