WHAT’S IN THE BOX (WARNING: SELF INDULGENT STORY AHEAD)

It was late 1985. I’d been poring over Toyworld catalogues, ogling the Tamiya Frog, Hornet and Hotshot. As a 15-year-old motorsports fan, they seemed the nearest thing I could get to a race car at that age.

A couple of weeks later, on a family holiday, all my dreams came true. We stumbled upon a stack of Tamiya cars at the local Kmart, one of which was a Hotshot, on sale at a super-low cost. Pester power won, I convinced by rally-driver father that we must have this in our life, and we walked out with it tucked under my arm.

It was a bundle deal, and we scoped it out before the purchase, so we knew exactly what came in the package: the Hotshot itself, an Acoms Techniplus stick radio, a 1200mah Tamiya NiCD battery, and a trickle charger. Perfect. Everything we needed.

What I didn’t realise at the time, and in fact what I only came to understand many years later, is that there was a whole lot more that came with that Tamiya Hotshot. A whole lot more “in the box” so to speak that wasn’t marked on the package.

It came with a lifetime’s worth of memories. Of different races in different places. Of chasing championships. Of late nights wrenching. Of Saturdays practicing.

It came with the connections that would start as competitors but become firm, lifelong friends. I didn’t realise that my Hotshot kit contained friendships with Grant and Murray and Darren and Steve and Andrew and Chris and Greg and Tony and Matt and Scotty and many, many, many more.

It came with an invitation to get involved in organizing the sport. An invitation to join club committees, and help build racetracks and help organise National Championship events and help start new clubs in new cities. Experiences that have been rewarding beyond measure.

All of that was in the Tamiya package at Kmart that day. I had no idea.

Unknown to me, it came with the opportunity to turn something else I enjoyed, writing, into another part of the hobby. Who knew my Hotshot bundle contained the chance to write for magazines and later social media and turn to video and podcasting and commentating and travelling around Australia and beyond.

All in the box. All amazing. Packed right in there beside the radio and trickle charger and battery, and underneath the oval block tyres.

And best of all, and maybe I only realised again this week how important this was, my Hotshot came with 40 years of father-son-brother relationship right there in the package.

For 40 years, on and off, I’ve been racing with my dad and brother. Dad built that Hotshot, we thrashed it around the street and the park, then discovered organised racing and the rest is history. But that racing together turned out to be an extraordinary contribution to the strength of our relationship as father and son.

In the first instance our partnership was typical: mechanic and annoying kid wanting to drive more. But later we worked together on the car, then added another car so we could both race (and another and another for my brothers, then more for me…you know how it goes). We travelled together, celebrating an occasional win, lamenting the regular losses. He was father, mechanic, coach, counsellor, cheerleader, and even occasionally rival.

We worked together on club committees, dreaming up big races we could run. Then my father started a retail business, Heavy’s Hobbies, trading trackside and then later from a bricks and mortar store. Year’s later he did it again, Action R/C the second generation Guyatt hobby retailer. The shops were 95% dad, 5% me, but still it felt like we got to do this together.

I had no idea that the potential for all of that future was in that first Tamiya Hotshot bundle. Right there under the Tamiya blister pack presentation.

This year it’s 40 years since we started, but also an 80th birthday for my dad. And with huge thanks to the wonderful crew at Chargers RC, we put on an 80th birthday race, the HD80, styled on the 50th birthday race (you guessed it, the HD50) we ran back in 1996. Loads of racers and friends, old and new came out to race vintage cars, laugh together, and wish David a happy birthday and thank him for all he’s contributed to the club and the sport here in Australia. He’s already planted the seed for the HD100 in 2046, so put it in your calendar.

RC racing has given me so much, so many experiences, but best of all it’s given space for Dad and I to be father and son, at so many different ages and stages of life, sharing in something special together.

I know full well how fortunate I am. Not everybody has the good fortune to share in this kind of experience, or with this kind of man as a father. For me though, this week was a reminder of just how much came bundled with that Tamiya Hotshot, and how precious it has been. I wouldn’t change any of it.

Maybe take a closer look inside the first kit you bought and think about what else was in there alongside the shock absorbers and turnbuckles and suspension arms. What kinds of memories and possibilities and potential and relationships and careers were hidden in there between the instruction manual and the sticker sheet. It’s amazing what they pack in without telling any of us.

18 days later we are officially back home. We took a detour after Worlds to head to Florida for a bit for some family time. My Worlds race report isn’t anything too exciting. I struggled from the very beginning and every time I thought I had some momentum going my way it ended up getting abruptly taken back away. I had high expectations this year especially with it being in the USA and having prior success at Thornhill over the years. That’s why we go racing though as you never know. We will keep on trying! Huge congrats to my Xray teammate David on a fantastic win. He was on it all week long and had to really rally during the main. Well deserved for him and Xray!

#Xray #RCAmerica #matrixtires #Cayote #GensAce #UltimateRC #NitroPro #Hudy #flysky #Nitrolux #BeachRC #Amainhobbies #EliteRCProductions #EZCustoms #StickitOne #matrixOffroad #JTBearings #DRC

And just like that the 2026 IFMAR World Championships are done and dusted. Such a bittersweet feeling as this was the last big event at Thornhill Racing Circuit. My home away from home. I can’t thank Chris Allison enough for everything he’s sacrificed for us to have this amazing racing facility. I’ll cherish all the memories and friendships made along the way!!

I came into this event super confident that the work I put into my program beforehand was more than any other race I’ve attended, and I felt like it showed on the racetrack!!

I made my first-ever world championship final!!! And came home with a P5!!! So proud of that! I can’t thank Richard Saxton enough for all the mechanic and pit work. The teamwork was amazing and every run we got faster on track!!!

My equipment was flawless I’m so proud to represent such great teams!! My team-associated B4.2 felt great all weekend, every time I hit the track! Jconcepts tires were so consistent throughout the week! Each compound and tread pattern I tried felt comfortable and fast! NitroPro fuels and my Samuri RM2 drakin engine program was fantastic. I was able to go 10 minutes in the quals, semi, and main final event giving me a huge advantage against some of my competitors! Nitropro servos gave me the connection I needed out on track for smooth and consistent throttle/steering inputs. And of course, Integrity RC and Joker Designs kept me looking fresh and clean on and off the track!!

I can’t thank everyone enough for all the support I received so many nice messages wishing me luck and everyone at the track supporting me! It felt amazing having the world championships in my home state! Texas! And it was a flawless event!

Back to reality now and a quick turnaround heading to Virginia for the Invitational Classic at Adrenaline RC!!

#teamassociated #WeAreAE #reedypower #factoryteam #Jconcepts #NitroPro #visionracingproducts #Samurai

#monkeywithakniferacing #integrityrcdesigns #jokerdesigns #Drakein #mikeshobbyshop #makita #kickeraudio

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP 2026 🇺🇸🏁

This World Championship is over.

It’s difficult to put an entire week like this into just a few words.

We came here ready to give everything we had. From the first practice, we knew it wasn’t going to be an easy week. We struggled at times, but we never stopped working, changing details and searching for the right balance between the car, tyres and the constantly changing track conditions.

Step by step, we improved and managed to finish qualifying in P3, putting ourselves in a strong position for Saturday.

Unfortunately, the finals didn’t go the way we wanted.

We finished this World Championship in P13.😩

Of course, this is not the result we came here for, and it’s not easy to accept after all the work we put in during this week. But racing gives you incredible moments and difficult ones too. Both are part of the journey.

This result doesn’t change what we have achieved together, but it gives us even more motivation to work harder, understand where we can improve and come back stronger.

Sometimes a difficult result can give you more hunger than a victory.

And we are hungry.

A huge thank you to the entire Team Associated (Brent Thielke, Richard Saxton) There are so many people behind this project that I don’t want to mention individual names and risk forgetting someone.

Thank you to everyone for the incredible work, support and commitment throughout this World Championship.

A massive thank you also to Team Matrix (Alessandro Stocco, Boni Cristian, Paolo Morganti, Andreia Toledo)

O.S. Speed guys (Tomohiro Okada) and Sanwa for always supporting me and giving everything during this week.

Thank you to all my sponsors, my family, my girlfriend, my friends and everyone who supported me from home❤️

Thanks to Nuno Casal Ribeiro helping us during all week🔥

Thanks to my friends there at the track Linu Jung, Sebastien Mure, Stéphane Kharraji, Clément Boda, Florent Auderset, Noha Ben Mohamed, just everyone!!

We leave Texas with a result that hurts, but also with even more motivation.

Great job to David Ronnefalk for the title, Mason Fuller and Juan Carlos Canas Carrasco for the podium👏🏻

We know what we are capable of.

We know how much work is ahead of us.

And we know where we want to be again.

Time to work.

We’ll be back. ❤️‍🔥🏁

——————————————————

CAMPIONATO DEL MONDO 2026 🇺🇸🏁

Questo Campionato del Mondo è finito.

È difficile racchiudere un’intera settimana come questa in poche parole.

Siamo arrivati qui pronti a dare tutto quello che avevamo. Fin dalle prime prove sapevamo che non sarebbe stata una settimana facile. In alcuni momenti abbiamo faticato, ma non abbiamo mai smesso di lavorare, modificare dettagli e cercare il giusto equilibrio tra macchina, gomme e le condizioni della pista in continuo cambiamento.

Passo dopo passo siamo migliorati e siamo riusciti a concludere le qualifiche in P3, mettendoci in un’ottima posizione in vista di sabato.

Purtroppo, le finali non sono andate come avremmo voluto.

Chiudiamo questo Campionato del Mondo in P13. 😩

Ovviamente non è questo il risultato per cui siamo venuti qui, e non è facile accettarlo dopo tutto il lavoro che abbiamo fatto durante questa settimana. Ma le corse regalano momenti incredibili e anche momenti difficili. Entrambi fanno parte del percorso.

Questo risultato non cambia ciò che abbiamo raggiunto insieme, ma ci dà ancora più motivazione per lavorare duramente, capire dove possiamo migliorare e tornare più forti.

A volte un risultato difficile può darti ancora più fame di una vittoria.

E noi abbiamo fame.

Un enorme grazie a tutto il Team Associated (Brent Thielke, Richard Saxton). Ci sono così tante persone dietro questo progetto che non voglio fare tutti i nomi rischiando di dimenticare qualcuno.

Grazie a tutti per l’incredibile lavoro, il supporto e l’impegno dimostrati durante tutto questo Campionato del Mondo.

Un enorme grazie anche al Team Matrix (Alessandro Stocco, Boni Cristian, Paolo Morganti, Andreia Toledo).

Ai ragazzi di O.S. Speed (Tomohiro Okada) e a Sanwa, per essere sempre al mio fianco e aver dato tutto durante questa settimana.

Grazie a tutti i miei sponsor, alla mia famiglia, alla mia ragazza, ai miei amici e a tutti quelli che mi hanno sostenuto da casa. ❤️

Grazie a Nuno Casal Ribeiro per averci aiutato durante tutta la settimana. 🔥

Grazie anche ai miei amici presenti in pista: Linu Jung, Sebastien Mure, Stéphane Kharraji, Clément Boda, Florent Auderset, Noha Ben Mohamed… semplicemente, grazie a tutti!!

Lasciamo il Texas con un risultato che fa male, ma anche con ancora più motivazione.

Complimenti a David Ronnefalk per il titolo e a Mason Fuller e Juan Carlos Canas Carrasco per il podio. 👏🏻

Sappiamo di cosa siamo capaci.

Sappiamo quanto lavoro ci aspetta.

E sappiamo dove vogliamo tornare.

È ora di rimettersi al lavoro

Torneremo presto ❤️‍🔥🏁

#DO94 #WeAreAE #TeamAssociated #OSSpeed #Matrixtyres #Hobbywing #TeamEAM #Energyfuel #Sanwa #Arrowmax #ToolkitRC #ONGProducts #TRC #Tworks #Ruddog #Rockdesign #Stickit1racing

I’m back home and rested after just over a week in Hutto, TX for the 2026 IFMAR World Championships at Thornhill Racing Circuit! First off I’ll like to thank the entire Thornhill crew for giving us a great venue and track to race at for so many years. It sucks to see this place closing but all good things come to an end.

Racing for me was a bit up and down throughout the week. I had good speed the whole time just struggled to put in clean runs. The highlights of the weekend for me were the final round of qualifying where I scored a P3 overall to secure myself into the semi finals. A win in the LCQ race after I narrowly missed the transfer spot in the semi final. And the final highlight was finishing P6 overall in my first World Championship final.

I would like to thank Daniel Lewis, Matt Armeni, Matt Wolter and Ilias Arkoudaris at Tekno RC for all the help and support this week. Thank you to Jason, Paul, Allison and Hannah for all the tire support and awesome photos from the week.

Thank you to my Tekno RC teammates for all the setup help and great times this week. Thank you to my dad and Shawn Kirkman for the pit help this weekend.

As always thank you to all the sponsors below for making this possible.

Tekno RC

Jconcepts

Exalt

Beach RC & Hobbies

Ultimate Racing

Sendit-rc

VP Racing Fuels

S&S

Full Throttle Raceway

Top Tier Roofing

Yeti RC

Mutsch Trucking

King Kong Hobbies

BOOM Graphics

Busy Bodies

2026 IFMAR 1:8 OFF-ROAD WORLDS — P9 🌎

The 2026 IFMAR 1:8 Off-Road Worlds is officially complete, and there are a lot of great takeaways from this one.

I came into this event with some personal goals, and I’m proud to say I accomplished them.

Going back to Perth, Australia in 2018, I qualified 7th overall but came up short of making the World Championship final. That one has always stuck with me.

8 years later, I was able to beat my best qualifying effort at a 1:8 Worlds AND accomplish one of my biggest goals — making my first 1:8 World Championship Final.

A lot of things have to go right to have a good result at a Worlds. You have to be mentally strong. You can’t leave points on the table, even when you’re having a bad run. You have to trust your pit crew, trust the people around you, and most importantly, have a short memory and keep moving forward.

This Worlds started off rough for me. Things weren’t going great, but we never stopped working. We kept making small improvements and finding ways to get better every time we hit the track.

My mechanic Brent and I worked our butts off all week. We kept digging, kept improving, and never gave up. Big thanks to Brent Thielke for pushing me!

A huge thank you to JConcepts, with Paul and Jason at the event giving us endless information and helping us make the right tire calls when it mattered.

To Marco and the entire Rossi team from REDS, thank you for making sure we had reliable engine performance all week long.

At an event like this, every little detail matters. All weekend, we worked to maximize every category possible — car, tires, engine, pit stops, strategy, and execution. It truly takes a team.

Lastly, I want to thank my dad for doing what he does best — supporting me, taking care of me, keeping things light, and giving us plenty of laughs in the pits. I wouldn’t want to experience these moments without you.

Cheers to my first 1:8 Worlds Final. 🌎🏁

But I’m hungry for more.

P9 IN THE WORLD.

Let’s keep pushing.

LFG! 🔥

WELCOME TO THE POLE HATERS CLUB

Membership isn’t something you apply for. The pole chooses you.

It doesn’t care if you’re a rookie, a local hotshot, a factory driver, or a World Champion. Sooner or later, everybody gets their chance to join.

There are no dues. No applications. No tryouts. Just one poorly timed steering input and a very solid red pole.

You can blame your setup.

You can blame the marshal.

You can blame the RD.

You can even blame your radio.

The pole doesn’t care.

Many have challenged it.

Many have sworn revenge.

Some have even come back for a rematch.

The result is always the same.

POLE: UNDEFEATED

RACERS: 0

Nobody beats the pole.

Membership for life. Dignity not included.

What does it really take to win a World Championship?

When you see a photo with a trophy and the words WORLD CHAMPION, it can look like everything was decided in one one-hour final.

In reality, the road to this title started around one year before the World Championship. For some parts, even earlier.

Our job was to find something that could move us forward. Something that would make the car faster, easier to drive and more competitive on a track we still didn’t fully know.

We started working on new parts and prototypes. Some of them were quite complicated and required a lot of time for development, production and testing.

We managed to get the first prototypes ready early enough. But as always in development, every test creates new ideas. Eventually, what started as several new parts grew into an upgrade package affecting roughly 50% of the car.

And that isn’t something you simply bolt onto the car the day before a race and automatically go faster.

Every new part changes the car’s behavior. You need to understand it, find the correct setup and, most importantly, make everything work together.

Unfortunately, production took a little longer than planned, so much of the testing was done with only a very small group of drivers and mainly at the Hudy Arena.

It was a risk.

But once I saw the potential, I believed it was a risk worth taking.

We eventually brought 21 complete upgrade packages to Texas – around 25 kg of parts. Some of the final components were finished only about four days before we left.

None of this would have been possible without the people at XRAY. From development and engineering to production and the management who allowed us to keep pushing until the very last moment.

A World Championship is not won by one person, one driver or one mechanic. This result belongs to a huge number of people at the track and back at the factory.

This time, we approached the Worlds differently

In the past, I was sometimes frustrated that, as Team Manager, I didn’t always have all the information I wanted.

A driver can explain his feeling, of course. But sometimes you need to know exactly what the car is doing yourself.

So this time we did something different.

I decided to race.

Not because I was chasing my own result. My main job was to test for the team.

Every run gave me around 13 minutes on the track. That’s a huge amount of testing time where I could compare setups, tires and different combinations.

I won’t lie – sometimes it wasn’t easy to drive into the pits during a run, change tires or make adjustments while watching other drivers pass me. The racer inside you doesn’t particularly enjoy that. 😄

But I believed this strategy could help the whole team.

And it did.

Our drivers were fast from the very first practice. We could give them information about tires and setup before their runs. The results came, confidence in the car grew and so did the confidence of the entire team.

I think we even surprised ourselves with how competitive we were from the first practice all the way to the final.

But there was no way I could do all of this alone

Racing, testing and managing the entire team at the same time is impossible without people you can completely rely on.

That’s why I knew I needed Max Götzl RC driver with me. He is someone I have taught almost everything I know in RC, I have known him for many years and I knew I could trust him. He did everything necessary to keep things running and allowed me to concentrate on the areas where I was needed most.

Then there was my other role – being David’s mechanic together with his father, Pierre.

David Ronnefalk and I have worked together for a long time, so for this race it was an easy decision. When the three of us work together, there is a chemistry that is difficult to explain. Everyone knows his job, we trust each other and historically we have achieved very good results together.

But this time we knew one mistake could cost us everything.

The Thornhill track was extremely demanding and a DNF could happen at almost any moment.

Our first major goal was simply to survive the semifinals and put the cars into the main final.

The result?

We started the World Championship final from P1 and P2.

That’s a situation you can only dream about before a World Championship. And fortunately, both of our drivers are experienced professionals who understand that a race isn’t won in the first corner and know how to respect each other on track.

Then came the real pressure

Before the final we made the last changes to David’s car.

Our strategy was clear. We wanted the car to become especially strong in the second half of the one-hour final, when everyone would be dealing with worn tires.

Before the start, I was probably more nervous than I have ever been.

A 1/8 Nitro Off-road World Championship title is one of the biggest achievements possible in our sport. It’s something we had been chasing for many years.

And suddenly hundreds of scenarios start going through your head.

Set the engine idle incorrectly. Make a mistake gluing a tire. Lose a few seconds during a pit stop. Miss one tiny technical detail.

One small mistake and a year of work from dozens of people can disappear in seconds.

And when something doesn’t work, as Team Manager I ultimately take responsibility. From the decisions behind the development and management of the team to what happens in the pits and on pit lane.

That naturally adds another level of pressure.

RC is my life. It’s my job, my hobby and something I live practically every day. Maybe that’s why moments like this affect me so much.

And then the final started…

The start was great.

But shortly afterwards David made two mistakes in quick succession – something we had hardly seen from him all week.

Suddenly everything changed.

At that moment, being a mechanic isn’t just about refueling the car. You have to calm your driver down and get him mentally back into the race as quickly as possible. That’s difficult even for the best professional racing drivers in the world.

Fortunately, David is an absolute professional.

He found his rhythm again and we could start working our way back according to our plan.

The first stint changed our fuel strategy slightly, but this was exactly where the strength of the team became important. Pierre Ronnefalk was prepared for every scenario and together we were able to react.

Throughout the week we had extremely fast pit stops. During the final, our work in the pits even helped us in the fight for the lead.

Then we simply had to execute.

Pit stop after pit stop. Lap after lap.

No mistakes. No technical problems. No hesitation from the car, engine or team.

And then David crossed the finish line…

as World Champion. 🏆

At that moment, everything came out.

The emotions in the pits and in the grandstand probably showed better than anything how much this title meant to us.

It wasn’t the result of one final.

It was the result of a year of development, production, testing, decisions, risks and the work of a huge number of people.

XRAY XB8 – WORLD CHAMPION.

FX Engines – WORLD CHAMPION.

David was the one who completed the job on the track and handled the enormous pressure when it mattered most. But behind that trophy stands an entire team – the people everyone saw in Texas and many more who will never appear in the photos because they were back at the factory, working for months to give us the opportunity to fight for this title.

Without them, this result would simply not have been possible.

Thank you to David, Pierre, Max, our entire race team, every XRAY driver and every single person at XRAY and HUDY who contributed to this project.

I think this World Championship added quite a few grey hairs to my head. 😂

But every single one was worth it.

This is a moment I will remember for the rest of my life. ❤️🏆