| Report By Tim Mckay |
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| This years South Island Champs was once again held at the Harewood Radio Control Car Club in Christchurch. This event was well attended by drivers from most regions of NZ and there was a total of 32 buggies and 29 truggies entered. Format for this event was 5x 10min qualifying heats for each class, with Points being given out each round and your 4 best rounds counting towards your total and final qualifying position. |
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Buggy
Qualifying started Saturday morning with 4x buggy heats and 3x truggy heats, In the early rounds it was myself Tim Mckay setting some 17 lap runs in buggy to take the first few round wins, James Tacon in another XRAY XB808 was 2nd in round 1 and looking fast also, however flameouts and a few dramas in round 2 and 3 meant he dropped down the qualifying order and would need to run a semi final to make the A final. The remaining rounds were run Saturday afternoon and last round Sunday morning, I managed to keep car going well and I ended up winning all 5 rounds of qualifying, which meant I would be straight thru to A final and start off grid 1. |
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Top 3 after Qualifying to go straight into A final
1st Tim Mckay XRAY XB808
2nd Dave Edhouse
3rd Scott McCreanor |
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| Next was both Semi Finals, In 1 semi Final James Tacon started off Grid 4 and quickly moved to the front and held that position to take the win. Home in 4th in this semi final and also lucky enough to get the final bump up spot to A final was the XRAY XB808 of Robert Maskell, who was very consistent and fast during his race. |
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| In the other Semi final unfortunately no other XRAYs bumped up, however with 3 already in A final it was looking good for some good placings. |
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Buggy A final
This race started and I made a small mistake at turn 1 and rolled the car, meaning I ended up 7th after lap 1, however a few quick laps and mistakes by others meant that by lap 4 I was back in the lead and slowly set about extending my lead. James Tacon was having issues with his clutch and numerous flameouts meant he finished down in 9th and many laps off the lead. Robert Maskell however moved from grid 10 at the start and ended up after 45mins in 3rd place, So a good result in the end to have XRAY 1st and 3rd. |
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Top 5 After Final
1st Tim Mckay XRAY XB808
2nd Graeme McDougal
3rd Robert Maskell XRAY XB808
4th Neil White
5th Dave Edhouse
6th Daniel Thompson
7th Scott McCreanor
8th Karl Innes
9th James Tacon XRAY XB808
10th Juan Gaspar |
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Truggy
In Truggy Qualifying I was 2nd in round 1 after a slow start and trouble with backmarkers, however I managed to win the next 4 rounds to take overall TQ by winning 4 of the 5 rounds. The Truggy was very fast, however I did struggle with tyres and not having the right type, although by modifying driving style and turning into corners a tiny bit earlier I was able to make do with what I had. |
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Top 3 after Qualifyin to go straight into A final
1st Tim Mckay XRAY XT8
2nd Scott McCreanor
3rd Dave Edhouse
In the Truggy A final I Started off grid 1 and managed to get a good start and stretched my lead out to about half a lap by the 10min mark, however a minute later I ran out of fuel trying to make just over 11mins from a tank, this meant I lost around 2 laps by time I got restarted and got going again. When I rejoined I was just behind the leader and I managed to unlap myself and begin the process of chasing him down to get the lead back. About 15mins later I was about half a lap behind him and he ran into engine dramas and lost time, so I inherited the lead and never looked back, going on to win by almost 4 laps in the end over Karl Innes in 2nd and Phil Finlay in 3rd. |
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Top 3 after Final
1st Tim Mckay XRAY XT8
2nd Karl Innes
3rd Phil Finlay |
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| Overall a great weekend, to Come Away with 9 round wins in qualifying out of a possible 10, and 2x Top Qualifiers and 2x Wins is pretty pleasing. The XRAY cars went faultlessly, and it seemed the grippier and rougher track got the faster the XRAY Cars got. And reliability wasnâ™t an issue at all. This track had some big jumps and heavy landing if you got it wrong, and to have no major issues or failures was awesome. |
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| I must also thank my Sponsorsâ¦. Team XRAY for the Awesome Cars, VP Pro for the wicked Buggy Tyres and Zoom Resources also. |
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