yesterday i was, unintentionally, playing phone tag with the organizer of the annual l.a. tofu festival - joelle dobrow and finally got a moment to talk to her. man, little did i know on this  "initial-d" anime craze in japan, that she gave me the whole spiel on what it was all about and how she can try to make a transformation from the setting of the anime to this up coming real-life 2006 tofu festival and her idea of having an rc (radio-control) race event simultaneously with the tofu festival would be a killer solution. knowing that i can be supportive of the idea and helpful in anyway, i immediately endorsed a good buddy back from my rc racing days who runs the oc circuit and does custom rc lexan-paint  jobs for serious racers.

 i haven't seen or talked to charlie barnes since a visit to one of his races in la mirada, ca. 3 years ago. but lately it's a blast hooking up with charlie b. again. charlie is still going at it strong with the rc industry. i've shelved my 10th scale racers and trophies and it somehow would be hard for me to get back. i leisurely, would race an 18th scale locally and that's about it. i look back in retrospect of the glory days of HTM (hollywood touring motors). just to give you an idea of it's brief history, two hpi (hobby products international) employees were running my dyno-tuned 540 electric motors in their chassis at the local "hobby shack" races and were smokin' the competition in the "expert class". it was the last race of 1996 season at mission viejo, ca. where bill martinez and james revilla did a 1-2 win in the expert "stock" class A-main with their hpi rs4 pro (series 1). the first race event for the 1997 season held at the hobby shack in riverside, ca., i can remember my tuned motors ran in about all the classes (novice, sportsman) were fast and actually placed. now the hightlight. team HTM drivers bill martinez and james revilla did a 1-2 win (expert class) with charlie barnes and his yokomo chassis and also running a motor i tuned for him, placing 3rd. i know this is ancient history but it surely doesn't hurt to hear the same old story again and from the horses mouth. (wilbur!).

two japanese video gaming giants - namco and konami partnered on this takara "digiQ" project - miniature "infra-red" controlled cartoon-like cars. they are an off-shoot to the "choro-q" with pull-back motors. the paint-scheme on this (above photo) tiny integra type-R are vinyl stickers, the kind you need to water submerge before applying. notice also the red nail polished HUB. i know there isn't any relevance to tofu, but i've just found out that there is an "initial-D" DigiQ version for sale.