Decided to get to Tamworth super early this year for some practice based on the fact that I haven’t raced Onroad for a few months and that I would be racing a new car as well. Did a super early start and got to the track at 8.30 Friday morning and guess what, the picture tells it all – dismal. Ended up that there was no practice on Friday at all.
Saturday morning looked good and the Tamworth club decided to lay some sugar water – everyone except the locals thought this was a dumb idea because it wet the track again which was still trying to dry out from the previous days soaking.

 As it turned out the first practice session was virtually useless, very slippery, but by the second session the grip was starting to come good. Apparently they knew what they were doing after all as the grip was fantastic all weekend after that.

There were 13 heats to get through and 4 rounds were planned for Saturday – a long day – as it turned out most of the fourth round was run under lights. The club had organised a trackside dinner which was very good although not that well attended especially by Queenslanders, most of whom seemed to prefer the RSL.

I had decided to run the new Mi3 although I hadn’t driven it before we usually find that the Schumacher book settings are pretty good and that’s how it turned out – the car was sensational but unfortunately I wasn’t and turned in a reasonably ordinary performance to qualify 4th and finish 5th after the finals. Two unusual incidents hampered the car – my personal transponder fell out and got caught between the front wheel and the ground occasionally robbing me of steering and making the car very erratic. By the end of that race the transponder plastic bottom was worn right away right down to the circuit board – though suprisingly it still works fine. The second was that one of our old faithful Futaba steel geared servos which we have been using for 5 years without problem decided to strip it’s gears while I was sitting comfortably in 3rd in the second final after having scored a 3rd in the first final – oh well looks like a new servo needed.

Sunday the event went pretty well and all finals were finished by about 4 followed by presentations and hit the road home at 4.50. The Queenslanders gathered as usual at Kentucky at Glenn Innes on the way home for one last chance to tell a few lies and swap a few ‘if only’s “.
The track layout was a different one to that used previously and was a very fast layout – most liked it, and as usual most declared their intention to come back next year.
Oh by the way NSW beat Qld 150 to 133 in the Interstate comp.
Some of the Qld drivers performed very well with wins in 540, stock and mod and placings in both Nitro classes as well – full results will be available elsewhere shortly.