2014 RCCAOI 1/10th Electric Off-Road Irish National Championships Report
Round 1, Navan Nitro Nuts:
The first round of the RCCAOI Nationals was held at the Navan Nitro Nuts track in Navan, Co.Meath. The track is outdoor astro and normally used for 1/8th, however the club went to great lengths to adapt it for 1/10th. The members of NNN put on a great welcome for the 1/10th racers that normally wouldn’t frequent the club.
As per usual with Ireland, the day started off damp and continued this way throughout the day, with intermittent light showers keeping the track either slippy or extra slippy! The grip levels changed dramatically through each run, never mind through each round! Though all of this lead to both fun and some very open racing.
The event was one of the best attended National rounds in the last few years with a total of 32 cars racing.
The NNN track during one of the few breaks in the cloud
2WD Clubman (10.5T Limit) was largely dominated by Kevin White with his Schumacher SV2, with a full house of 3 wins in qualifying, followed by Graham Parkes, Dave Bolger and Enda O`Donnell.
The 2WD Modified Qualifying rounds were very interesting to watch with the top 5 drivers swapping finishing positions in the 3 rounds. Mark Penny came out top in the end though he was having some difficulty adapting to the ever changing conditions.
4WD Modified was even more spread out with three different drivers taking a round, Mark Penny, William White and Alan Thompson.
However mark took pole position with a 1st and a 2nd followed by William White and Derek McCloskey.
4WD Clubman was poorly attended as it’s a beginner class, the only contender was Graham Parkes with his DEX410.
Graham takes the double jump followed by Ashley
Things didn’t change for the finals with the weather going from sun to rain every few minutes. Being a nitro track the mixture of oil and water made things very interesting.
In 2WD Modified Mark Penny dominated the day with his Centro winning the first two legs and sitting out the third. The fight for the remaining rostrum places brought some exciting racing with a 2nd and a 3rd each for Derek McCloskey and William White. However Derek took 2nd due to a better time. The final leg was very interesting with one of the younger drivers, Dylan McBurney, winning it. Dylan is a guy to watch for the next few rounds and is a newly sponsored Schumacher driver.
2WD Modified
1st Mark Penny, 2nd Derek McCloskey, 3rd William White
The 2WD Clubman finals were probably the most fun of the day, with a lot of laughing on the rostrum. Though Kevin White took all three legs and won the day. Though Graham Parkes did his best to stop him with a few collisions, the slippy astro was blamed, though we can`t be sure!
2WD Clubman
1st Kevin White, 2nd Graham Parkes (not pictured), 3rd Dave Bolger
4WD Modified was dominated by Bradley Baird winning the first two legs. Going into the final leg the remaining rostrum positions could have been taken by four drivers, made more interesting with Bradley sitting it out. Derek McCloskey with the Schumacher took overall second with a win and third went to William White with his Team C car. 2WD winner Mark Penny wasn’t having much luck with his B44 and managed to break lots of his car in the final leg.
4WD Modified
1st Bradley Baird, 2nd Derek McCloskey, 3rd William White
The RCCAOI would like to thank the Navan Nitro Nuts for putting on a great days racing, but we would specially like to thank all the drivers for turning out even though the weather wasn’t the best!
It`s looking like it`s going to be an exciting series, with Round 2 at the Dublin Model Car Clubs indoor astro track in The Naul, Co. Dublin.