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Waikato Buggy Champs Track
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| This inaugural running of this event was held on the weekend of 29-31 August, 2008 at the Mystery Creek Show Grounds. This was the same location that the 2008 WRC Rally of NZ had there Super Stage which was also held at the same place on the same weekend, which made for a good crowd of spectators watching the buggy racing when the Super Stage wasnâ™t running. |
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6 XRAY XB808 Buggies |
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The track Started as grass, but mid way thru Practice day holes started appearing and eventually during weekend it turned into a dirt/sand surface with some impressive holes developing everywhere.
The format was Friday open practice day, Saturday was Qualifying with 5x 10min heats for everyone and Sunday Bump up Xmas Tree Finals, with the A final being 1 hour long.
There was 6 XRAY XB808 Buggies in attendance, slightly down on some other brands but a few who own Xray buggies couldnâ™t make it to this event. |
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Tim Mckay XB808
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Qualifying was tough, what with holes developing everywhere and 11 cars in a heat on a small track, made for some close racing and was entertaining for the large crowd watching. Most cars were making a stop for fuel during a heat, but about 5 or 6 cars were doing the whole 10mins on a tank.
At the end of qualifying the top 10 was:
1st Alan Looi
2nd Tim Mckay XRAY XB808
3rd Mike Stratford
4th Greg Mawson XRAY XB808
5th Chris Banham
6th Nathan Toia
7th Graeme McDougal
8th Jonathan Calucio
9th Adrian Lorenzen
10th Robert Maskell XRAY XB808 |
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Greg Mawson XB808
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| With no cars going directly into the A final everyone went into a 25min semi final. Top 4 from each semi would automatically make it into A final along with the next fastest 4 from either semi final. All 6 Xrays in attendance made the semis, which was a good achievement. First up was the Odd Semi final, In this heat There were the Xrays of Adrian Lorenzen and Andrew Webber, who had bumped up from the ? final. Both cars went good, in the end Adrian scraped into 4th place on the last lap after flaming out with 3 laps to go while comfortably in 2nd place. Unfortunately Andrew Webber had radio/battery problems and retired. |
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Tim Mckay, Pole Position for A Final |
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| In the Even semi final Tim Mckay lead from the start and was never challenged for the lead finishing about ? a lap ahead of 2nd place at the end of the race. Greg Mawson overcome a bad start and finished 6th, but was lucky enough to make it into the 12 Car A final as one of the next fastest 4. Just missing out on making A final was another Xray driver Kevin Gedge who didnâ™t complete his final lap due to some problem, possibly out of fuel?. Had he finished, he probably would have snuck into A final. |
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Tim Mckay XB808
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| The A final was next up on the program, scheduled for 1 hour, this would be a race of attrition. After times for the Semi final were taken into account for the starting grid for A final it was Tim Mckay with a Xray 808 starting off Grid 1, Greg Mawson back in 9th and with a lot of work ahead of him Adrian Lorenzen on grid 10. At the start of the race Tim Mckay got away to a good start and lead the field away, a few crashes happened at the back of the field over the back straight jumps section. As the race slowly went on the cars slowly started to have problems, cars were breaking parts, having flameouts, and marshals were kept very busy as cars some cars struggled on the very rough surface. |
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Adrian Lorenzen XB808
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As race went on Tim Mckay continually stretched out his lead, and by about the 40min mark had around a 2 and a half lap lead over 2nd place, but this was when his clutch started playing up and something wasnâ™t quite right, After many flameouts and restarts due to failing clutch he dropped many laps and eventually finished back in 8th place, about 14 laps off the pace. Adrian Lorenzen was having a good steady race, and came on strong late in the race and secured 3rd place and a much deserved podium finish. Greg Mawson finished 6th after a few issues with losing a screw in his steering system.
Final Results were:
1st Peter Brimmer
2nd Chris Banham
3rd Adrian Lorenzen XRAY XB808
4th Nathan Toia
5th Jerry Davis
6th Greg Mawson XRAY XB808
7th Phil Finlay
8th Tim Mckay XRAY XB808
9th Jonathan Calucio
10th Graeme Mcdougal
11th Dave Edhouse
12th Mike Stratford |
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Podium,L-R, Chris Banham, Pater Brimmer, Adrian Lorenzen
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Overall a good weekend for Xray. To qualify 4 cars in the top 10, and have 3 finish in the top 8 is a testament to the car No Xray equipment failures over the entire weekend, was great, as many other cars came to grief on this rough track with big jumps causing a lot of suspension failures.
I would like to thank Xray for helping us all achieve these results, plus the Hamilton RC Club for running this Great event, and of course the WRC Cars for putting on a good display for us to watch while we werenâ™t racing !!!!!!
Tim Mckay |
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