Mibosport – It all started with a Tamiya TT01 for Christmas
Last weekend saw the biggest MIBO International to-date take place in the Czech Republic. The third edition of this unique race, the construction of two separate carpet tracks brings together both onroad and offroad racers for two & a half days of racing. Held in the Sport V Hotel in the very small town of Hrotovice, a casual conversation with the man who puts it on, Michal Bok, quickly turned into a bit of trip down memory lane. Our first event of 2025, this year marks 18-years since we covered our first event, the 2007 EFRA 1:10 Nitro Touring European Championship in Spain, and we have become good friends with Michal over that time. As we chatted it was interesting to discovered the story of Bok’s successful journey with Mibosport, the distribution and online retailer that has just out grown its fourth premises, and which all started from him getting a Tamiya TT01 for Christmas as a kid.
Having never given RC racing any attention as a young fella, Michal’s first introduction to the hobby came when Santa brought him a Tamiya TT01 for Christmas, the iconic Japanese company responsible for so many people getting hooked on this hobby. With his father Radoslav having no previous background in RC, this chance present would shape Michal’s future life path and also see his dad put in some serious shifts in building tracks and working tirelessly in the background making sure races run smoothy. Initially Michal just played with his plastic chassis touring car on his street but once he discovered there was a club in his local city things moved fast. He went there to practice and the following week he was taking part in his first ever race. Quickly upgrading to the latest competition spec chassis from TRF, Michal’s first big race would be the European Championship and as they say ‘the rest is history’.
Starting to sell RC products from his garage in 2009, a racing trip to Japan escalated that side of things to a new level. Having become a team driver for Yokomo, at the end of 2011 he travelled to Yatabe Arena for an ETS offshoot event called the Asian Touring Series Pilot Race, the same event marking Red RC’s first time to the land of the rising sun. A meeting with Yokomo management during that race would see Michal return home to the Czech Republic as a new Yokomo distributor, kickstarting the impressive growth of Mibosport into becoming the well known one stop shop for everything RC car related. Michal proud of the company’s tag line ‘All in 1 Place’.
Having got to experience racing around the world, nowadays Michal concedes that Mibosport and his own products range MIBO, which he created in 2022, leave him little time to race himself but as a father of two young kids its looking like he might just have to find away to make time for racing again. His 6-year-old daughter just made her race debut in the ‘Kids Onroad’ class that was introduced to MIBO International this year to compliment the ‘Kids Offroad’ category that has been run successfully the last two years. With Michal also racing, as best he could in between keeping the show on the road, it was great to watch him enjoying the process of passing on his racing experience to Viktorie over the weekend. For those of you newer to racing, Michal was not just a competent racer but also a good mechanic, notable working with Ronald Volker when the then Yokomo star driver complimented his ETS touring car program with racing offroad in the heyday of the EOS, Michal prepping his buggies. A huge advocate of getting kids involved in racing at an early age, Michal believes RC is a great hobby for parent relations stating ‘you both have to be very involved’ and like any sport he knows the kids are its future.
Anyone who knows Michal and his father, will know, to put a very British phrase on it, that they are both serious grafters. Together they have put on a serious amount of races and been responsible for bringing literally thousands of guests to the Sports V Hotel over the years having hosted European Championships, ETS & EOS races, and his own very successful multiple round Mibo Cup series – that’s a hell of a lot of track builds and teardowns!! With Covid ending the Mibo Cup, he is now committed to annually running MIBO International. From the start of November each year he dedicates one day a week to organising everything ahead of the race weekend. Asking Michal if he enjoys organising the race, he was honest in his ‘No’ response before adding that once the race is in the books he is happy that he was able to provide racers with a place to race and hang out with friends and that’s what makes him repeat it all again each year.
One of most hectic events Red RC covers annually, something we can only blame ourselves for having put the idea in Michal’s head during a conversation at the 2022 IFMAR ISTC World Championship in Gubbio, this year was even more pressure than usual for Michal. While putting on this two international races in one event, the growth and expansion of Mibosport means he is also in the middle of preparing to move premises for fifth time having outgrown each new building. With 6 staff in the company, the new Mibosport HQ will be double the size of the existing building. While MIBO International 2025 might be over in the background the ‘graft’ continues with a lot of product needing to be moved all thanks to his father’s investment a Tamiya TT01 all those years ago!!
