This year's New Zealand IC On-road Championship was held at New Zealandâ™s biggest and only International Specification track in Ruapuna. It is just on the outskirts of Christchurch, which is situated on the East Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. Entry numbers for this event were high for New Zealand, with most major contenders being in 1/10 4WD, ready to battle it out.
Representing Team XRAY were Tim Mckay (myself) and Mark Harling.
Weather for the event was hot for most of the days and rain on one day so the finals for Saloon were held on Monday, the designated rain day. In New Zealand we run 2 bodyshells for 1/10 4WD:
Can-Am and Saloon. Can-Am qualifying and Finals were held on Friday, with Saloon held on Sunday and Monday.
Also at this meeting there was New Zealand Champs for 1/8th and 1/10 2WD 235mm cars.
Friday: Can-Am
First up for this National we had Can-Am body shells. For many of the locals including myself, this was the first time we had run these bodyshells as many people including myself hadnâ™t entered a National Event before, or been involved with a club who runs this bodyshell. This was held Friday with 3 rounds of qualifying (5min heats) and a 30min A-final and 20min B-final.
Both XRAYs were fast straight away. I set a fast 14 laps in round 1 to claim TQ spot and Mark Harling came close with 13 laps 5:02 to claim 4th spot after qualifying.
200mm Can-Am entrants 2007 New Zealand Nationals (click to enlarge)
Can-Am Qualifying Top 10:
1. Tim McKay XRAY NT1
2. Andrew Webber
3. Daniel Burrows 4. Mark Harling XRAY NT1
5. Ian Rickerby
6. Nathan Toia
7. Pearce Stephens
8. Craig Lamb
9. Brett Waudby
10.Jayden Duthie
The Finals were a bit of a gamble on my behalf as I hadnâ™t ever driven this XRAY car for 30mins before so I didnâ™t know how the tyres wore and what compound tyres to run. In the end my decision was wrong and my rear tyres wore alot faster than the fronts and this made car very taily and hard to drive. However I managed to drive around this problem and still ended up on the podium only 12sec behind the leader. Mark Harling had a good solid run in 4th and ended up where he qualified....4th.
Tim McKay & Mark Harlingâ™s NT1 cars (click to enlarge)
So to have both NT1 cars in the top 4 on their debut was a good start to the weekend and we all left the track looking forward to the next day's challenge of Saloon bodys.
Can-Am Final Positions:
1st Andrew Webber
2nd Daniel Burrows 3rd Tim McKay (TQ) XRAY NT1
4th Mark Harling XRAY NT1
5th Ian Rickerby
6th Pearce Stephens
7th Jayden Duthie
8th Craig Lamb
9th Brett Waudby
10th Nathan Toia
Sunday and Monday: Saloon
With a change of bodyshells came a whole new challenge of getting cars set up and getting more grip to keep the cars competitive. We were relatively confident as most testing we had done had been with the Saloon body shells. Qualifying for this class was to be 5 rounds of 5min heats and a 30min A-final. Qualifying started on a slightly wet track, and with myself being in the first heat, I decided to not go out due to the wet track and I didnâ™t want to risk unnecessary damage.
For Round 2 the track was dry and had good grip. I managed to get a quick 13 laps 5:06 down to take over the TQ spot, while Mark Harling was having a few issues which we discovered late in the day was caused by bearing and throttle linkage issues.
(click to enlarge)
Once all 5 rounds had been completed it was myself again with TQ after setting a new fastest heat time of 13 laps 5:02 in the last round. This was a new track record for Saloon bodyshells. Mark ended up in 17th as he was unable to get a clean run after we fixed his problems late in the day.
Saloon Top 10 Qualifying:
1. Tim McKay XRAY NT1
2. Daniel Burrows
3. Craig Lamb
4. Andrew Webber
5. Brett Waudby
6. Jayden Duthie
7. Andy Ando
8. Pearce Stephens
9. Ian Rickerby
10. Leslie Levendal
11. Michael Van Der Haas
This time I was more prepared for the Finals and had a fair idea of what tyres to run and was confident Iâ™d have good tyres for the entire race. However it didnâ™t last too long as for some unknown reason my car flamed out in turn 1, which is about 2â“3m from the starting grid, so straight away by the time I got restarted I was a lap down. With some fast laps and quick pit stops, I slowly managed to climb my way up through the field car-by-car until I was sitting in 4th place and with a few minutes to go I may have been on for a podium finish. Unfortunately, radio glitches started happening and eventually my car took off out of control across the track and ended up in the fence on other side of the track.
After the race I discovered my receiver battery had either dropped all the cells or had a loose wire, as there was no voltage at all coming from the battery.
There was a bit of disappointment but I was also very pleased with the car and how quickly I came back through the field.
Iâ™m not entirely sure what happened to Mark Harling in the B Final as I was busy preparing my car but he didnâ™t last too long so not sure what happened there.
Saloon Final Positions:
1st Daniel Burrows
2nd Andrew Webber
3rd Andy Ando
4th Leslie Levendal
5th Jayden Duthie
6th Craig Lamb 7th Tim McKay (TQ) XRAY NT1
8th Brett Waudby
9th Pearce Stephens
10th Ian Rickerby
Tim Mckay (click to enlarge)
Overall it was a very pleasing result to the weekend, to have 2x TQ in 2 different bodyshells and the new lap and heat records in both bodyshells for the new XRAY NT1 was a great effort. Although the final results werenâ™t as good as we hoped, we have learned a lot more about the car in longer races and with a bit more testing I feel we will have a very good qualifying and race package at future meetings.
We would also both like to thank Team XRAY for the awesome support with these cars, also to local XRAY dealer Zoom Resources for all the help and support over the weekend and lately with the cars.
Tim Mckay
