The 2009 New Zealand South Island Championships were hosted by the Christchurch Radio Control Car Club over the 17th and 18th of October 2009 at their Ruapuna Raceway facility.
Although participation in the 1/10th nitro touring class was a little down on previous years, the competition was still expected to be fierce between team Xray drivers Andrew Webber and Mark Harling, and regular frontrunner Daniel Burrows.
Qualifying was held over 5 rounds, and featured an intense battle between Andrew and Daniel. Both were pushing right to the limit, and struggled to complete a 5 minute run on one tank of fuel. In the end Daniel managed to secure the top qualifier in the very last round. Andrew challenged Daniel until the last lap of the last round of qualifying, when he ran out of fuel, but still did enough to qualify in a strong second place. Defending champion Mark Harling never really got on top of a handling issue with his NT1, and was left half a lap behind the two front runners. The A final qualifying order was:
1. Daniel Burrows 2. Andrew Webber XRAY NT1
3. Mark Harling XRAY NT1
4. Kevin Davey XRAY NT1
5. Juan Gasper
6. Grant Forsyth
7. Peter Rohtmets 8. Graham Barthow XRAY NT1
9. Mike Grainger
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The final was run over 40 minutes. Andrew made a brilliant start, and lead the race for the first 15 minutes. Daniel managed to slip into the lead at the third round of stops. Andrew stayed with him until the half way point in the final, when radio problems forced him out of the race, allowing Daniel to take a comfortable win. Mark did enough to hold on to second, pulling out just before the end of the race with a misbehaving throttle servo. Juan rounded out the podium, miraculously completing the final on 37 shore tyres â“although, they were down to the rim after 40 minutes of racing.
(click to enlarge)
Final positions were:
1. Daniel Burrows 2. Mark Harling XRAY NT1
3. Juan Gasper
We now look forward to the New Zealand nationals, at the same venue, in February 2010.
