Undoubtedly one of the fastest drivers in the world, the 3 time IFMAR 1/12 scale World Champion made his appearance felt at the 2013 Cactus Classic by driving his Yokomo to top qualifying honors. Although he finished 4th overall, he was a constant threat to win the modified 2wd class and in terms of all out speed, Naoto would always kick it up a notch against the field’s best. However, since this wasn’t a fastest lap race, he wasn’t able to pull off the win….. this time. I’m sure he will be a threat to win in coming years since this was only his 3rd offroad race on US soil. Outstanding!

I read somewhere that Naoto’s car was sporting some prototype test parts that were suppose to be kept under wraps. The media was not suppose to talk about them or take photos of those parts, so I believe this is Naoto’s car without those parts on it. Either way, having photos of the TQ car (with or without test parts) definitely can give a lot of racers a competitive insight and hopefully for those who were not interested in the Yokomo B-Max2 MR have a resource to learn more about the car. I definitely want to play with one.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Yokomo is testing a new platform and it may debut at WORLDS later this year. Or at least a major overhaul since people have been reporting that Naoto’s Yokomo had a double deck carbon fiber chassis for this weekend’s race. Can’t wait to see what the future holds.

Naoto’s layout is similar to what everyone else who ran MM over the weekend. Saddle packs pushed all the way back and as close to the motor as possible and ESC mounted in front of the battery. The difference here is Naoto runs his speedo inline with his receiver mounted in front of the ESC, but behind the servo. Other guys like Tebo and Martin ran the ESC side by side with the receiver. I’m sure the difference is quite small. The biggest thing I noticed here is that he’s running Team Associated Big Bore shocks!

Thanks again to RedRC for their awesome coverage. Wish I could go and help!