Urbain sets opening pace at TITC

Celebrating his first year as a full time professional racer at this year’s TITC, Awesomatix’s Lucas Urbain marked the occasion by setting the pace in the opening controlled practice for the legendary Bangkok based race.  Over 3-consecutive laps it was very close at the top with Urbain fastest from his team-mate Marc Rheinard and the Axon of 2020 Champion Akio Sobue, the trio covered by just 0.06 of a second.  On his debut for Infinity, Bruno Coelho kicked off his title defence with the 4th fastest time with the second of the factory Axon drivers Hayato Ishioka P5 and Ryosuke Yamamoto’s Infinity completing the Top 6.  Last year’s Top Qualifier Ronald Volker got the 21st edition of the race underway with the 7th fastest time 6/10th off that set by Urbain, the German describing his pace so far as ‘not super fast’.  Making his TITC debut and therefore finding himself in the third fastest heat for the 2 controlled practice rounds, unglued tyres was Michal Orlowski’s main issue in the first one as he had to pull off after 2-minutes in which he recorded the 8th fastest time.

‘A bit out of now where because in the free practice this morning I was nowhere on the lower grip’, was Urbain’s reaction to topping CP1.  Asked if it was the track or the car that brought the improvement, the Frenchman said, ‘the car felt a ton better.  I had grip, steering, forward traction but it’s been a trend, I think the track was medium traction right now, not super high, not super low, and that was always the sweet spot for my car.’  Fourth fastest over the full 5-minutes, an important marker for qualifying, he said, ‘I am missing a bit of consistency, I think on 5-minutes I am P4 or something.  The car is fading a bit at the end of the run.  My driving also faded a bit.  I can drive better, I was trying a few different lines to see if I could push more in certain corners so of course there were a few bobbles but I could also tell the car is dropping a bit.  I don’t know if I am going to change anything yet ’cause the track is going to change again but I will discuss with the boys.  The car is solid, it is up there, I have the tools to fight so maybe if I just drive better.’

Summing up his opening effort, Rheinard said, ‘I took it easy just to see a 5-minute run and I think Bruno was 1.2 faster but I had some shitty laps as well but the track today is completely different’.  The multiple World Champion added, ‘they didn’t sugar after the rain, and in my opinion they should have, so there is a lot less grip than we had before especially over the whole run.’  On the sugaring of the track, he explained, ‘they say now if it doesn’t rain anymore they don’t sugar, if it rains they re-sugar one time, but it’s not the same track we run the whole week before.’  On his car, even in the lower conditions, he said, ‘it’s still good but I am sure it could be better because I think we are a little bit better on higher grip.  It was a solid start.  I hope the traction comes up but I think they need to sugar again to get it coming up quicker.’  For CP2, he plans to run a race paint body with a different wing to try and get a little more rotation.’

Reacting to his CP1 performance Coelho said, ‘It was a pretty clean run, I was very careful at the beginning to make the first 3-laps and then I tried to force it a little bit in the run and the car was pretty consistent and easy to drive, I’m pretty confident.’  Setting the fastest time over the 5-minutes just missing out on going 21 laps, he added, ‘the 5-minute pace was pretty good but we’ll keep working as there are still some things we can improve.’  Asked about the current traction levels he replied, ‘now it is much lower than we had last week, really much lower because of the rain yesterday and all night which washed all the rubber we put down over the week.  I am sure over the event it is going to come back up.’  Asked how higher traction would effect the prototype Infinity he said, ‘honestly our car is working well in both conditions but I think we have more advantage on the low conditions.’

Running what he called a TC10/4 Concept, a different car from the prototype he ran at the Worlds last November, Sobue was happy with both his seeding pace and his overall 5-minute time which he said include a mistake in the first lap.  The Japanese driver, who is running in the second fastest heat having missed making the A-Main last year, said his feeling with the car is ‘really nice’ despite the track being ‘a little bit loose’ and ‘difficult to drive and difficult to manage the tyres for the 5-minutes’.  On whether higher or lower traction suited his car better, Sobue replied with, ‘the balance is OK, it stays the same as the conditions change so this is good.’  Racing this year in an anti-clock wise direction, asked about this year’s new layout, he said, ‘for me the original layout was the best but this layout also good and it’s a good challenge for me.’  Running the same prototype as Sobue, team-mate Ishioka was happy enough with his run but said he needs to make a few small changes to try an get ‘a little more traction’.

In Open Brushless, last year’s winner Simon Lauter competing in Modified as one of the TITC rules is that previous winners cannot return to the class, it was the Mugen Seiki of Soren Sparbier set the pace ahead of the Awesomatix of Bultynck Olivier.  Lauter’s main challenger for the victory last year, Xray’s Adam Izsay completed the Top 3 ahead of Awesomatix’s Lukas Ellerbrock.

Michal Orlowski – the TITC Rookie!!

Think Electric Touring Car racing and one name that’s going to come to mind immediately is Michal Orlowski.  It is widely acknowledged that the Schumacher driver is one of the, if not the, fastest drivers in the World but as we get ready to officially go into battle tomorrow (Thursday) at one of the most prized race titles after the World Championship, the Polish driver finds himself with the unusual status of being a Rookie at the 21st running of the legendary TITC.  Given the unique challenges this race presents to drivers, most giving it the title of the world’s toughest race, with its ever changing track conditions this is one race where experience carries huge weight and so it’s going to be exciting to see how the ‘Rookie’ rises to the challenge of his TITC debut.  Interestingly given the amount of World Championship events the Country has also hosted, this year’s TITC appearance also marks Michal’s first time in Thailand so starting our conversation by asking how is finding Bangkok, Michal replied, ‘This is my first time on this part of the Globe and it’s an amazing experience so far.  The city is crazy, I have never seen as many scooters.’

Getting the back story as to why 2025 is the first time Michal will join the whose who of electric touring car racing and complete at the TITC for the very first time he explains, ‘I have been fighting for the wins in touring car only for 2-years now, before we were making B-Finals or struggling to make A-Finals at ETS so we didn’t really see this race as an important one because it always clashes with some offroad events where I always did well and was fighting for the wins.  Since we have been fighting for the wins in touring car we have been thinking about it but there has always been the British GP Offroad 1:10 race, a big race in the UK, clashing with the TITC but we thought this year is finally the time to miss the British GP and try ourselves here.’

With the TITC extending to more than a week of track action, more on that later, asked how the unofficial part of the event was going so far he said, ‘With the track I was quite nervous about how the traction, bumps, and the layout would be as all the other guys told me how difficult this race is but to be honest it’s much better than I expected so far and I am really enjoying the experience.’  Asked his initial impressions of the track he explained, ‘it’s really different to what I thought it would be.  Everyone said how high traction it is and bumpy, and yes it is quite bumpy but it is nothing crazy and so far we are enjoying it.  We have had four days now of testing and tuning the set-up of the car and it’s been going well.  I’m feeling good so far in practice but as we know from everyone that has experience here the conditions change a lot so we are trying something new everyday.  In general it has been very positive.  I was nervous coming here on how it would go and how difficult it was going to be to be on pace with everyone that have been here for many years but from the first battery it felt quite nice on the track.’  With his entry attracting a lot of attention on race that already has a huge following after last year’s dramas, some the races past conquerors have been happy to advice Michal on his debut, ‘It was nice to get some pointers from guys like Marc (Rheinard), Atsushi (Hara), Ronald (Volker) that have been here for a long time.  Marc is also helping us move around Bangkok and with where to go to eat, and what to eat for lunch.’  Interrupting Michal to ask if that meant they were eating in all the city’s fancy places, Marc known for appreciating fine dining, Michal replied, ‘well we did but then some days he needs to wrench surprisingly, so one day it’s a fancy place, one day it’s take out.’

His seventh consecutive weekend of racing, asked how the driver was coping with these demands he responded with, ‘I am feeling quite tired.  We have done a full weekend of racing/testing and it’s only Monday before the race and this I have never experienced in my life.  I am trying to take it easy, missing a few runs and trying to sleep a little longer than normal days so I feel fresh for the race because if you stay in the heat for almost a week before it starts and then without any time off you go into the race, while the car might be on point, the driver won’t be.’  Asked had jet lag been an issue since his arrival he said, ‘I am surprised, it hasn’t been too bad.  I woke up at 4 and 5 a few days in a row but it’s not bad.’  On the 30-degree plus heat he said, ‘It’s quite hot but the worst is in the pits when it is really crowded and not so much airflow.’  Asking him if he was getting the full TITC experience in the pits, he said ‘the first two days I was in the Cayote box with Marc and Atsushi, then we moved downstairs to the pit area, to the one behind the wall and now we got a table on the side of that area because Elceram sponsor the event so they got some tables, so I am sitting here now with Mattia (Collina), but we got the full experience for 2-days.’

Regarding his car and if Schumacher had brought anything new specifically for the uniqueness of the Infinity RC Addict track, Michal said, ‘We are running the Mi9 that we have run at the Worlds with some set-up adjustments to try some new ideas we came here with that have worked quite well so far.  The base of the car is the same as the Worlds.  Mattia is here to race and help me prepare everything.  Pekko (Iivonen) came here with JQ so all four of us are racing Schumachers but basically I’m working with Pekko and Mattia, and then a full team from Elceram is over too.  The owner, the software & hardware engineer and their two wives as well so it’s a nice group from Elceram and also support from Cayote who are here.  It’s been going well and we just need to continue to work hard and see what comes on Sunday.  I know conditions will change and it will be different in the race but at the moment we are strong every single day and in every condition but some people say there is rain in the forecast so we never know what will happen, we’ll just take it run by run.’

Ending our conversation and telling Michal I would be arriving in Thailand on Wednesday to kick off our coverage on Thursday morning, he joking replied ‘you are one week late then’ which raises an interesting point.  For those of you less familiar with the TITC, it is officially a 4-day event that starts with official practice on Thursday, however for many drivers they will already have been there over a week before it starts.  During our coverage of the recent MIBO International both Michal and winner Ronald Volker had very short turnaround times before catching their flights to Bangkok even though the two races were on a calendar 2-weeks apart.  Michal explained, ‘I’ve been since Friday at the track, we arrived Thursday.  I think Hara has been here for a week already so he’s here two weeks.  I mean to me it is unbelievable what’s going on here because yesterday was Sunday before the race and there is 200 or more cars and when I walk around the pits it is completely full but it’s not even the week of the race.  I don’t get how people in Europe complain about ETS that they need to take 2-days or 3 days off work ’cause it’s a four day event.  Here they spend so much on practice tyres, hotel & travel.  The race means so much time off work also but there are so many people every year.  It’s strange but I guess it works.’   

Ryan Maker – 12 months on is he still living the dream of being a car manufacturer?

One year ago the very likeable Australian Touring Car racer Ryan Maker revealed to the world that he was going to take the brave step of turning his very successful aftermarket RC parts company RC Maker into a full fledged car manufacturer.  In doing so he was aiming to realise a childhood dream, but he didn’t just announce these plans with some CAD drawings, he turned up with a self designed first prototype under his arm to race at one of touring car racing’s biggest and toughest stages – the famous TITC in Bangkok, Thailand.  Having done a feature piece on Ryan in the build up to our coverage of last year’s TITC, as part of the lead into our coverage of what is looking like being the greatest edition yet of this unique event, we caught back up with Ryan to discover, if 12-months on, he is still living the dream as the second batch of SP1 kits are currently making their way around the world to new customers.  Spoiler alert, always a pleasure to chat to due his infectious passionate and positivity, he concluded our conversation with the very clear, ‘I am living my dream that’s for sure, it’s pretty damn cool.’

Opening our conversation by reminding Ryan of how he couldn’t have picked a much bigger stage to announce his grand plans to the world, everyone wanting to see this new creation from Down under, something to be fair he was happy to show them in person but understandably not wanting published online, his reaction was, ‘It was daunting to say the least’.  Asking if the 12-months since have been more difficult than expected or gone to plan he replied, ‘the whole thing was just an extremely daunting process and you doubt yourself many times especially with myself working, not alone, but I have a very small team and we are doing a lot of things in-house so it took a lot of work to get to where we are now.  As I said to the guys here in the container (referring to his pit area at TITC), it’s a miracle we even have these cars driving around this track today.  It has been a hell of a journey but super rewarding of course now but I would say the hardest part of the whole thing was putting together a kit car and having customers that built that car get the quality they want and assemble it correctly, and kind of just making a fully consumer grade product.’

While most of us will never experience the detailed planning and preparations that go into taking a product from a concept on paper to a physical customer ready product, asked about any particular hiccups along the way he said, ‘honestly it was pretty streamlined.  I tried to think of everything ahead of time, of course there are little things that come up through the process.  You just adjust the kit to what the manufacturer gives you you know, we had to add some little shims here & there, point-one shims.  This is just a thing in the industry, you know everything is manufactured to basically aerospace grade tolerances so if one thing is .05 or point one off we need to fix that, it’s not something that’s acceptable in this industry.  We aimed to get the tolerances as good as possible and in some cases that means tweaking a thing which we done.  I think we’ve progressed and overall the finished product has been great.  The next batch of cars that we’ve just released, I think we’ve gone up a level again in terms of the tolerances and stuff so we are just trying to improve step by step.’

Asked if shipping the first batch of cars brought huge relief or was just the start of things, Ryan said, ‘On one end when we shipped the kits out it was the biggest relief but then 5-days after that it was the most anxiety I’ve experienced waiting for people to build up their cars and hoping they have the same experience putting their cars together as I did.  With so many different parts and everything going into kits it’s scary and you basically hope the customer receives what you built yourself and what you wanted.  We had mistakes in the kit packing.  We do all that in-house with a really small team, my mom is helping with a lot of that as well, it’s a proper family run business and we are learning along the way.  There were little hiccups with packing but overall we got it fixed fast.  We had a little bit of an issue with driveshafts which we didn’t foresee.  Our testing was fine but when we got into some conditions we found they weren’t up to the job so we did a driveshaft update and sent that out to our distributors and direct to customers if need be to mitigate the situation as quickly as possible.  It’s all good now but it was an extremely stressful time.  Obviously when you release something brand new the last thing you want is everyone to be having a problem with something so we got that fixed up as quickly as we could, we did it all for free because that was the right thing to do. It wasn’t super smooth sailing but looking back now on it it’s like just a small bump on the road and I think the performance of the car now and people’s experiences far outshone these kind of moments.  It was a negative thing but I think the way we handled it we turned it into a positive.  People saw the way we reacted and saw the customer service we provided and I think that brought a lot of goodwill.  That sets the stage or tone for what we intend to do for the future.  For me it is a long game and I not trying to just make one car and that’s it.  I am thinking 5-10 years ahead of now and trying to become a reputable manufacturer that people like and people trust.’

Highlighting the SP1 must have been well received in racing circles given he has just released a second batch of kits, Ryan explained, ‘It’s been incredible. We couldn’t even sell any retail on our own website in the last batch because our distributors bought all of them.  That’s not a problem I ever envisioned having especially in the second batch.  The first batch maybe with the hype and everything but the second batch you never know.  People buying the second batch kits are not buying on hype anymore, they are buying off performance, what their friends have experienced, what they have seen at the track. So if the car didn’t work or wasn’t good that second batch could have been a massive flop.  It’s great to know people are speaking so highly of it.’

While the RC Maker parts business was already taking him away from getting out racing himself last year, Ryan is not racing at the TITC but instead is at Infinity RC Addict as a mechanic and to one very notable driver.  He explains, I’m not racing this year, I told myself last year this is it for me, this first initial year with the SP1 I am going to try out this mechanic thing and just be there for the customer and our team drivers, supporting them as much as possible.  With my new role, racing personally just doesn’t make sense, I mean I have got guys like (Atsushi) Hara and Antoine (Brunet) and Jeff (Hamon) and they are every bit better than me so it’s like why would I concern myself with just being another B-Main contender when I can support those guys and possibly get a couple of guys into the A who are here purely to drive and succeed.  For me this would not be driving a good 5-minute run, success is watching those guys take it to the next level and seeing Hara today (Monday) top the time sheets with the fastest lap ever around this track, to see that, man I never thought coming from a year ago when I was struggling a little bit, we had 3D printed parts on the car and nothing was perfect, to now topping a practice round at TITC against the best in the world.  There is no one here that is not in the Top 10 in the world so it’s pretty surreal.’

Asking Ryan if this is his first time to work with Hara he explained, ‘yes first time ever, I mean we have been friends for a long time.  We met back in 2010 at an ETS race in Germany, we got stuck at an airport together for about 5-hours while waiting for our flights back home.  15-year-old me star struck, sitting there with Hara just with 5-hours to kill.’  He continued, ‘They say don’t meet your heroes but honestly meeting Hara was one of the best things that could have happened to me cause his attitude and motivation, he’s funny, he’s just such an awesome guy so to now work super close with him, doing set-up changes run by run, getting his feedback, watching the car and everything, it doesn’t even feel real still.  Seeing him put it P1 in a practice round its like come on man someone slap me!  It’s been a pleasure to work with him and I hope I get to do it more in the future.  Obviously Hara is wanted by several companies and i am one of the lucky ones to have his services for now.  He has provided us with a lot of valuable feedback and stuff already.’

Summing up our chat, before letting Ryan get on with assessing Hara’s car which had just suffered a heavy impact crash, I put it to Ryan if the overall experience of getting the SP1 on the shelves of model shops has been enjoyable, and based on the tone of excitement in his voice it has and still is.  ‘It’s like with anything when you’ve got that much on the line, you are going to be stressed, you can’t but not be stressed you know.  Basically it’s a risk everything.  I have already got a stable business and everything is fine and you go alright cut all of that we need to go to the next level, yeh its really scary but looking back now its the best thing I ever did because I’ve never had this level of motivation before in anything I have ever done in my life basically so getting this car to be the fastest thing in the world is all that matters to me in my business world.  Right now it’s not about making profit, it’s about making the best car I can which is a personal fulfilment thing on one aspect.  You can look back and go I made that sitting on the couch drawing in CAD, it started from late nights, it started from all those sacrifices that where made two years ago that are leading to this.’   Asked what he thinks when he looks back on his original design concept, laughing he replied, ‘It’s almost laughable to be honest.  It was actually funny before coming here on the plane I was just scrolling through old photos and some photos of the actual car I used here last year came up and looking at it I was just shaking my head and thinking you can do better than this.  I came back from TITC and I was not satisfied at all, it was still OK, it was still running in the C Final against the best in the world but this isn’t really where we really want to be and I am not the best driver and I knew that the car was obviously lacking as well so going back home, redoing 80% of the design and then releasing that into a production car a year later with some brilliant drivers and then putting it near the front I can’t really explain how rewarding it is to do that.’

Red RC TITC 2025 coverage presented by Hobbywing

Red RC is excited to announce that we are once again teaming up with electronic manufacturer Hobbywing to bring you coverage of legendary TITC electric touring car race in Thailand.  The 21st edition of the race, it has become one of the most significant Modified Touring Car races in world after the IFMAR ISTC World Championship and always sees manufacturers & drivers bring their A-game as they look to add a TITC title.  2025 looks like being one of the most exciting yet with a number of big story lines.  Sharing the honours of being the race’s most successful champion along with Atsushi Hara, the two World Champions having won it four times each, defending Champion Bruno Coelho will make his Infinity debut at the Infinity RC Addict track with an all new car from the Japanese manufacturer.  Ronald Volker, who came so close to retaking the title last year a decade after his one TITC win back in 2014, returns armed with the very fast new pre-production MTC3 from Mugen Seiki.  Debuting the car with a very competitive outing at the World Championships in November, the German is back in the form of his life and travels to Thailand fresh from a dominant performance over Michal Orlowski at MIBO International in the Czech Republic last weekend.  Orlowski is the other big story of this year’s race as the Polish ace makes his TITC debut.  As one of the best in the business, it will be interesting to watch how the Schumacher driver deals with the race’s unique ever changing track conditions.  Hobbywing has a 16-year relationship with the Thailand International Touring Car Championship, to give it its full title, and goes into the 2025 events as both the defending Modified and Open Brushless Champions.  Our coverage of the four day event will start on February 20th.

TITC Roll of Honour
2003 – Surikarn Chaidajsuriya (Tamiya)
2004 – Surikarn Chaidajsuriya (Tamiya) 
2005 – Atsushi Hara (Hot Bodies)
2006 – Marc Rheinard (Tamiya)
2007 – Andy Moore (Hot Bodies)
2008 – Teemu Leino (Xray)
2009 – Atsushi Hara (Hot Bodies)
2010 – Atsushi Hara (Hot Bodies)
2011 – Andy Moore (Hot Bodies)
2012 – Meen Vejrak (Xray)
2013 – Atsushi Hara (Hot Bodies)
2014 – Ronald Volker (Yokomo)
2015 – Alexander Hagberg (Xray)
2016 – Bruno Coehlo (Xray)
2017 – Bruno Coelho (Xray)
2018 – Akio Sobue (Infinity)
2019 – Alexander Hagberg (Xray)
2020 – Akio Sobue (Infinity)
2021 – Cancelled (Covid)
2022 – Cancelled (Covid)
2023 – Bruno Coelho (Xray)
2024 – Bruno Coelho (Xray)
2025 – ???