The Radio Control 1:8 scale Off-Road National Championship comes back to Navan Nitro Nuts track here in Navan’s MDL grounds next Saturday & Sunday (18th & 19th June 2011). Saturday is a practice day while Sunday will see the best drivers in the 32 counties fight it out for podium positions. With some of the all time favorites having to emigrate to far of lands since last years Nationals then we would hope to be seeing some new faces on the podium at each round. We have also seen a serious shift away from Truggy to Buggy leaving a very small (3 at the 1st round) entry of truggy drivers. However nobody forced last years top truggy drivers to transfer over so it leaves the remaining truggy drivers (currently all from Navan) to fight it out among themselves and we are enjoying it!.

Entries in the 1st round were well down (almost by 50%) on last year and we are seeing the obvious impact of the ecomonic downturn even at our sport. With a lot of our members now out of work and race days are not for free (unfortunately) it’s not surprising but we are still encouraging lads to work together to share the costs and make the trip. Navan had the 2nd highest entry at the 1st round in Banbridge with 7 drivers, 3 other members pitting and unfortunately a few who couldn’t make it at the last minute@@ so let’s support next Sunday even better and up these numbers.

!! Keep a check on the forum for updates !!

National Championship Dates

Nationals Round 3: Navan June 19th

Nationals Round 4: NIMCC July 24th

Nationals Round 5: BADMCC August 21st

Nationals Round 6 Navan September 11th

Nationals spare date: September 25th

Barkley is looking for entries for this ASAP. Excellent opportunity to meet, compete against and, you never know :-), beat some of the best drivers form Ireland and UK. Get your application in today, post on our forum or visit the BADMCC forum http://www.badmcc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=221

First round of the summer championship is on tomorrow, Monday 2nd. Gates open at 9:30

• Round 8 is a go for this sunday, weather permitting, we will update ASAP if there any changes!
• Round 7 has been rescheduled for tomorrow 13th Feb
• Round 6 is a go for tomorrow, Sunday 23rd. Gates open at 8:30
• Round 5 is going ahead this sunday 16th. We will be running the new timing system so bear in mind that this is a PT only timing system. For those who dont have a PT Enda has 5 for sale/rent on the day. Gates open at 8:30 and first heat off at 10:30
• Round 4 of the winter champs is going ahead this sunday 2nd (weather permitting of course, forecast is good enough though)
  First race of 2011 so come on lads…lets see what Santa brought!

10 brave nitro nutters defied the weather on Sunday. Track was cleared of snow, temperatures were artic, sun was out and we had some fun. Great days racing and despite having a massive collision Barkley still managed to finnish first. Unfortunatly the collision did end Jason Noonans race. Well done to Barkley and his solid graite car! Also well done to Frank McGoey who finnished 1st in truggy again, thats three rounds in a row now Frank! Thanks to Robbie for gettin some video.

Watch some of the action here

Buggy:

1st Barkley Abernethy

2nd Vytautas Seirys

3rd Andrew White

Truggy

1st Frank McGoey

2nd Robbie O’Brian

3rd Enda O’Donnell

Lads sorry but no choice but to cancel again tomorrow and reschedule for next Sunday the 19th December. It will be our last chance to run a final round in 2010 and if the weather forecast is correct then we’ll have additional thawing until at least next Thursday and lets’ pray for no more snow!.

Here’s a few photo’s from today and the new problem is the water that’s building up in all the low areas on the track as the snow melts. About 60% of the depth had melted by this morning but still a mountain of snow on the track and no where to put it!!!. Snow is still frozen to all tabletops but ground level snow was easy to remove but there’s tons of it and even if we cleared it (needing 10 to 20 people with proper shovels which we couldn’t buy anywhere!) then the track would still be too wet to race.

Thanks to Frank, Adrian, Vytautas who made the journeys to the track this week to check it out and do some initial clearing but when Adrian and myself were there today the only decision was to cancel. I also looked at an indoor paintball facility but we’d have to do a ton of clearing up (moving some serious obsticals) – erectring a podium, laying a track, fitting a loop etc. etc. etc. before tomorrow to again a no go. Might consider it for future use but we’d have to book and pay for the facility and not sure we could affoard it!.

Also gave our friends in DMCC a call to see if we could run a few nitro rounds with their electrics tomorrow but their lease doesn’t allow petrol or nitro buggies so another dead end!.

We have tried and no one could have predicted this recent weather so enjoy another day off………

Round 3 was canceled due to poor forecast and road conditions. Some brave souls managed to get to the track anyway and had some fun in the snow. Next championship race is on 12th December.

31st October: This years winter Championship got off to a flying start with a great turn out from all corners of the country. Thanks to all who attended and made it a great days racing.

Buggy:

1st Chris McCauley

2nd Andrew White

3rd Derek McCloskey

Truggy:

1st Frank McGoey

2nd Roger Skelly

3rd Robbie O Brien

For full race results check out the events calendar page or click here

Next race on 14th November.

The sixth & final round of the Irish 1:8 Off Road National Championships took place at the all astro turf surface Navan Nitro Nuts over the weekend where outgoing Truggy Champion Bradley Baird ended his debut season in Buggy with his first National race victory in the class. Having TQ’d the event the teenager suffered a flame out on the start line leaving him last but a superb recovery saw the Associated driver battle his way back up through the field. Setting the fastest lap of the race he finally took the lead when the Xray of Barkley Abernethy suffered an engine cut during the penultimate round of fuel stops to win by 2/3rd of a lap. Also driving an Xray, Alan Scroggie completed the podium bringing to a close another successful season of 1:8 Buggy racing in Ireland which saw Losi driver Michael Todd successfully defend his title.

In the Truggy class the title was still to be decided at the season finale between Neil Irwin and Arron Vance. 15-year-old Vance held the advantage in qualifying as he secured TQ honours with his Losi from the Xray of Irwin. In the half hour final, Vance’s chance at the title ended on lap 11 when he was forced to retire leaving Irwin to take the win and the 2010 title. The big battle of the race was the three way battle for second between Oisin O’Briain, Rodger Skelly and Steven McClements. In the end O’Briain took the place from Skelly with the trio all finishing on the same lap.

1:8 Buggy Result
1.(1) Bradley Baird – Associated/RB – 54 laps
2.(7) Barkley Abernethy – Xray/OS Speed – 53
3.(2) Alan Scroggie – Xray/Novarossi – 52
4.(5) Gary Baird – Kyosho/RB – 52
5.(3) Christopher McCauley – Xray/Novarossi – 51
6.(10)Cathal Taffe – Xray/Alpha – 51
7.(9) Vytas – Losi/RB – 50
8.(8) Nick Brooker – Xray/OS Speed – 50
9.(4) Derek McCloskey – Serpent/Mega – 49
10.(6)Andrew White – Hobao/RB – 43

1:8 Truggy Result
1.(2) Neil Irwin – Xray/Novarossi – 37 laps
2.(3) Oisin O’Briain – Losi/Mega – 34
3.(4) Roger Skelly – Losi/RB – 34
4.(5) Steven McClements – Mugen/Novarossi – 34
5.(6) Martin O’Docherty – Hobao/OS – 30
6.(1) Arron Vance – Losi/Novarossi – 11
7.(7) Frank McGoey – CEN/RB – 7
8.(8) Enda O’Donnell – Losi/RB – 2