Thursday: It was a nice sunny day at the Brendale track in Brisbane host of the 2006 IFMAR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS. The organizers had decided to start qualifying on the Thursday to try to push through the event due to having over 120 entries in Touring car, 1/8th scale and pull-start. The first round was a timed practice in heats, with every driver trying to set good times to see who would be the fastest going into qualifying. There was the likes of my brother Steven Jovanovic, Jesse Davis, Phillip Woodbury and young Ryan Maker along with myself setting some really fast lap times. My NT1 was feeling dialed and I was excited to see who would take the pole in the first qualifier.
Qualifying was up next, during the hottest part of the day (around lunchtime) where the times are usually not as fast. My XRAY was handling the hot weather great, taking the first qualifier by 5 seconds over Jesse Davis with Phillip Woodbury in 3rd unluckily running out of fuel. I held onto TQ position until the 5th qualifier when Jesse Davis put in a great time to the top spot and push me to 2nd. It was disappointing to not fare as well in the night qualifiers, but I knew my car was setup for the daytime which was when the final was going to be. Young Ben Maker in his XRAY managed to take TQ in the pull-start class in the same run which was a great effort from him taking on many more experienced drivers then himself. The night qualifying was always much faster then the day racing as the motors ran cooler and the grip came up so the top 4 positions stood till the end of qualifying.
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Unfortunately for young Team Driver Ryan Maker who put in some really fast times had issues with his engine which did not allow him to bump up from his Semifinal which left me to be the only XRAY in the top 10.
Listings for the final:
1 Jesse DAVIS 2 Peter JOVANOVIC XRAY NT1
3 Steven JOVANOVIC
4 Phillip WOODBURY
5 Ric BARTOLOZZI
6 Daniel BURROWS
7 Dallas GARDINER
8 Alex KOUSSAS
9 Ron TARANTO
10 Jason COOK
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Top Four Practice:
The top four qualifiers got a 15 minute practice before the main final to test and try things for the final. I knew that many of the drivers were planning on running 45 shore tires on their cars but I knew my tire wear was good with my LRP tires able to last on 42 shore. I tried both 45 and 42 shore but the grip was not there for me to run the 45 tires. I
also put in a new run in Factory Novarossi motor which we had to tune up in a short amount of time, Lucky for me the engine was terrific, tuning up perfect. The main concern for the finals was tire sizes due to the cars all wanting to traction roll. It was a 45 minute final so I trued my tires to 63 at the rear and 60.5 at the front which seemed to work well in the 15 minutes.
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Finals:
During the warmup for the finals my car seemed to feel a little funny in the clutch and I knew something wasnâ™t right. With a couple of minutes left in the warmup I brought the car in due to the car totally losing drive so I called a 10 minute delay after discovering a clutch issue. After my father repaired the clutch, we were able to make the start of the race. I had to start out of pit lane as a penalty for calling the delay which didnâ™t end up resulting in too bad of a start for me. After the first 10 laps I was in 3rd chasing down Jesse Davis and Phillip Woodbury. I could see that I was closing in on them fast, so I knew just to drive smart.
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After the first 20 laps I was in first and didnâ™t look back for the rest of the race winning by a lap and a half. At the 40 minute fuel stop I had a little scare with my engine stalling with 5 minutes to go but, luckily for me, my dad managed to get my car started straight away which only cost me around 30 seconds. I was still in first by a lap and a half by the end of the race. Nearly every driver had some sort of an issue in the final whether it was their engine or mistakes but it was always an exciting race. This win meant a lot to me, having won the Australian Nationals in 200 touring car 3 years in a row. One of my next goals would be to win the 1/8th scale Nationals as well as winning touring car 4 years in row.
2008 AARCMCC I.C. On-Road Nationals Results for 1/10 200mm ON-ROAD
1. Peter JOVANOVIC XRAY NT1
2. Jesse DAVIS
3. Dallas GARDINER
4. Daniel BURROWS
5. Ric BARTOLOZZI
6. Jason COOK
7. Alex KOUSSAS
8. Ron TARANTO
9. Phillip WOODBURY
10.Steven JOVANOVIC
I would like to give a big thanks to my sponsors XRAY, NOVAROSSI, LRP, AT RACING FUELS & RADICAL RC HOBBIES for all there great support and great racing products for making this all possible.
