XB8 and XB8E on podium at Raw Speed Challenge in Australia
Apr. 24, 2024
(click to enlarge)
Report by Ari Bakla
Round 1 Raw Speed saw the series travel to the beautiful beachside track in Batemans Bay.
With unbelievable views of the ocean from the new and impressive driver stand this track will also be hosting the NSW State Titles in August so the event made it worth the trip for competitors to learn the surface and layout. With 44 entries and exactly 4000 laps done over the weekend, it produced some amazing racing and results.
Juniors were very impressive over the weekend with some great racing between Oliver Highton and Riley Lander. Riley had very limited practice Saturday afternoon but managed to learn the layout quickly and grab a second spot finish just behind Oliver who took the win and TQ.
Oliver drove so well it won’t be long until his showing some of the older drivers in EP how it’s done with a 36.3 second lap. We had Jett Bagguely and Mason Bakla finishing 3rd and 4th respectively and by the look on their faces all weekend they all had a blast.
Another thing to mention was the driver etiquette shown by all the youngsters was amazing!
EP8 saw some solid practice and qualifying laps being made by the field getting down into the 34-second range.
Similar to his son Chris Lander has hardly any practice but got his groove on in the finals battling it out with Stephen Sneddon who took out TQ and A1 with a wonderful drive. A2 saw Chris snatch the lead from Stephen when he made an error on the back chicane after the back right single jump Chris passed and had a decent lead to take the win in A2 with Stephen not able to recover.
A3 made for an exciting race with Stephen and Chris at it again leads swapping several times during the race with Chris looking to have it all wrapped up when the two came together on the last lap in what seemed to be a racing incident and Stephen stealing the win from Chris.
3rd place went to Scott Hill who had an impressive first race meet at the Bay in his words “playing with oversized RC cars”.
Nitro Buggy had some exciting Qualifying with battles for TQ but Felix Koeg’er in his second visit to the Bay managed to secure TQ and took the win by 2 laps ahead of Ben Cribbin. Ben drove outstanding edging out Kev Lewis by 1 lap. Kev Lewis did extremely well to get through the Main let alone take a podium spot feeling under the weather all weekend. Unfortunately, Ari Bakla had some car issues on lap 13 in the final and couldn’t challenge Felix.
Big shout out to RawSpeed, Rc Hobbyland & Campbelltown Hobbies for their support of the series, thank you to the Batemans Bay/ACT on-road crew especially Maria and Summer in the canteen for keeping everyone fed over the weekend.
Next stop - Manning River Taree!
