1985 IFMAR Off Road World Championships Videos

[Eau Rouge]

Yeah, you read that correctly.

A while ago, a friend on the west coast sent me a crudely ripped DVD from a video that he had from when he was a kid. He's my age, so he's had it for a while. We both grew up with electric off road cars since the debut of the RC10, and he was lucky enough to have not gotten rid of a real produced video of the 1985 IFMAR World Championships, that most people didn't even know existed.

I have also been sitting on http://www.vintageRCcars.com for a while as some of you know. I have long had the intention of building a bit of a museum for vintage RC racing content—like archives, magazines, ads, videos, instruction manuals, photo gallery, product lists and part numbers, as well as potentially a discussion community for all pre-1993 race cars—not just devotion to one brand or class style. I have had ideas for this site for some time, just not the time to invest in even getting it off the ground. Plus, I didn't want to tread heavily on other sites like this one and TamyaClub.

Last week at the race track, while reminiscing over old times, cars and parts, Rob King (AscotConversion) mentioned the PDF archive of RCCAs here. I hadn't seen it before, so I went digging and had some trouble chasing all of them down on active servers. I eventually found all of them and decided to throw them up on my server that houses my other site, ApexSpeed.com. So there they sit now, with no restrictions, and no space limitations, and the rest of the site has now finally started to be built around those original ideas.

So vintageRCcars.com is now live. Sort of. Not much there, really, and no timeline to continue building. I guess it's more of an indefinite work-in-progress, more than anything else.

With that, I also decided to start to rip the DVD I had sitting around here with the coveted first off road World Champs from 1985 in Delmar, California, at what was then the Ranch Pit Shop, Delmar. They have not been permanently affixed to the new vintage website yet, but they will be tomorrow. I figured I'd give you guys a preview of the videos, though. There is some pretty neat stuff on this DVD, and eventually, I will get all of these things out there. Interviews, car shots, crazy camera shots and bad 80s clothes and music. I have some footage from some California on road races from the mid 80s, as well.

For now, though, check out the three races from the triple A-main in the Open/Unlimited Class, which eventually becomes 4wd Mod. The interviews with Jay and Gil on these clips are priceless on their own. REALLY cool stuff, and a lot more on the way.

1985 IFMAR Off Road World Championship Open A-main (A1)
1985 IFMAR Off Road World Championship Open A-main (A2)
1985 IFMAR Off Road World Championship Open A-main (A3)



dc

[Bormac]

ABSOLUTE GOLD!!!!! Thank you Doug.

[RC10resto]

Great stuff
Keep it coming.

[MOmo]

So with looking at the video, it said OPEN class, is that , "Anything goes"?

It looks like Losi was running a 4wd and Halsey was running a 2wd RC10. Am I wrong? Was Jay running a MIP converted RC10?


Great to see the old footage. Very interesting to compare tracks today with those back then. Seems to me many of the tracks I remember were more fast with few jumps. Today, obviously with all the development in suspension and the desire for Big Air, the tracks are more technical and larger and longer jumps. Signs of the times.



MOmo

[Jirka]

Thanks Doug for these videos!

Jay seemed to be running a car like this:

rc.old.5_RC10 4WD proto Jay Halsey.jpg (21.64 KiB) Viewed 2711 times

rc.old.5_RC10 4WD proto Jay Halsey.jpg (21.64 KiB) Viewed 2711 times

Jirka

[sheriff]

Cars 'dumping' mid race, even the best in the world, god I miss those days!

Nice vids, good work

[uzzi]

That was awesome thanks for that!

[Eau Rouge]

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel, because as new videos are added, you get alerts to let you know that new stuff is up. I have the 1986 ROAR On Road Nationals from Reno, the 1986 Treedity Shootout in Pomona, and the Open class from the Worlds down to the J Main, I think.

Yes, Halsey was running that exact prototype 4wd RC10. Most people in the Open class ran 4wd cars. I thought it was cool to see Chris Alec in the 3rd Main driving a Hirobo. I think these videos also put to rest the notion that Eric Soderquist finished 3rd in the A, which was shown in a Euro magazine scan elsewhere here on the forums. He got lapped by Losi in the 3rd round and finished 8th in that race and 6th overall. Paul Dionne was the 3rd guy on the podium for the first Worlds.

[xxxmain]

LOL, how times have changed.... did anyone notice the marshal with no shoes on in A1 at 1:53 (as he jumped over Losi in the lead). HA HA, that is hilarious. Can you imagine a bare foot marshal at the Worlds now????

[tim.sanderson]

That's pretty awesome, thanks for the uploads!
I also noticed a bunch of guys around the track wearing only tiny shorts. And the music at the end of A3 was fantastic. I'm glad I was barely a teenager by the end of the 80's!

[Eau Rouge]

Oh yeah, the nut huggers and mullets were in full force.

[Lonestar]

thanx for this Doug! absofreakinglutely AWESOME!

Oh yeah, the nut huggers and mullets were in full force.

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

Oh yeah, the nut huggers and mullets were in full force.

They should integrate that into the VONATS.

[Eau Rouge]

B Main is up, and C Main is rendering now. You guys are going to love the C Main, because they use cheesy music over the top of the racing in the lower mains instead of the announcer.

[tim.sanderson]

They should integrate that into the VONATS.

I would totally do that! Maybe cut a pair of jeans into to shorts, so short the pockets hang down. Buy a mullet wig...