| Race report by Tim McKay |
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| After many regional Events in NZ this year we finally arrived to the final event of the year and the main event that everyone seems to work towards and aim to do well at. Our National Champs are just held over the 1 meeting, which is generally rotated throughout the country and this year it was held at the Harewood RC Club down in the South Island. |
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| The track was on average about 36-40secs long, good technical sections but also some fast flowing sections. Entries for the event reached a high of 65 buggies and 48 truggies, of them there were 18 XRAY buggies and 11 XRAY truggies, so a very good representation there for the XRAY cars. |
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| Format for event was on Friday there was 2x 10min timed heats of practise, followed by 1 round of qualifying in the afternoon, then Saturday was the remaining 3 rounds of qualifying. Of the 4 rounds of qualifying, only 3 would count with standard IFMAR points determining qualifying position. Then Sunday would be Finals Day with lower finals either 15 or 20mins, and semi finals 30mins long and both A mains would be 60mins. |
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| Practise got underway 8am Friday, results were a bit mixed for everyone as everyone was still learning the track and getting engines tuned and set ups changed to suit the track. |
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| The Friday Qualifying session Started later in the afternoon and was a close battle in both classes, however I managed to win the Buggy round so went home Friday after meeting with a good points haul already. |
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| Saturday was fine weather yet again, and very warm, and today we would know by end of day who would TQ this event. Round 2 was run early in the day and some fast times were set, I didnâ™t have a good run as too many mistakes, but still got 6th in round and I managed to win round 3 so would only need a decent finish in round 4 to secure TQ, which I did with a conservative run to 3rd in round 4. |
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Top 10 after Qualifying in buggy were:
1. Tim Mckay XRAY XB808
2. Mike Stratford
3. Alan Looi
4. Peter Brimmer
5. Zac Ryan
6. Jason Dyckhoff
7. Graeme Mcdougall
8. Chris Banham
9. James Tacon XRAY XB808
10. Dave Edhouse |
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| Onto Finals now and they started early Sunday morning, it was a long wait till the semi finals but once they started a few of the names in the top 10 would run into problems and exit the event, myself however just had a good run and finished 3rd in my semi, Jerry Davis managed to win the other Semi final in his XRAY Buggy after qualifying 18th due to some dramas, and with James Tacon bumping into final also it made 3 XRAY buggies in the 60min A final, with Jerry starting off grid 3, myself off grid 5 and James off grid 11. |
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| The A final got underway late Sunday, it was a clean start by most, and I quickly settled into 2nd place after a few laps and stayed there for a while, not far off the leaders. As the race progressed a few cars ran into reliability issues and retired, and by the ? mark I found myself leading by 1 lap over 2nd place, with Jerry Davis sitting in 3rd now in his XRAY after a slow start and a flame out at a pit stop. I just kept driving consistently for rest of race, and at the end managed to take the win around one and a half laps ahead of 2nd place, with Jerry taking out 3rd spot. |
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Final Finishing order:
1. Tim Mckay XRAY XB808
2. Peter Brimmer
3. Jerry Davis XRAY XB808
4. Graeme Mcdougall
5. Craig Underwood
6. Andrew Webber
7. Billy Looi
8. Dave Edhouse
9. Alan Looi
10. James Tacon XRAY XB808 |
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In Truggy Class James Tacon Driving my XT8 managed to Qualify 5th and end up 3rd after the 60min A final, I didnâ™t see much else of this class, but this was a great effort for his first time driving my Truggy.
Overall a Good Event, and a great result for XRAY with 2 buggies on the podium and 3rd place in truggy too, Plus TQ in buggy and a XRAY buggy won Concours too !! |
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| Many thanks to : XRAY for the support over the previous 3 years Iâ™ve been with them, VP Pro for the tyres, Zoom Resources the local Distributor and finally to those who helped run the event. |
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