Masami Hirosaka

Masami Hirosaka (広坂正美, Hirosaka Masami^?, born February 26, 1970, Kyoto, Japan) is a Japanese radio controlled car driver who is considered to be the world's most successful with a record fourteen IFMAR World Championships in 1/12 scale electric, 1/10 scale Pan, 1/10 scale 2WD off road and 1/10 scale 4WD, all electric. Hirosaka's peers have nicknamed him "Master Masami". He was considered to be one of the highest paid drivers in RC racing, until he retired from the activity. His last IFMAR race was the 2008 world championship in Thailand. His retirement ceremony was on May 3, 2009.

Masami was first brought into RC car racing at the age of seven by his father Masaaki; a former motorcycle racer, who finished 2nd at the 1971 Suzuka 6 Hours, a research and development employee of ABC Hobby and later with Yokomo and radio controlled car racer and designer, when he brought him a Tamiya Lamborghini Countach. They raced together for four years until upon realizing Masami was the better driver, Masaaki retired from racing to focus on becoming his mechanic.

In 1987, during a world championship round for the 4WD off-road at Romsey, England, Hirosaka arrived as a privateer with a Schumacher CAT, bar being provided power sources from HPI Japan. He had shown promise during practice and was brought into attention by Phil Booth, Schumacher's works driver who referred him to Cecil Schumacher, who provided him a longer wheelbase version called the CAT XL, then unavailable in Japan and was raced by a majority of racers. Despite being near-stock with much of the running gear added on from his old CAT, Hirosaka managed to win the title. After the win, he was given numerous offers from sponsors before he ultimately settled with Yokomo.

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