| Race report by Michael Jones |
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One of the classes racing at the South Island On Road Championships was Touring Modified. The race was held at the huge Ruapuna track in Christchurch, New Zealand. After the NZRCA AGM had been completed earlier in the year, it was decided that brushless motors would be allowed in this class for the first time. This was to be the first major NZRCA event under the new rules. Another first for the Touring Mod class was that you could either run 5 or 6 cells with their own separate weight limits to keep things even. Tyres were still open to foam or rubber tyres.
We had a great turnout for the South Islands overall, and also the touring Mod class which had drivers from Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill, Hamilton and Auckland. Mark Harling and my self were competing as part of the XRAY Team. It was fantastic to see the drivers from the North Island coming down to have a go in this class. We had several XRAY's in this class as well as Tamiya, Serpent and Hot Bodies cars competing. The XRAY T2â™008 is a popular car at the moment in this class. |
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| Friday practice was warm and sunny. This gave the out of towners a chance to get set up and used to the track. The grip seemed to be great already at this point with some fast lap times going already. Ruapuna is a really big gas car track with long straights but also has tight hairpins following them. This seems to be hard on the batteries because of all the acceleration and deceleration required. It seemed like a wise decision to choose a motor that was more mild rather than wild to suit the tracks characteristics. There were all kinds of combinations used for the event including 6 cells, 5 cells, brushless motors, brushed motors. |
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Saturday was qualifying day. The weather was cloudy for the most part and started to rain later in the day. We ran the staggered start system for the first time which ran great and meant it was really clean, fast racing. I really want to thank the competitors for being polite and driving smoothly and safely. After several rounds it was apparent how close it was going to be at the top. The top 3 in qualifying were:
1 Michael Jones XRAY T2'008
2 Ian Rickerby
3 Pearce Stephens
I found it of great interest that the top few cars were set up totally differently. My car had 6 cells, a 4T brushless motor and a front differential done up fairly tight. Ian used 5 cells, a 4.5T brushless motor and a one way. Pearce on the other hand used 6 cells, a 3T (or 3.5 I think) brushless motor and a solid axle up front. We all ran on foam tyres between 35 and 40 shore hardness. All three of these cars were producing fast lap times and were very even for a lap.
Sunday brought rain and hail. We waited around till 12pm but there was just no give up in the rain, meaning we had to postpone the finals till Monday. Well not long after the meeting had been called off, the rain stopped and the track started drying. At about 6:30pm I was having a shower and could not stop thinking about the slight under steer I had been having. After having a chat with David Beck about steering lock, I thought maybe I should go out there and give it a go with a bit more steering lock! Thankfully I already had a battery charged and ready to go. I went to the track and gave it a go. All I can say is the car was awesome and I was starting to feel more confident about the finals. |
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The next day was dry and very nice, warm conditions. The first final was chaos for me. I got through the first corner cleanly, but then my car stopped dead!!!! (I will talk about this later). The whole field went past me in a second. Fortunately I got going again and started working my way through the field. At this point Ian was way out front with Pearce running second. Pearce had an accident later on which meant I moved up through to finish a disappointed second place. The final results were: Ian Rickerby 1st 14 laps 5s, Michael Jones 2nd 14 laps 11s, Pearce Stephens 3rd 14 laps 17s.
When I got back to the pits, I had a think about what had happened. I decided that it must have been a case of the motor dragging so much current out of the batteries at the start of the race, that my receiver did not get enough voltage. I changed my DRRS setting to try and make a smoother start, but found out when reassembling the car, that the lead to the capacitor I had installed in the car to give the receiver constant voltage for that very reason had broken. I hurriedly reassembled the car and rectified the problem just in time for the next final. |
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| The second final for me was fantastic. I got another awesome start and managed to power away pushing as hard as possible to loose Ian and Pearce. I did see some contact between the two of them at the start. When I heard the 10 seconds to go beeps I was down the back straight wondering if I would make it to the 15th lap. Indeed I did!!!!!! My batteries dumped big time on that 15th lap just allowing me to crawl around to finish the race. I think I was the happiest person there that day!!!!!!!!!!! The results were 1st Michael Jones 15 laps 22s, 2nd Ian Rickerby 14 laps 4s 3rd Pearce Stephens 14 laps 6s |
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It was still possible for Ian or Pearce to win going into Final 3 if they could do a 15 lap race, so I could not relax at all. Another great start for me but again some contact between Ian and Pearce. This time Pearce got up into second which was holding both of them up. I did not worry about them as I wanted another 15 lapper!!!! I pushed and pushed which resulted in a best lap of 20.6s (0.3 seconds faster than any other race) and a new track record of 15 laps 20s. I could not believe how great things went for me in the last two finals!!!! The results for the last final were Michael Jones 15 laps 20s, 2nd Ian Rickerby 14 laps 7s, 3rd Pearce Stephens 14 laps 11s.
The NZRCA rules for finals are that the best two times are added together to get a final result. The top 3 were as follows
1st Michael Jones XRAY T2'008
2nd Ian Rickerby
3rd Pearce Stephens
4th Mark Harling XRAY T2'008
5th David Beck XRAY T2'008 |
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Also I must mention XRAY racer Mark Harling and David Beck who had some really good racing together to finish 4th and 5th within a second of each other also on 28 laps. There was some really good sportsmanship between the two of them.
I would really like to thank Team XRAY and New Zealand importer Zoom Resources for the support over the last year. I would also really like to thank the CRCCC and specifically Kevin Davey, Tania Poll, Barry Brown and the committee for the great work on this event. Also a big thank you to Natalie for putting up with racing for a whole weekend.
Happy Racing
Michael Jones |
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