| Race report by Ari Bakla |
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The Summer Nationals are one of the bigger events on the calendar for Australia, and Team XRAY Australia's major race debut for the T3'12.
In Nitro it was Team XRAY Driver Timothy Lee that set the pace all weekend, his NT1 worked flawlessly, setting TQ by a wide margin and winning the final by a bigger margin. The smaller track does not favor the Nitro cars but the competition was still hot, Tim reproted the grip was great and lap times were fast.
A brilliant effort to a driver that is fast becoming one of the hardest guys to beat in Australia. |
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Come Sunday with a gloomy start and a bit of rain the XRAY camp elected not to practice on the wet track and hope for the best with the initial setups from the practice day before. It was a strategy that worked well, with 6 x National champ and reigning champion Ari Bakla setting the TQ from the first run and setting a new track record from last years win... i guess practice in the morning was really not needed. It was no easy feat for Ari as the lighting Tim Lee was right on his tail, with Tim winning the nitro class the day before, he had plenty of track time and it was showing with Ari battling for the TQ spot.
The trend followed in the following two qualifiers, Ari setting a better TQ time and Tim Lee only 2 10ths behind him, this followed in the third as well, these two were on fire.
Come finals time there was plenty of action to be had, with Ari setting TQ and starting nicely in the number one Box and Tim right behind, it was going to be on for young and old Ari and Tim battled closely for the entire race with Ari just etching ahead and winning the first leg. |
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The second leg didn't go without a little controversy, Ari false starting after being in the zone and hearing what he thought was the buzzer but turned out to be static over the micrphone, this resulted in a one lap stop go penalty for Ari, with Tim Lee going on to win the second leg comfortably.
Come the final leg and Ari being super cautious with the buzzer, he got off to a slow start but managed to hold the lead with Tim again right on his tail, Ari drove a flawless race to be crowned the 2012 Summer Nats champion AGAIN and the first major tittle for the T3 '12 It's Ari's 4th Summer Nats crown and Team Xray has also won the the crown 4 consecutive years in a row.
Xray had 5 cars in the Modified final a feat higher than any other manufacturer, is this the car that will win Xray the world title? |
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| Stock Class (17.5) Racing by James Ainslie. |
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| Well another great Summernats event held by the Illawarra club has been run and won. After arriving at the airport on Friday it was off down the the coast to Wollongong and straight to the track. This was only my second meeting with the Xray T3-12 and the first on a painted asphalt surface. I started with pretty much the kit set up with a few subtle changes, those being narrow wheel hexes, short wheel base in the rear and medium length roll centre in the front and short link in the rear. The car felt really good straight away and I was excited about the weekend already and looking forward to now settling in and getting familiar with the track and sorting the motor and speedy settings out. I was initially having a few issues with temps and went for a more cautious ESC setting as humidity was very high. Once times were consistent I started to play a bit more with set up and tried things such as one spring rate harder front and rear, LTCR body, leaning the shocks in one hole more front and rear and shortening the front wheel base. In the end I went back to my very first settings mentioned with the only difference being the shocks leaned in one hole and reverted back to the Mazda speed 6 shell. With practice coming to a close I was happy and put the car in the bag. |
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Come Sunday it was qualifying time and things had gone up a notch with the times tumbling each run, it was a hot field and hot weather with entries down to a D group in the 17.5 class. Qualifying went well with consistency and reliability being achieved when there were some pretty impressive motor and ESC's going up in smoke by other competitors. After 3 rounds with the best two counting under a points system I qualified the car in 4th position. I was however a little off the pace of the front 3 guys and needed to find something to bridge the gap.
Come the first final it was a game of patience for me and I slowly picked my way through some carnage to find myself in 2nd place, a couple of slight mistakes saw me end up dropping back to 4th place. For the second final I threw caution to the wind and cranked up the speedy. Off the line I nearly jumped to third immediately off the line and the car had some great punch, it was a close run and I came home in third place. Now I was really happy and set my sights on getting onto the podium.
The third final was nearly a disaster with the 3rd place qualifier failing to get off the line, being a straight line start grid I narrowly missed running straight into the back of them. From here I settled in and found some rhythm and brought the car home in second place. With best two to count on a points system I grabbed 3rd place on the podium and overall I was wrapped with how things unfolded.
The new car is fantastic and with just a few minor changes it is fast and straight on the pace. I would like to thank Team Xray Australia for a great car and Ari Bakla and Tim Lee for being able to bounce some ideas off of and resource their vast experience. |
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| Nitro Open Results: |
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1. Tim Lee XRAY NT1'11
2. Aaron Lee
3. Chad Donnelly
4. Leigh Dytor
5. Alex Koussas XRAY NT1'11
6. Greg Brooks XRAY NT1'11
7. Shaun Kaltenbacher
8. Chris Hamilton
9. Joel Casey XRAY NT1'11
10. Kane Alderton |
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| Electric Modified Results: |
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1. Ari Bakla XRAY T3'12
2. Tim Lee XRAY T3'12
3. Craig McPhee
4. Cristian Silva XRAY T3'12
5. Ben Maguire
6. Shane Edwards
7. Mark Wallin XRAY T3'12
8. Lionel Saunders
9. Jake Motta XRAY T3'12
10. Jon Philpott |
| Stock 17.5 Results: |
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1. Dan Garcia
2. Simon Stewart
3. James Ainslie XRAY T3'12
4. Stewart Grant XRAY T3'12
5. Chris Charalambous
6. Gavin Hatherly XRAY T3'12
7. Matt Ferguson
8. Alex Ilievsci
9. Ray Zarb XRAY T3'12
10. Luke Stewart |
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