Ruapuna circuit was host recently for both the EP and IC Circuit Nationals held on consecutive weekends. This is an outdoor circuit and no traction compounds are allowed to be used.
This class had been newly started about 6 months ago by a local club member Didier who ran his first 1/12 XRAY car on the track . I had recently completed my XII T-bar kit, with great assistance from my husband and it is the first 1/12 car I have ever driven. It had been kitted with LRP 5.5 turn brushless motor, Plasma ESC, Intellect 4600 NiMh batteries, KO PDS-951 servo, UFRA foam tyres and KO receiver and Radio gear. What inspired me to race this class was the fact it is two wheel drive, is raced for 8 minutes, utilises a brushless setup so has plenty of speed and the fact that quite a few drivers who I have raced in 2WD gas class and other IC classes were racing this class as well.
Having had my first outing on Club day the previous weekend I was as ready as I could be for my first nationals with this car. I had my own list of targets to beat and the drivers attending from the far north, which are experienced in this class, were going to be the yardstick for the setting of fast lap times.
Fastest laptimes to date were set by a fellow club member at the South Island Champs and were just shy of 22 laps.
The competition consisted of four rounds of qualifying on the Saturday, then 3 rounds of finals on the Sunday. Points were awarded for placings in the finals, your worst round dropped and in event of a tie the fastest result was to be applied as a deciding factor.
In Qualifying, 22 laps was achieved by Matthew van der Haas in the second and third rounds. He was the only person to achieve this on the first day of competition and it was very impressive. Mark Harling had taken the opportunity of driving a loan car from another club member and was performing very well with it. This was his second outing with the car as well, but in the past quite a long time ago, he had competed very successfully in this class achieving National wins. So he was always going to be a big threat.
In qualifying, weather was very warm, grip levels were quite good , good clean driving was the norm and racetimes were very close. It was entertaining to see us all when our laptimes improved but we would drop positions because of the close racing.
A Finalists:
1. Matt van der Haas
2. Mark Harling
3. Craig Lamb 4. Mike van der Haas XRAY XII Link
5. Daniel Webber 6. Don Collins XRAY XII T-Bar
7. Kevin Dench 8. Bev Winter XRAY XII T-Bar
9. Adam Brown 10. Vaughan Jones XRAY XII T-Bar
It should be noted that Mike van der Haas had just built his new link car a couple of days before starting to race it at the Nationals so to qualify as well as he did was really good. Also 1 second was the time that separated the Top of the B finalists from the 10th Qualifier in the A final.
A Final:
Another fine day arrived for the finals day. Unlike the qualifying rounds where it was vital to record the fastest laps, the finals were about rewarding consistency. Matt and Mark were the only two to complete 22 laps
It was hotly contested but eventually the results were as fol:
1. Matt van der Haas
2. Mark Harling 3. Bev Winter XRAY XII T-Bar
4. Daniel Webber
5. Craig Lamb
6. Kevin Dench
7. Adam Brown 8. Mike van der Haas XRAY XII Link
9. Don Collins XRAY XII T-Bar
10. Vaughan Jones XRAY XII T-Bar
