JQ racing at the TITC, but that’s a touring car race!

During our coverage of the SIGP Offroad race in China last December while chatting with Joseph Quagraine, aka JQ, he announced he was going to race at the TITC to which our first reaction was ‘but that’s a touring car race’ – actually it’s not any touring car race, it is as 3-in-row Touring car World Champion Bruno Coelho put it ‘the biggest and hardest race in the world for touring car.’  An offroad racer who has been there, done that, and not only bought the t-shirt but actually been a buggy manufacturer, his reason for what most offroad racers might refer to as going to the dark side is because of his passion project Invisible Speed – the platform he created in 2020 to share over two decades of car set-up knowledge through books and online courses.  On arriving at the RC Addict track this morning for the first official day of the TITC action, a chat with JQ unveiled that he is absolutely relishing the touring car experience and with one thing leading to another we have agreed to allow him to share that experience and his learnings from the trip with our readers.  We will let him explain thinks himself, take it away JQ……

I decided to attend the TITC 2025 because I am going to write my book for onroad. Learning about setup is in some ways easier in offroad, as you can visually see the jacking (see my invisiblespeed youtube video), and suspension changes are very apparent as an example. However applying what you have learned is more difficult. In offroad we have jumps, and driver input is far more critical. There are more variables, and every lap is different.  In onroad, it is more straight forward. After learning to speak ”race car”, I always believed that I would have more to give to onroad racers, and after 4 days at TITC I am 100% sure.  I think this race will become an annual event for me, with additional practice days before, as it has been so much fun.

I will add some technical comments each day, and for day 1 I will just say this: I am impressed by the level of attention to detail, extremely detailed levels of experience and knowledge to do with bodies, tyre prep, and chassis flex, but very surprised to see an extreme lack of knowledge and understanding when it comes to the basics, roll centers and wheel alignments.  How can car brands who spend so much money on racing not even know or understand where their roll centers are, or fully comprehend how powerful camber and bump steer are? It makes no sense, and Invisible Speed will prove it to you in the future.  On road RC today, is like shooting arrows blindfolded at a moving target.  Sometimes you get lucky, but at the end of the day, you won’t be making consistent and sustainable progress.  I look forward to helping to remove the blindfold for people, as well as learning from decades of experience and on track knowledge the on road racers have.  Let’s put the pieces of the puzzle together.