Team GDD Driver Marc on hpiracing.com

Team GDD driver Marc Marquez and his NL-86 can be seen on hpiracing.com
The body speaks for its self and is an amazing peice of work...so a bit congrats goes out to Marc.
Don't forget to check out HPI's great products while you are checking out the RC Drift Club coverage.

Introduction to GDD

First of a very big thanx to Genki DoriDori for the sponsorship I am so pleased to have been chosen from the many great r/c drifters out there, its an honour.

Well most of you out there will know me for creating such great bodyshells such as my Yokomo 180sex and the Tamiya Z-Tune door slammer.

Well I best start really with how i got into the drift seen haha well i used to race R/C buggy's as a young teenager and didnt really do that well for some unknown reason things were always breaking and as a young lad money was always tight, and if you know the type of vehicle i was using at the time they were the likes of tamiya sand scorchers which were fairly fragile.

So after a few years of mucking around with buggy's I became a little older and got to the age of driving 1/1 cars so after passing my driving test it was all down hill from then with r/c as the interest became strong for real car modifications which as we all know takes all your money and more. As time goes by we reflect on the things we do as a youngster and my wife said to me one Christmas what do you fancy for a present this year? Well for some reason I said I fancy getting back into R/C cars just for fun as a hobby like we know and love, so of to my local LHS and a couple of hundred pounds later a fully hopped up Tamiya TL-01 was of to a flying start, well after playing around for a few weeks more power was needed and along with more body's LOL. Then one day I decided to go searching the internet for more hop ups and stuff and stumbled across rcdori which from that day forward I have never looked back, after many hours of searching the r/c drift scene and then more and more forums popping up and joining its just got bigger and better by the month.

Ive now been into r/c drifting for around 4 years now and as most people that know me, know me for my bodyshells and of course the all loved Tamiya TA-03, which is one of the best r/c drift cars available at this moment in time, ive personally moved on from the TA-03 since i came across the ARD CE-4 which with the help and thanx to Genki DoriDori has made it such a great chassis for me to drive.

As for entering the D1RC series it was the best thing i have ever done, I entered the last 2 races of the 2006 season and found it a massive learning curve using full r/c purpose built tracks which as most of us who enter into the drift scene start in back yards and car parks, After many chats with the organisers Eddie Turner and John Turner I have learned a lot more about car set up and how to prepare your chassis for race conditions and have never looked back since.

Well enough of me for now just glad to have been chosen for the GDD sponsorship.

More to follow soon.................

Groovy Drift / Autobacs

BY: Marc Marquez

The day started out with heat yet again, blistering early. At 7am it
was roughly around 85 degrees. As we pulled up, the set up of the
track was already completed an hour and a half before competition
time. Eric and I set up our tents to form our little "tent village" to
get the most shade out of the day. Registration began and people
stickered up their cars with the provided sticker sheet. I was able to
hand out a good amount of GDD stickers so that drivers would have the
option to use them for today.

The Type-T class was first and it went by rather too quickly. Almost
as if it were to say, "Let's hurry up and get this over with". For the
people that didn't qualify and didn't sign up for a different class
were out of luck. Their day ended really fast. I ended up qualifying
14th for some reason. People were very unsure as to how they were
judged during qualifying. The first battle that I faced was against
Aki, an employee of HPI in the R&D department. He is very skilled in
Type-A's and is a very, very good driver. We went on to go one more
time after 1 full battle and I ended up advancing to the next round
because of a spin on his part. My next opponent was James (Raine). He
is also a very skilled driver and would be a tough battle for sure. We
had several sudden death rounds in the round, and was a very very
exciting round of battle. I barely edged him out by a 6-4 decision by
the judges and moved on to the semi finals. As if things couldn't get
any harder, my next opponent was Gil from team Arai. The same scenario
went on here as we again had several sudden death matches. It finally
had to come to one final lap to decide who would move on. This time,
Gil was able to beat me by a score of 6-4 and I was now in a battle
for third. My opponent was Mac Cruz, my Touge Knights teammate. We
battled it out and I ended up taking 3rd place over all in the Type-T
class.

The next classes were beginner, intermediate and advanced. I also
entered the advanced class aside from the Type-T class. A new twist
was added as the GD staff decide to (after the advanced practice
session) to change up the track to make it more difficult. I felt that
this was kind of unfair. I know that we're in the advanced class and
all, but they should have done so before the practice session. In any
case, I qualified 3rd this time and would make it all the way to the
top 8. I then was eliminated by Mac Cruz this time and ended up taking
7th place in the advanced class.

RCDC Rnd.6 @ Speedtech RC, 8.18.07

BY: Marc Marquez

The day started off with the usual morning practice and last minute
tuning among the drivers. Although it was only 9am, it was already
roughly 88 degrees F. A lot of people were questioning what type of
tire they were going to run. For some reason, HPI Type-T's tend to be
slower on the Speedtech surface, ABS are normal, Yok's are avarage
depending on the setup, RPD's are fast but controllable, and Type A's
are rediculously fast. I decided to go with ABS initially since my car
was set up for Type-T's. I didn't have enough time to re-setup my car
for Yok's, plus I've used Yok's for every comp in the RCDC series, so
I thought I'd give a new tire a shot, being the last round, just to
see how they'd fair. But that turned out to be a bad decision to go
with ABS. During warm up, the heat made multiple driver's tires fall
off because the surface was so hot. I think it ended up being like
101*F throught the competition. Not to mention they were waayy too
slow compared to everyone else. The hot track made harder rubber
compound tires, i.e. RPD's the tire of choice. Man, they were AWESOME
on that track with those conditions! Total control, enough speed to
keep in close tandems, but still having the ability to slide, even if
you had to use the brake while following.

The drivers all lined up their cars for the group picture. Also for
some reason, a lot of people were asking me what I had planned for a
body for this comp. I didn't tell anyone other than my teammate Eric
about what I had planned. So wanting to surprise everyone, I brought
out the body wrapped in a black shirt. With everyone staring curiously
and anxiously, I took the body out of the shirt and set it down next
to the other lined up cars. Of course everyone had the look on there
face like, "That's it? That's what all the fuss was about? It looks
cool, but I expected something crazy.." At least, that's the look that
I thought they had. Then I removed the hood… and the reaction was
priceless! All I heard was one big unified, "OOOOOOOOHHH!!!!!!" It was
truly one of the best feelings I've had in RC drift ever. I felt a
sense of accomplishment and it made all the hard work worth while.


Soo, back to the comp. During qualifying, my car was unresponsive, and
I mean, not working at all. The RCDC 3 minute rule went into effect
and I could not get my car to move five feet away from me. After
several tests, I determined that it was my radio (DX2) that was the
problem. The antenna had been dangling from a broken piece of the
antenna base for a while now, and I guess it just gave up on me. I
quickly went home (I live 15 min. away) and got my DX3.0. Everything
was fine after that. I apparently qualified 14th with 1 DNF out of 2
qualifying rounds, so things went pretty good for not having a first
qualifying run.

Tandems were nice and tight. Really good match ups and a lot of
upsets. I didn't really expect to get that far, but again, I'm happy
things turned out the way they did. In the final round Gil and I had
to go one more time, and then b/c of a little understeer on my part on
the sweeper in sudden death, a 6-4 decided the match following a 5-5.