This weekend Brendale are hosting their 2nd anual Winter Championships with Pull Start, Stock and Modified running on Saturday and Pro Tourer, 1/8th Scale and 1/5th Scale running today.
The format of this event is different to what we’re used to, instead of 3 qualifiers and 3 A mains a ‘Reedy’ style format was used with 6 rounds of heads up racing and a rotating grid dictating starting order. This format promises close racing and yesterday it did not disapoint with some of the closest racing a Queensland track has seen since last year’s state titles.
Andrew Shapland was flying early on in the difficult conditions of the first few rounds, with the traction staying low due to gusty winds. After leading the whole race from grid 1, a last lap mistake let Shapland through for the win. Leonard ‘Outta Control’ Lai finished third.
With the rotating grid i was shuffled to the back of the 8 car field in round 2. Shapland lead the field out until his motor’s end cap came loose, damaging his sensors and forcing him out of the race turning the battle for second between Keith Mackrill and myself into the race for the lead. I eventually managed to get past Keiths’s very wide car in the last minute of the race for the win with Leonard again finishing third.
Round 3 saw Keith leading the field out chased by John Perkins and Drew Crawley with a big gap to the rest of the field after first lap collisions. 6 laps in JP dropped back from 2nd to 4th and right onto my rear bumper. Drew found his way past Keith for the win, Keith held onto second place from myself and JP.
The fourth round saw some of the closest racing of the day with JP moving up into the lead early in the race. Chasing hard to close the gap to JP were the 3 cars of Leonard Lai, Shapland and myself all running nose to tail and swapping positions several times in some clean, close racing. With 2 minutes to run Leonard Lai ran a little wide coming onto the front straight Shapland went for the opening but the 2 cars touched and spun, with Shapland ending up on the grass. Leonard recovered in third place but this touch allowed me to concentrate on chasing down JP. JP made a small mistake in the last minute of the race, running just wide enough to allow me through for the win from JP. Leonard was dropped back to fourth after a collison on the second last corner with Drew who crossed the line in third.
Keith and myself lead out the fifth round, swapping the lead a few times in the first minute of the race before a mistake by Keith in the infield dropped him back just infront of the chasing peloton. This allowed me to settle into a rhythm and with the grip finally coming up turn the first 19 lapper of the day. Shapland chased hard but turned off in the last minute to make sure of his second position ahead of Leonard.
In the final race of the day Shapland got into the lead early on after a nice pass at the end of the back straight. I chased hard to put the pressure on. Half way through the race Andrew ran a little wide in one of the sweepers which allowed me to make a clean pass. I then pushed hard to try and pull away from Shapland who kept up a good pace to keep the pressure on until the last minute of the race when he decided to coast (still managing to turn the only other 19 lap run of the day) and make sure of second place in this race aswell as wrapping up second place overall. Keith Mackrill crossed the line in third place which was also enough to wrap up third overall from Leonard Lai, John Perkins, Drew Crawley, David Groves and Nicholas Orr.
Tim Weier took a hard fought win in Stock after some close racing with Chris Shevling second and Matthew Belton.
Peter Giblin won the Pull Start from Graham Lloyd-Jones and Hesham Kader.
Thanks to Brendale (John, Mikeee and Graeme) for putting on a great day of racing.
Stories from the world of RC car racing
12 responses to “2007 Brendale Winter Champs”
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Great racing and good return effort from Keith.
Also good to see the usual Perfect line runners having issues with grip and car setup to make some uncharacteristic mistakes. You guys are human after all. The trophy winners earned their places. Good to see you guys pushed and make the upcoming events very interesting.
TomLikeLike
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Yes, it was a good day out. And BIG props to John Hansen, Mike Kirby and Graham Cullen for organising and running the event and Trackside Rc for sponsoring the event.
It was also good to see a ‘different’ format from what we are used to, with a round by round (with 4 out of 6 counting towards your day’s race result). I must say that I do like this format of racing, as it takes away the ‘rocket rounds’ and makes the driver be consistent and think about their racing (ie. tires, setup changes and race results) rather than just to try and get the fastest time of the day (which is our current format).
Just to add to what Anthony wrote, racing was close and hard fought in both the stock and mod. But in the last round of stock racing, I think the margin between first and second (Tim and Chris) was less than 0.10 second!!! Didn’t get to see most of the race, but I saw the finish…..very close guys.
And my personal highlight of the day…….putting a 1/8th car around the track (if you could call it that!) YES, I did crash it twice……MASSIVELY!!! But all was well and I did not have to rebuild it!!! Thanks to Jeff Hamon.LikeLike
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that’s because there wasn’t enough of the car left to rebuild!
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Hey Leonard I think the results were based on fastest time of the day to give the results. Can you please explain how the 4 rounds were used to give places as Micheal could not explain it.
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Tom, I believe in each of the 6 races points were given on your finishing position eg. 1st 12pts, 2nd 10pts, 3rd 9pts, 4th 8pts etc. Then it was a case of dropping you worst 2 results, add up the points you accumulated in your best 4 and then the results were based on that total.
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the formula for the points score was number of racers in class + 5 for the winner, from the winners total -2 for seccond place and then -1 for each place down the order from there.
best 4 of 6 round point scores were then added to give the overall final standings.LikeLike
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forgot to add- the overall points are in the ‘best result’ column. it’s just coincidence that the overall standings were nearly in the same order as ftd’s… the only ones out of that order in mod are drew and david.
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The 23 hour Race Day… Chow’s Stock wrap up..
3:00 am Saturday 21 July…
My alarm goes off, feels like I only just got to bed (3 hours earlier), I get up chuck on some clothes and head downstairs and grab the last of my stuff and jump in the car and off I head, only to make a slight detour to the indoor track to see if I have left something there. Nope > Off to Maryborough to pick up the other guys, Shevo had a gig there that night so he stayed at Matty’s house, so after my slight detour and my waking up I arrived in Maryborough at around 4:00, we quickly threw in Matty’s gear and headed off.
6:30 am
We pull into the BP service centre at Cabulture for some much needed sustainence, read Maccas, where I thought that I might have been cursed or bewitched by a witch, ( Harry Potter fans all dressed up ) .
6:50 am
We pull into Brendale, unpack our gear and claim some pit space, which we later learned was the nitro end, by the time we setup, people started to arrive, alot from our club at Landsborough, and a few locals. We saw Jeff arrive and we meandered over to the shop to pay for some parts that he sent up to us and have a bit of a chat, and by the time we got back the track was opened for practice, so with a freshly charged pack and a set of old 36’s I headed out for some much needed track learning, since the last time I drove this track was at national’s last year and with a different car too. The track was slippery and cold but the TC5 drove really well considering the conditions, a slight bit loose in the rear end and a little front end push, but still driveable none the less, so I brought it back in and changed nothing, but put the tyre warmers on while I waited for another pack to peak. By the time it had charged quite a few nitro’s and other cars had been running around the track and you could see a starting to clear racing line on the track. My car was planted this time and I was pushing much harder, trying to get the most out of the improving conditions, but it was hard to gauge how fast my car was against other stockies, and there were Mod’s and Pullstart Nitros running around too, so I waited till Shevo came out and since I am always chasing him I thought this would be a good test. There wasn’t much between them and we looked much quicker than some of the other stock cars out there, so I left it alone..
10:00am
Our race was first I started from 6 on the grid, and got off to a good start and stayed clear of the first corner carnage, but Shevo and local gu Tim Weir set the pace and the rest of us were just chasing them, finishing up Tim , Shevo then Me , John H , Matty and the other two in our field Ashley and Steven.
Race 2 for us seemed to come round real quickly , we didn’t even have a chance to discharge our batteries , and only just got a pack charged in time. With a rotating grid saw me start a bit closer to the front, not that it helped I think Matty and I were leading for all of 1/2 a lap before Tim and Shevo shot to the front, the rest there is history, Shevo taking the win this time from Tim and Matty just got me for third..
So this was how it was gonna be, The rest of the field chasing Tim and Shev. I tried to yeild a bit more speed out of my car by changing ratios for the next round, while Matty was off looking at Shaps car to get some setup tips for his new MI3, it was working too, thanks Shaps. Round 3 saw much the same result Tim ,Shevo then a real close one and heaps fun race Me by 1 sec to Matty, I was 0.301 sec off of 16 lap pace spewing. I get back from marshalling only to find Matty off getting more speed tips and making more changes…
Round 4 was much better, but with similar results again, this time Shev, then Tim, followed up by me and the John H, Matty suffered electrical problems and had to drop out. So I was set for third place having come third on three occasions so far, now I just had to hold out Matty, and up until now I had no nerves, now they started to creep up, the fight for first was still on with Tim and Shev both having 2 wins each, and Shev ahead on laps.
Round 5 and by this time the track grip was way up there, and we were going faster again, off to a shocking start but I was leading till second place jammed me into a wall, and dropped me back to last, Tim went on to take the win followed by Shevo, and Matty coming in for third, and putting down a 16 lapper, where I could only manage a 15 lap race so far, thus putting us both on equal 3rd over all, with Tim sitting in first and Shev in 2nd.
Round 6 and the final round, I was make or break for both Shev and myself, he need the win for first as he still had the quickest time of the day, and I needed to take 3rd with a 16 lapper. Nerves kicked in on the driving stand, and I was starting from the rear of the field with Matty starting from second on the grid. I got off to a shocker again, which left me chasing even more and the more unforced mistakes left me in 5 at the end, while John H was 4th and Matty drove cleanly for 3rd overall, and Shev got caught up leaving him in second giving local gun Tim the win and overall win for stock, and as it turned out the best results for the weekend earning him the Winter Cup trophy..
While dissapointed in the end I took alot away from the event( but no trophy), and it improved my race craft a heap, plus I learnt a heap about my car and witnessed some great racing. We were all set to pack up and drive home , till we heard that there was a race meet at Mekin Park later on that night, so we decided to head over there, after some tea and a quick break we headed to the track, to see the new layout the have done, and hey while we’re here we might as well have a race, after all what’s a few more hours awake..
The new track layout was great, and the stock field was huge, 19 cars, split into 2 groups, I was up first, and in my first heat drove defensively to a 3rd again, which seemed to be my number for the night coming 3rd in both my other heats, and qualifing me in 7 for the a main, Shevo qualified 3rd after smoking his novak 13.5 in his last heat, so we bolted in brushed power for the final. Matty qualified 5 . Final basically we should have left 4 hours earlier when we had the chance. Matty was the only one of us to finish, or more so get past 2 minutes, as I had an electrical gremlin half way into lap 2 which put me out and Shevo smoked the CO27 we bolted into his car, I can’t remember where Matty finished as I was too busy packing up the car, as I was rooted..
10.00pm
we finally leave Brissy heading along the Gateway, and after a couple of stops 4 and a half bottles of V later, 1.5 is the reccomended dose . we arrived in Maryborough to drop off Matty at 1:30am, then I dropped Shevo off and I was home by 2:00am zombiefied from driving all the way as the others were unconscious, I fell into bed.
But you know what I’d do it again next weekend if there was racing on.. Hang on there is….LikeLike
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that is…….epic…..
Thanks Chow!LikeLike
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All in the name of racing… I think I’m addicted..
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Chow you starting to write your own novels.
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Videos from theWinter Champs surfacing on Youtube courtesy Mr Shapland. Check ’em here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/rccarvidzLikeLike
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