Tamiya Team Drivers

[TRF_Tastic]

Does anyone know if there will be any Tamiya team drivers to campaign the TRF501X, or is it in the hands of priviate owners only in the UK?????

On the same point who runs the Tamiya TC team drivers here in the UK?????

[FifteenthNeo]

Judging by the amount I have spent on Tamiya kits in the past years I should have an honory position as a team driver

Have you contacted the Hobby Co about any vacancies for team drivers?

[sosidge]

Originally Posted by FifteenthNeo

Have you contacted the Hobby Co about any vacancies for team drivers?

Is it April 1st already?

[jimmy]

hehe, have to join with sosidge there - a team drive from hobby co. would ammount to a sticker sheet for a 'lunchbox'.

[DCM]

or a straight answer from a politician...

[ramdrive]

Funny thing...

I e-mailed the CEO of Tamiya last week offering to put together a Tamiya works team and finance it in the UK. The main driving force for me is getting these great cars on the tracks, with a structured team that can do R&D work on UK tracks and push the car forward. I grew up racing Tamiya cars fruitlessly against Cat's in the 80's put I always stuck with the brand.

Lets see what they say...

Anyone interested in the venture should PM me for further details.

Colin

[jimmy]

I certainly won't 'poo poo' your efforts mate, I wish you the best of luck - I just hope Tamiya can see the benefit and actually respond.

[ramdrive]

Indeed, we shall see...

At least I can say I gave it a go, and knowing Tamiya's plastic supplier has opened a few doors for me

I will copy any correspondence to this thread, I would value any opinions or suggestions from you guys.

Colin

[jimmy]

Great stuff - it's the only way you'll see any Tamiyas do well in the UK I think. Unless Hupo and Rheinard decide to come over for a 'UK tour' haha...

[DCM]

I would love to see a Tamiya Team, I know they have a cracking R+D department, even if you just intervened on car names, would be a start!!!

[HairySteve]

Great idea I think most of the TRF501's in this country were imported anyway, not actually bought via the UK importer (I got mine from them as I work in a hobby shop, so I also got it at a good price...) so anything Hobby Co and Tamiya in general can do to improve the company's reputation is a good thing. Too many people look down their nose at Tamiya cars as being "toys" and "for beginners", the number of people who refuse to believe my TRF501 is a Tamiya car until I show them the instruction book and the TRF logo on the chassis brace is quite alarming. Those "in the know" who have seen or owned TRF cars before usually have nothing but good things to say about them, apart from the price, but that's more in line with competitors' models now Tamiya have sorted their pricing out. I started off road racing back in march or april last year with a bog standard DF03, I proceeded to modify it over the next few months to the point where it barely resembled its original state, and where it would keep up with most things on the track if it weren't for the numpty behind the wheel! There's another guy racing a 501 at the club where I race each week (FORCC in Kent, polished wooden floor) and he was absolutely steaming round last week. I think his best lap count was 23 in 4 1/2 minutes. I only managed a measly 18 but one of my mates was videoing the race on his mobile and I watched it afterwards and the car was absolutely flying - as before it was my dodgy driving that let it down The only problem I can see with a UK TRF501 team is spares backup - will Hobby Co be able to sort their supply out or will we all have to get spares off the interweb (again...) It's no good having a car that you're paranoid of breaking because you have to wait 2 months for parts...
-Steve

[woOdy]

If anyone finds out how to get in to be a team driver for them PLEASE let me know!

[stegger]

As far as i know there's only dave spashett who is a Tamiya team driver in the UK but that is in touring cars, in the long distant past jammie booth ran off road but i dont know to what capacity for Tamiya and then there is richard isherwood and the EVO prototype. It's a real shame that Tamiya haven't explored the UK market or is that due to the HOBBY CO .
The world of RC woke up though when TRF won the back to back world championships in touring cars (a feat no other company has done). So maybe just maybe if they win the 4wd offroad championships this year things may change or maybe not

[Northy]

Isshy was running a TRF501X at York reg, and going very well with it too

G

[DCM]

Originally Posted by stegger

As far as i know there's only dave spashett who is a Tamiya team driver in the UK but that is in touring cars, in the long distant past jammie booth ran off road but i dont know to what capacity for Tamiya and then there is richard isherwood and the EVO prototype. It's a real shame that Tamiya haven't explored the UK market or is that due to the HOBBY CO .
The world of RC woke up though when TRF won the back to back world championships in touring cars (a feat no other company has done). So maybe just maybe if they win the 4wd offroad championships this year things may change or maybe not

Jamie Booth used to run for Richard Konstan I beleive, the previous Tamiya distributor, Isshy, I beleive, is tied in with the Eurocup.

As for Hobby Co, my Tamiiya sponsor, Fusion Hobbies, has no end of problems getting stuff 'TRF' related from Hobby Co, Hobby Co complain that most people buy from Asia, but wont drop their prices and wont stock them in reasonable amounts that makes them easy to get....

[stegger]

I don't think Isshy has anything to do with the eurocup anymore, a while ago i heard that tamiya was going to bring in a WORLDWIDE price structure but i dont know how true this was.

[TRF_Tastic]

Yep Tamiya have brought in a world wide price structure. However it is up to the individual distributers what they bring into the country.

I think that it is disgusting that Hobby Co do not support the TRF range in full, in my club we have 10 drivers that run TRF cars from 415's to Evo 5's we all have to get our spares from out of country, now if there was competitive spares backup in the UK we would all get our parts over here instead. Now with the 501 in the country and no sign of support from the distributer in this car I just feel that they are alienating a large part of the RC community that would prove to put money in there pockets.

[stegger]

Well said fella, what do the HOBBY Co sell in the way of TAMIYA i can't see how they curstain themselves ? They are doing themselves out of a large amount of sales

[jimmy]

This competition stuff is tiny compared to all the fun cars they sell - they brought in a handful of 501X cars only because they were forced to afaik.

Best bet is buy the spares you think you'll need and if you see a fellow 501X driver in trouble - help them out by lending them bits.

I have a load of wishbones and hubs / hub carriers - crashed the 501X hard a couple of times and nothing broke so I might have been a bit hasty buying the parts I did.

[HairySteve]

I bought 2 cars worth of spare plastic parts, spur gears and drive belts off rainbow ten after phoning hobby co and being told there was no chance of even being able to order the spares from them because their computer system didn't have any of the TRF501's part numbers on it, and that even if I could order them they'd be a special order from japan and take at least 2 months to get here. I've a mind to give the hobby co rep the address for this web site when he's next in, so he and the other senior staff at hobby co can read what people think of them. As Stegger says, they're doing themselves out of a large amount of business by not stocking TRF cars and spares, and not bringing prices in line with the rest of the world.
-Steve