Over 80 entrants made the trip to the 2008 ACT State Titles held in the Australian Capital Canberra from the 15th - 19th of May at the Narrabundah circuit. A combined IC off-road race meeting for 1/8th Buggies & Truggies.
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Thursday Practice:
The track was opened for 2 hours of open practice at 9am followed by 3 rounds of controlled practice in heats. We used this time to learn the new layout & tune motors. The 808 was good straight away & would only need a few little tweaks to get it right. The XT8 was to soft and lacked steering which I had planned to change the shock settings later. The track was grooving up nice, hard packed with good grip so it all looked good for Qualifying on Friday.
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Friday qualifying:
Friday morning started with fine cold weather. Qualifying got under way & it was obvious that a lot of patience was going to be needed to get a clean run with 12 cars per heat & the average lap limes between 37sec to 42 sec. Due to the short time between my races plus marshalling & pit for 2 other races I only ran the truggy twice. The 808 was great finishing the day in 6th place after 4 rounds.
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Saturday Qualifying & Lower Finals:
We woke Saturday morning to rain. Arriving at the track it didn't look to bad. After a 45 min delay the first heat went out for the beginning of round 5. Everybody got caught out in this round as the hard wet surface was extremely slippery so times were allot slower. By the time the 6th & final round had come around the grip had started to come up & with a few spring changes the 808 was perfect. I also ran the XT8 in this round finishing 3rd in the round.
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Sunday:
Finals day started cold & with the lower finals underway the track was really starting to groove. In my buggy Semi final I had a good start then just cruised to take 4 & an A-main spot. In the Truggy semi I had a shocking start & race. I had changed to the softer light Blue spring & everything about the truck was slow. It just didn't react at all. I managed to just qualify last for the A-main in 12th place.
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Finals:
Truggy, I got a good start from 12th up to about 7th with Bakla, Laughton & Haley skipping away at the front. Back on the dark Blue Springs the truck was a pleasure to drive. Good consistent laps & a few issues for some of the front runners helped me move though the field. At the end of the 45mins I'd got back to 2nd place & a podium finish for Team Xray & the XT8. Haley had a throttle servo let go whilst in second place & finished 10th & Craige Lewis had to change a faulty receiver pack & finished 8th.
1. Ari Bakla 2. Chris Russell XRAY XT8
3. Chris Lander 4. Nick Chatz XRAY XT8
5. Dan Horne
6. Anthony Dipizio
7. KC Shore 8. Craige Lewis XRAY XT8
9. John Bateman 10. Ian Haley XRAY XT8
13. Stuart Smith XRAY XT8
14. Duane Goodyer XRAY XT8
16. Thommas Simmons XRAY XT8
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Buggy,
I had a terrible race. The worst start possible then drove the car to hard & made too many mistakes. By the end of the main Haley was 6th with me finishing 7th.
1. Wayne Walker
2. Ari Bakla
3. Nick Drygalla
4. Steven Franis
5. Ron Maya 6. Ian Haley XRAY XB808
7. Chris Russell XRAY XB808
8. Matt Griffin
9. Scott Jones
10. Joe Porfida
11. John Bateman
12. Craig Laughton
13. Jarrod Pace XRAY XB808
15. Craige Lewis XRAY XB808
18. Shane Kelly XRAY XB808
26. Stephen Broadley XRAY XB808
27. Adam Brartholomew XRAY XB808
35. Duane GoodyerXRAY XB808
41. Stuart Smith XRAY XB808
42. Peter Davis XRAY XB808
44. Daniel Quinton XRAY XB808
45. James Quintion XRAY XB8EC
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I would like to thank Team Xray & Custom Model Cars (Xray Australia) for there on going support.
