The 2008 Winter Champs were held at the PNDR raceway out in the Western suburbs of Sydney from the 27th -28th of June.
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Friday Practice:
I missed the Friday Practice due to work commitment but from all reports there was a good turn out. From the reports I received grip was low to start with but improving as time went on. The Standout performer in Practice was Peter Jovanovic with his Novarossi powered Xray NT1 being the only driver to set a 14 sec lap.
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Saturday Qualifying:
Arriving at the track at 7am it was cold with quite a few people already set up & ready for the track to open. We set up our pit area & got onto the track for some much needed practice as I had never raced at this facility before. I had set-up my car from the reports I had for friends at Fridays practice. I managed to get 3 tanks of fuel though the car in practice & it felt pretty good to start with but it lacked initial turn in, so I reduced my caster which helped allot.
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Right from the start Peter Jovanovic was in a class of his own setting the standard with a run of 21 laps in 5min.14sec. Peter was the only one to break into the 21 laps & he did this in 2 out of his 3 qualifying runs to finish with a very dominating TQ. I put together 3 very consistent runs all within 6sec of each other, one which was good enough for 6th which I was happy with considering the lack of practice & set-up time I had.
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I was also trying the Xray Foams for the first time & I was more than impressed with the grip & wear rate. John Germanos rounded out the top 10 & an A-main spot to make it 3 XRAYs in the final.
Qualifying results: 1st Peter Jovanovic XRAY NT1
2nd Phillip Woodbury
3rd Ric Bartolozzi
4th Darren Campbell
5th Chad Donnelly 6th Chris Russell XRAY NT1
7th Ray Azzopardi
8th Andrew Bardetta
9th Steve Valletta 10th John Germanos XRAY NT1
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Final:
The final was dominated by Peter who led from start to finish. Peter also was the only one to break into the 14sec lap range & set the fastest lap of 14.793sec nearly 1/2 a sec faster than any other car & ended up winning by over 3 laps. I got a good start up to 4th before the first pit stop when I ran out of fuel just before the loop whilst coming into the pits.
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After restarting I\'d lost 2 laps & whilst pushing hard I clipped a board breaking a front CVD & my race was over. John Germanos picked away & with some consistent driving he finished a credible 6th place so well done John.
Final Placings: 1st Peter Jovanovic XRAY NT1
2nd Phillip Woodbury
3rd Ric Bartolozzi
4th Chad Donnelly
5th Ray Azzopardi 6th John Germanos XRAY NT1
7th Steve Valletta
8th Andrew Bardetta 9th Chris Russell XRAY NT1
10th Darren Campbell
12th Matt Russell XRAY NT1
19th Chris Stanley XRAY NT1
22nd Chris Young XRAY NT1
30th Tomas Buratvich XRAY NT1
31st Nathan Egan XRAY NT1
33rd Steven Cornell XRAY NT1
38th Flavio Cataldo XRAY NT1
39th Robert Parrington XRAY NT1
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Once again I would like to thank Team Xray, Hudy, Boss engines, Custom Model Cars & Hunter Valley RC for there continuing support.
