IFMAR and the four blocs.

IFMAR: the world body

Founding

IFMAR's own history page says it was officially inaugurated in 1979, after earlier attempts to form a world governing body, with Ted Longshaw of Great Britain as its driving force and first president. Wikipedia gives the date as 9 July 1979 and says Longshaw set it up to bring separate organisations, each running its own rules, under one body. Red RC's obituary of Longshaw (8 September 2011) says he proposed a world governing body with uniform rules after a World Championship in Switzerland in 1979.

Legal form and seat

IFMAR's history page records how its home has moved. Longshaw retired in 1995 and John Grant of Australia followed him, taking the seat from Great Britain to Australia. IFMAR was registered as an Australian public company in 2002. Grant retired in 2005 and Dallas Mathiesen of Sweden was elected. IFMAR was de-registered in Australia in 2006, which left it without a legal entity, until the Belgian government published it as an international non-profit association on 15 October 2018. The footer of its 2019 electric off-road rules gives its form as an a.i.s.b.l. registered in Belgium and seated in Kampenhout.

Wikipedia lists IFMAR's presidents as Ted Longshaw (UK, 1979 to 1995), John D. Grant (Australia, 1995 to 2005), Erhard "Dallas" Mathiesen (Sweden, 2005 to 2018), Jeff Parker (USA, 2018 to 2023) and Eric Anderson (USA, from 2023). IFMAR's own page confirms the 1995 and 2005 changes; the 2018 and 2023 changes rest on Wikipedia alone.

Structure

IFMAR is organised in an IC (internal combustion) section and an Electric section, each with a chairman (1/8 IC off-road rules 2024, 3.1.a; electric off-road rules 2019, 4.2.11). It publishes a separate World Championship rule book for each class, each to be read with a common "Section 1: General Rules for IFMAR World Championships". Those General Rules, which cover eligibility, allocations and officials, were not found, so parts of this page rest on Wikipedia.

IFMAR also offers two further kinds of membership, according to its document dated 7 March 2021. Manufacturers can take an "associated membership" with a seat on a technical committee, limited to technical proposals, with no vote and no proposals on general rules or the constitution. Tracks can become "affiliated tracks", though IFMAR states that affiliation does not by itself qualify a track to host a World Championship.

The four blocs

IFMAR governs through four member blocs, according to Wikipedia. The blocs organise World Championships on IFMAR's behalf, and any of them can homologate parts such as silencers and bodies for IFMAR use (1/8 IC off-road rules 2024, 2.3.c).

The number of nations behind the blocs is given two ways. Wikipedia says the four blocs represent 45 member nations with full voting rights, while a search summary of another source gave 42. Neither figure was found on an IFMAR page.

FEMCA

Wikipedia says FEMCA, the Far East Model Car Association, was founded in 1980 in Hong Kong and, after two false starts, re-established in 1985, when it hosted its first IFMAR race in Tokyo. Its size is reported two ways: Red RC, a trade publication, describes FEMCA as representing 15 nations in Asia and Australasia (17 November 2025, and again on 19 May 2026), while Wikipedia's member table lists 16. That table names national bodies for Australia (AARCMCC), Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan (JMRCA), Kuwait, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand (NZRCA), the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. FEMCA runs its championships under the title "Asia Championship", according to Red RC. No FEMCA rule book or FEMCA web page was found, so FEMCA's own rules are not recorded on this site.

AARCMCC is a national member, not a bloc

AARCMCC, Australia's national RC car body, appears in Wikipedia's FEMCA member table (founded 1979), so the sources read place it as a national member of FEMCA, not as a separate IFMAR bloc. Its full name is spelled two ways: "Association of Australian Radio-Controlled Model Car Clubs" in an IFMAR report, as summarised by search, and "Association of Australia Radio Controlled Model Car Club" in Wikipedia's table. See the BRCA and national bodies.

FAMAR

Wikipedia's IFMAR article calls FAMAR the newest bloc and places it in South America and South Africa. Wikipedia's FAMAR article describes it as the bloc for South Africa, Mexico, Central America and South America, founded in 1992, with 16 member countries listed. No FAMAR-published page or rule book was found.

Reaching a World Championship

IFMAR caps its 1/8 IC off-road World Championship at 180 drivers, with places allocated per bloc and country under the IFMAR General Rules (2024, 3.0). Because those General Rules were not read, the route to an entry is recorded here per source:

• Wikipedia says World Championship competitors must be members of a national body and are nominated through a body representative who judges whether they are competent enough, and that they need not have qualified in the discipline. That is unconfirmed against IFMAR's rules.
• EFRA sets per-country entry allocations for the next European and World Championships at each section's annual conference, and entries go through the driver's national federation (General Rules 2024, 3.6 and 4.1.1). A European passport holder who has held EFRA registration and raced a European Championship may not race a World Championship for another bloc (4.1.7).
• ROAR says it is the North American representative to IFMAR and the only organisation authorised to qualify and send drivers to IFMAR World Championships.

At registration, each driver signs a form accepting the event's published rules (IFMAR 1/8 IC off-road 2024, 3.24.e).

The first World Championship is disputed

IFMAR's own history lists a 1/8 IC track race at Pomona in 1977 and a 1/8 IC track event in Geneva in 1979 as events, and calls 1981 its first championship. Wikipedia's 1:8 IC Track page calls the 1977 Pomona race the inaugural World Championship. The 1977 race came before IFMAR was founded. The full account is on IFMAR history and the world championships.