Masami Hirosaka facts for kids
Masami Hirosaka (広坂正美, Hirosaka Masami, born February 26, 1970, Kyoto, Japan) is a famous Japanese driver of radio controlled cars. He is known as the most successful RC car driver in the world! People even call him "Master Masami." He won a record fourteen IFMAR World Championships. These wins were in different types of electric RC cars, like 1/12 scale, 1/10 scale Pan, 1/10 scale 2WD off-road, and 1/10 scale 4WD. Masami was one of the highest-paid drivers in RC racing. He stopped racing professionally after the 2008 world championship in Thailand. His official retirement party was on May 3, 2009.
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Early Years and First Big Win
Masami started racing RC cars when he was just seven years old. His father, Masaaki, introduced him to the hobby. Masaaki was a former motorcycle racer and also worked on designing RC cars. He even gave Masami a Tamiya Lamborghini Countach RC car!
They raced together for four years. Then, Masaaki realized Masami was a much better driver. So, his father stopped racing himself. Instead, he became Masami's mechanic, helping him prepare his cars.
In 1987, Masami went to a world championship race in England. He didn't have a big sponsor at first. He used a Schumacher CAT car. People quickly noticed how good he was during practice. The company, Schumacher, then gave him a special car. It was a longer version called the CAT XL. This car wasn't even available in Japan yet! Even with a car that was mostly stock, Masami won the championship. After this big win, many sponsors wanted to work with him. He decided to join Yokomo, a well-known RC car company.
Life After Becoming a Champion
Masami didn't just drive for Yokomo and Associated Electrics. He also helped them create and test new RC cars. He even worked as a sales engineer for Yokomo, helping to sell their products. It's interesting that his very first world championship win was with a Schumacher car, not one from Yokomo or Associated Electrics.
To stay sharp, Masami practiced a lot. He would do about 100 practice runs one or two times a week. Most of this practice was on-road. This helped him improve his quick reactions.
In an interview from 1998, Masami said his other hobbies were computers and theater. His father is now semi-retired. He runs a service that prepares RC cars for racing. He also does some work for Kyosho, another RC car company. Masami has even appeared on Japanese TV several times! He also had sponsors outside of RC racing, like Pioneer.
Later in his career, Masami helped train other drivers. One of them was Naoto Matsukura. Masami also helped organize the 2015 IFMAR 1:10 Electric Off-Road World Championship.
Masami's Racing Gear and Style
Throughout his racing career, Masami liked to use "stick transmitters." These are controllers with two sticks, like a video game controller. When he started racing, "wheel transmitters" (which look more like a steering wheel) weren't common in Japan. He tried using a wheel controller once, but he felt sticks gave him better control of his car.
He used a Futaba transmitter until 1987. After that, he switched to KO Propo and used their transmitters for the rest of his career. Because of his deal with Yokomo, his cars always used Reedy motors. Reedy is a company owned by Associated Electrics.
Masami's racing cars always had a special look. They were green and white with pink flames. This style is similar to what you might see on a hot rod car. As the years went by, the pink became less noticeable. He added orange and red to his car's design, creating his current colorful look.
Amazing Achievements
Masami Hirosaka had an incredible racing career. He won 307 races out of 447 total races! He also finished second 47 times and third 27 times.
He competed in 37 World Championship races. He made it to the final race (called the A-main) 35 times. He also stood on the podium (finished in the top three) 25 times. Most impressively, he won 14 World Championship titles!
In Japan, he competed in 70 JMRCA All-Japan Championship races. He won 52 of them! He won at least one championship for 21 years in a row, from 1986 to 2006. He made it to the A-main in 67 of those races.
In 1998, Masami achieved something very special. He won every single electric car class at the JMRCA All-Japan Championship. He's the only driver to do this more than once (he also did it in 1987, 1989, and 1992). He's also the only one to win five out of five possible classes. This is a feat that's no longer possible today, as one of the classes was stopped in 2005.
A magazine called Radio Control Car Action listed him as the greatest RC car driver of all time in 2010. In their 2015 list, he was ranked second, just behind Ryan Cavalieri. The magazine also listed him as one of the top 10 best drivers between 1989 and 1992. When readers started ranking drivers, he was 5th in 1996, 2nd in 1998, and 3rd in 1999. Masami is one of the few non-US drivers to be recognized and the only foreign driver to appear regularly on these lists.