2009 Vortec
Victorian EP Titles
Bendigo May
29th
- 31st
Trip Report By: Lee Harvey
This year, the Victorian titles were held at the Bendigo track and after
talking to Tony Porter and John Beggs, who had just come back from the
Harris RC Classic at Bendigo, I decided to venture over and try my hand
there. After a quick phone call to Doug Kingsley (who frequents our
state titles) all was set with Narnee and I booked to take the trip
across the Bass Strait. It had
been quite some years since I had attended interstate titles so I was
looking forward to doing so again.
After an overnight sailing on the Spirit of Tasmania, we arrived
in Melbourne where we were met by Doug to make the 2 hr drive to
Bendigo. On our arrival at the
track, which is laid out on old tennis courts, there was a sea of
gazebos around the perimeter of the track and there were people
everywhere, and this was only Friday practice.
The track was beautifully laid out with a surface of rubberised
paint on top of old asphalt, quite a few bumps but it looked very grippy.
The layout consisted of a mixture of technical and sweeping
corners connected by a long flowing back straight.
After setting up (and losing our gazebo over the fence) we got
down to finding a good set-up, Narnee in 540 and I in stock.
The races for all classes, except modified, were 6 minute heats,
so not being over geared was imperative. Lap times were similar to our
titles layout so this gave us a good starting point.
After around 3 hours of trying set-ups and gear ratios we headed
to the motel to relax and fine tune our cars.
The motel we were staying at was full of RC racers, so plenty of
help was at hand and we mingled with them all.
Saturday:
With 124 entries it was going to be a hectic day, with a final practice
and 3 rounds of qualifying to get through. Bendigo at 6.30am is bloody
cold and with a track temp of around 2 degrees trying to get the much
more 32 handout tyres to work was going to be difficult. After 3 rounds
of qualifying I was just out of the top 10. Narnee was struggling with
overheating problems and down the grid so we packed up and went to the
motel to inspect the cars in search of that 0.5 second per lap .After a
strip down and rebuild we found Narnee’s problem, a binding drive train,
but with no practice allowed on Sunday morning you had to be careful of
any changes made. After a few beers and a couple of hours sleep we were
up to do it all again.
Sunday:
Another early start and another equally cold morning were
followed by the last 2 rounds of qualifying.
Changes made the night before proved successful with my fastest
times of the weekend resulting. Narnee’s overheating problems were fixed
but his need to post good times resulted in him overdriving and making
too many mistakes. He
finished qualifying 1st in the D final.
This was Narnee’s first trip away racing and I’m sure he learned
a lot from this. I myself
ended qualifying in 11th spot – Top qualifier in the B Main.
With the B finals down only consisting of one race there was only one
chance and after getting a fast clean start I went on to win
unchallenged. 11th place from 27 starters left me reasonably
happy.
Click here for Meeting Report
(Courtesy Bendigo RC Car Club)
Click here for Full Results
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