The Blenheim RC Club hosted the 2021 1/8 offroad nationals between the 11th-14th March – a couple of CIRCCC members (Phil Sandford and James Berryman) went up there to be a part of this massive event. Phil has put together a report for us to enjoy!
Practice day saw the first group of cars take on the brand new Blenheim track. The boys were pretty excited and it took a few laps for the racers to get the hang of the flow of the track with plenty of different jumping options/lines on the double and triples for them to get their heads around. In a bit of a novelty for the NZ scene, after a full day of practice it was time to seed under lights. The tracked looked amazing under lights and there was no shortage of light with the whole track clearly visible. This made for some exciting racing!
The boys seeding positions were as follows:
Phil Sandford – Nitro buggy 6th / 52 , nitro truggy 8th / 30, electric buggy 7th / 41.
James Berryman – 35th / 41.
Qualifying –
Qualifying began on day 2. The morning started out a bit fresh and the track had held up very well after day one. Nitro qualifying took your best 3 runs out of 5 qualifying and you either qualified directly into the half main or the quarter main.
By the end of the day Phil had qualified into the half main for nitro buggy and truggy and into the A main for e-buggy with James getting into the C Main for e-buggy! Top effort lads!
Finals
Finals time – Phil was first up was the 45min truggy A main final raced under lights. Phil started on P7 and after a solid race ended up finishing 6th.
The following day was the last of the triple e-buggy mains with Phil Sandford finishing 6th overall and James Berryman pushing up a couple of spots to take out 33rd .
Despite this being the fourth day of racing, the track was still in very good condition considering the laps that had been laid down. The 45min nitro buggy A main went well despite Phil having his fair share of small issues! When the dust had settled Phil ended up in 9th place. This was a fantastic effort considering the size and quality of the field.
Phil said “Over all it was a great nationals put on by the Blenheim club . Big Thanks goes out to all that were involved in setting up such and epic track and awesome event to be involved in. Thanks go out to my sponsor Hobbystation for supporting me with gear over the last 2 seasons and also Team Associated for all their support. The cars drove epic all weekend leading to some solid results”.
