INTRO
We arrived with another 179 drivers at Meakin Park Brisbane for the 2014 Australian Buggy and Truggy National Titles. It was a very cold start to the day with the temperature gauge sitting at 4 degrees for the drivers briefing. The track looked superb and everyone was itching to get on and have a run. The who's who of racing of Australian and New Zealand racing had rolled up for this epic 4 day event.
The race schedule was as follows:
2 rounds of practice
5 rounds of Qualifying (3 to count)
Christmas Tree Finals
PRACTICE
As we were entered in both classes we got 4 practice rounds. Both cars were working a treat with the RB SLS motors and Aaron was in 2nd place in Buggy and 3rd in Truggy after practice.
QUALIFYING
TRUGGY
Things went according to plan with the truggy and after 5 rounds we were sitting 4th overall. As the track grooved up the RB SLS DI5 really started to show it power.
BUGGY
Well to put it mildly Buggy was a disaster, we only finished 1 decent round of qualifying and a poor 13 lapper in the other. A variety of things went wrong, mostly just bad luck, however, that's racing and after qualifying we found ourselves in 51st position!!!!!!!!
I simply can't remember the last time we didn't make a semi final straight up, furthermore we would have to race on a Saturday (a day normally reserved for car rebuilding).
The car was super fast initially with the RB SLS3. In fact Aaron was only one of 3 drivers made it into the 39 second lap club for the whole event. We did this using the SLS3.
FINALS
BUGGY
We decided that as long as the car held together we would easily bump up from the 1/8 to Sunday's 1/4 final. Aaron was in the middle of the 15 car pack for the 1/8 and we decided that we would simply pull over after the start and let everyone go wait for all of them to crash at the big double jumps and then pass them as they were all upside down.
This worked really well and by the first lap Aaron was in first place and went on to win the the 1/8 final by 5 laps over the 30 minute race.
Next up was the 1/4 final early Sunday morning and once again we decided that it would be better to pull over and let the field pass us bye on teh first corner and then play catch up when everyone was at speed. Once again this strategy worked well and by the the 5th lap Aaron was in first place and took the 1/4 final by over a lap over the 30 min race.
Semi Final
Once again we were off position 11 in the 15 car field and we also had the fast semi as well!!
This time we decided to go for it at the start as we needed to be in the top 6 to bump up to the A-Main. The starting gods smiled upon us and after the first lap Aaron was in 8th position. The RB performed faultlessly and Aaron easily worked his way forward to finish up 2nd after the 30 min semi and as he set the fastest time over the other semi 2nd place we would start 3rd on the grid for the A-Main.
A-Main
I was amazed that Aaron would have any energy left after 2 hours of racing in 1 day. We lined up for the warm only to be called back as I had changed Aaron's transponder prior to the A-main (it had missed some laps in the semi). The Race Director decided that Aaron would start from the back of the field as he should have called a 10 min delay. Needless to say we were pretty upset by this as it took lees than 1 min to fix the transponder issue.
Anyway Aaron started 6m behind 15th place and by the end of the first lap was up 6th. He then drove a superb couple of mins to be in 2nd within the first 5 mins of the Final. From there he had an amazing battle with factory Losi driver Craig Laughton for the next 55min with never more them 12 seconds separating them, in fact most times the gap was less then 5 seconds.
The RB performed brilliantly throughout the 60 min final and help give Aaron the edge to hold out Craig and give Aaron a much deserved 2nd place finish.
TRUGGY
Aaron was off in 2nd position for this semi and in the first lap he was dicing for the lead when he suffered a roll over and slipped back into the pack. From there it was a rough run and we were happy to finish 5th in our semi and bump to the A-Main.
A-Main
We started from position 9 in the A-Main and Aaron quickly worked his way forward, however, it wasn't to be our day and at the 30min mark a tire started to come off and then we ran out of FUEL on the pit lap. It was a shame as we were les than 10 seconds from a podium.
SUMMARY
The RB Engines and FUEL performed perfectly over the 4 days from temps ranging from 2.5 degrees to 22 degrees. Aaron was one of 4 drivers who got into the 39 second lap club out of 180 drivers, so clearly the engines had out right speed as well. We couldn't be happier with there performance.
7/29/2014
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