June 2007:

Distinguished Visitor at Pembroke

We had a distinguished visitor among us recently when European RC champion Andy Griffiths spent a week holidaying in Malta with his wife Hedi and 8 year old son Joshua.

Andy won the European Touring Car Championships at Ashby in UK some 5 years ago, driving a Corally C4 touring car. He has also won various British championships in other classes, his speciality being 1/12th scale in door racing.

Andy and local champion Joshua Anastasi have been friends for some years and have pitted and worked together on a number of occasions sharing information on the Corally equipment they both used. The European champion’s visit was a perfect excuse for Joshua to temporarily come out of retirement and the two champions spent a pleasant afternoon at the IRMCC’s Pembroke track racing a couple of John Bull Racing Yokomo BD cars. These were fitted with identical specification Novak Brushless motors for the occasion. They were also joined by Yokomo driver Shaun Pace.

I asked Andy for his impressions of Malta, and the Pembroke track. “I’ve been promising Hedi a holiday here. I’m glad we finally made it. You have a beautiful island. I’m impressed with the track but I now understand why you need a different set up to what we use in UK. Your track surface is very different and requires very different settings. The Yokomos run great here, but then I never doubted that they would be spot on.” Not bad coming from a European Champion and Worlds A finalist.

May 2007:

JBR3 brings immediate results

Joshua Anastasi spent quite a few long hours in the John Bull garage over the summer, building another car with which to compete in the national Hill Climb and Sprint championship of the Island Car Club. It was worth every minute.

Having raced a season with JBR2 with it’s reliable but heavy and down on power Mini 1500 engine, Joshua decided it was time to go with the trend and build another car to run with a light and powerful motorcycle engine. Various power plants were looked at, but in the end a 190 bhp Kawasaki ZX12R was bought and fitted. The only mods to the engine were a stronger clutch basket, and a “Power Commander” variable ECU. A new set of Dunlop’s stickiest rubber was also fitted.

The car’s baptism of fire was the 3^rd round of the championship at Ta Pennellu where the car showed plenty of promise but also snapped drive shafts like they were going out of fashion. By the next event at Xaghra in Gozo in May the drive shaft problem had been solved, and with a bit more mileage Josh felt comfortably confident that he could be chasing the top boys in the class. Talk about understatement! The car was ballistic. The new Dunlop slicks gripped the hot tarmac like leaches and Joshua not only ended up winning his class but also finished a fantastic 2^nd overall just nine hundredths of a second away from the overall winner, current Malta Champion Lino Brincat.

“This is beyond all expectations. I know it felt fast and inspired confidence, but I was pussy footing away from the start because I wasn’t sure the drive shafts would hold out. I never expected to be on the podium, let alone second overall”.

A word of thanks to Joe Borg “Doda” who did most of the delicate machining and engineering, and to Mario and Terrence at M and A Motorcycles, importers of Kawasaki motorcycles for their valuable input, and last but not least to John Bull Racing for providing those magic Dunlop tyres.

The car’s next outing is the 5^th round of the National championship to be held at Ta Qali in June.

February 2007:

Joshua Anastasi retires from RC

After 15 years in the game, 24 year old Joshua Anastasi has finally decided to park his transmitter on the shelf, and leave it there. In those years Joshua has won 8 National Championships, competed in the World Championships in 1998, raced on most of the UK’s top circuits including visits to Mendip, Ashby, Snetterton, and five KO Grand Prix at West London in which he always placed in the “B” final, racing with the World’s best. Right till his retirement last year he was the benchmark. In fact he capped his RC career with wins in the Christmas Cup, wins in the National championship, his best result at the KO Gp, and a win partnered by his father in his last race, the IRMCC Endurance Cup.

So what made him pack it all in? It certainly wasn’t a lack of success. “I only raced the last 3 or 4 years because my father wanted me to. My heart wasn’t in it. I wasn’t enjoying it, and there’s no point doing something you don’t enjoy if you can do something you enjoy instead. I now race real cars, and although I have not yet had the sort of success I have had with RC I am enjoying it far more. There’s more to racing than just the racing and the success.”

Joshua started off, like we all do with a Tamiya, which was a Christmas present. “I thought it was brilliant till I went down to the track and people started flying past me. My dad’s competitive spirit soon took over, and with my driving improving with practice and his engineering skills we soon had competitive cars and started winning”. Josh won both the International meetings held in Malta, beating Belgian champion and works Corally driver Danny de Richter on one occasion. “We graduated from Tamiya to Schumacher, then Associated, and spent the last 3 seasons running the excellent Yokomo BD cars.  The Yokomo was so responsive to adjustments and settings. It taught me a lot about setting up real racing cars”.

Since his official retirement at the end of last season Josh has ventured down to the track on a couple of occasions. “I enjoy a little play at the track with my dad and a couple of friends every now and again, but I can’t say I miss the racing”.