Big Mac had the idea of bringing one of Offroad’s ideas over to onroad. Take a bunch of top racers and put them in a rounds race situation and then run a normal race meet in conjunction. The theory is that with all the top mod drivers out of the way it will open up the mod class racing to some who normally don’t get on the podium or who normally don’t race mod at all. With the help of Leo from Hobby Station, Big Mac set out to make his dream a reality.

The decision was made to invite 4 Interstate top drivers and then round out the 8 with 4 from Brisbane. Andy Cook, Chris Putnam, Ari Bakla and Chris Primmer were the ones from the invite list who ended up accepting the invite and the field was made up with Anthony Attack, Keith Mackrill, Peter Dooley and Scott Guyatt (all Queensland Champions in one class or another). In the end Ari couldn’t make it and John Perkins was drafted in as a  late inclusion.

Entries in the Mod and Stock classes were down and there were probably several reasons for this. The use of a control tyre, insert, rim combination made the entry fee a bit steep for a lot who would have had those tyres in their pit boxes already and didn’t want to buy new tyres and mount them on rims they didn’t like. The classes ran over two days which is difficult for some people. The event also ran in competition with Brisbane’s most popular electric club. Organizers have already addressed some of these concerns and advised that the next event will be a control tyre only, self supplied or purchased at the event. Different classes will run over the two days so people can choose to run one day or two – eg 540 and 19t on Saturday and Stock and Mod on Sunday. One would also hope they will take some recognition of what other events are on that weekend as well.

Hobby Station was very well prepared and presented for the event  and all the drivers were happy with the layout and the surface – racing was going to be hot. The club officials ran a great meet with absolutely no hiccups at all. The club uses RC Scoring Pro as their race management tool and once the drivers got used to the slightly different race result print out (no consistency values and no race by race qualifying update) we found the program worked very well – especially given that it was running a 12 round meet for one class and a “normal” heats and 3 A finals meet for the other two classes.
 
Racing was brilliant – the Invitational class races were a joy to watch – all 12 of them and the  races in the other classes were also close and entertaining.
Results from the Invitational were as follows with Anthony Attack being just too good on his home track and Scott Guyatt showing the benefit of more racing this year than the last few to finish 2^nd , and Andy Cooke is just too good to be out of the results altogether and was able to claim 3^rd with a few brilliant drives.

Interesting Stats:
Round Wins   Anthony 5, Scott 3, Andy 3, Chris Putnam 1.
Round Wins   Tamiya 415 – 5, Schumacher EC – 4, Corally RDX – 3.
 
Final Placings
Anthony Atack – Tamiya
Scott Guyatt – Schumacher EC
Andy Cooke – RDX
Chris Putnam – Schumacher EC
Chris Primmer – Losi
Keith Mackrill – HPI
Peter Dooley – Losi
John Perkins -RDX
Modified: Here we saw the reappearance of one of Brisbanes best offroad racers and an old onroad face in that of Brett Ryan. Brett installed his favoured sticks in one of Big Macs hire cars and went on to win mod from a fast Jay Dixon and local Kane Fellows. This class really struggled for entries and will need to find a way to get more in here next time mmm if only I had a brushless.
Stock: Damien Barnier (Cyclone) was the class act of this class and absolutely dominated throughout qualifying and won all 3 finals. David Guyatt (Schumacher),  Stuart Milton (Schumacher) and Qld Champ Bob Vardy (HPI) had a two day duel for second place. End result after some memorable races was Damien from Heavy and Stuie.
 
From little acorns great oaks grow  – the Brisbane Cup has potential to grow into a truly great event – there’s work to be done and consideration to be given to some issues but it could be – and should be, a great annual event and a great addition to the Brisbane racing scene – well done Big Mac and Leo.