So it finally happened.

All my worlds came together with a surprise day of fine weather, and I got to go nitro buggy racing at Devonport.  I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed my first attempt at nitro racing, and it was great to be back on the dirt after mostly racing touring cars for the last few years.
The “Don” track is basially a 10th scale sized track, widened in places to make it friendly to 8th scale buggies, truggies and monster trucks. That makes it short, sharp and furious and without some of the big top-end speeds of more purpose built tracks.  It also makes the track ideal for my car – being somewhat underpowered compared to the full-house competition motors in use by some of the other guys.

With weather being pretty threatening, there were a few that stayed away, but still a healthy turnout of 16 buggies, about 8 truggies, and 10 monster trucks (including everything from little EP trucks through to giant nitro-breathing monsters – quite a sight!).
The buggy class has a good mix of experience and pace, together with quite a few relative newcomers. The club is growing strongly, and will probably continue to do so – it’s being well run and is a great day out.
As a rookie (!) I was in the B heat where I enjoyed some good racing during the three 5-minute qualifiers.  I managed to win the three heats, and go fast enough to be doing similar lap times to the guys in the other heat.  I finally put it all together in the last heat for a clean run – it felt nice to do a good relatively error-free race!  Qualifying is based on a points system, and when all was said and done, I qualified 2nd behind Tim Parsons (a regular winner at Devonport) and just in front of Justin Strickland – owner of the worlds fastest Hyper 8.5 (or so it seemed to me as he howled down the front straight).
The system in use at Devonport sees the top 6 guys straight through to the final, while everybody else battles out the B main for the final 4 spots in the A.  Makes for a B final that is very hard fought. I like the bump-up style of racing!
In the 20 minute A I got off to a good start, holding second, then inheriting the lead a couple of laps in.  I lost the lead coming up to the first round of fuel stops (big error at the furthest point from a marshall – nice job SG!) at about the 7 minute mark.  I was trying to drive steadily, but well aware that some of the guys could bang out some very fast laps.  Mid-way through the race Tim and I were nose to tail, and coming out of the second round of fuel stops at the 14 minute mark, just 2 secs split us.  Unfortunately from there my 5 minute EP racing attention span intervened! A few errors from me on a bumpy track meant that Tim ripped away to win by a bit over a lap at the end of the 20 minute run.  I did enough to hang on to second, with another one of the fast guys, Jason Heard coming on strong for third.
I had a blast.  It was great to be back on the dirt (as I already said!).  I discovered the discipline required to drive on a blown-out offroad track, and the importance of just turning consistent laps.  I remembered that the best way for a TC driver to think about offroad is to imagine it’sa touring car with over-heated tyres – and drive accordingly!
I ran the LRP S8 BX buggy.  The version I ran yesterday is the base model ready-to-run and comes fitted with LRP’s Z.21r Spec 2 pullstart motor.  I threw a stronger steering servo in (the ever-lasting Futaba s9402 pillaged from my EP touring car!) and my spectrum RX but other than that the car was standard.  I found it very easy and forgiving to drive.  Handling was pretty neutral with just perhaps a hint of understeer.  Tyre-wise I was running on Proline Crimefighters (where do nitro buggy tyre names come from!), but lots of other things worked on the wet and sticky track.
I have to say, it was great fun, and I reckon I’ll be back for more.  It’s whet my appetite for a big nitro buggy race on the north island sometime!
For photos from yesterday go here.
For full race report go here.