The all new Launceston R/C Raceway is up and running, with the first event taking place at the new track tonight.

After months of dreaming and a heap of work from a bunch of guys, it was rewarding to see the first races take place, plenty of smiles on faces, and a stack of interested spectators planning on returning with their own R/C cars to join the action.

We’ll be back at Rutherglen on the 25th of February, and continuing the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.

The first night featured two classes of racing – Short Course Trucks (SCT), and a mixed buggy class of 10th, 8th and 16th scale offroad buggies and trucks.  We also had a Tamiya Mini and a 4wd touring car turn some laps and show the surface gives up enough grip for some serious fun with these cars as well.

Short Course Truck

A strong field of SC Trucks lined up tonight, with Team Associated SC10, HPI Blitz and a lone Traxxas Slash.  Lap times tumbled throughout the night as the very green surface cleaned up a little and began to rubber in.  Rocket led away in round one of qualifying with a comfortable win, Scott Guyatt and Chris Brickwood next up.  Round two went the way of the Rocket again, with Guyatt and Patrick Hume also in the top 3.  The final qualifier saw Sam Wells get going, finishing his first race for the evening with a TQ run from Rocket and Guyatt.

When Sam jumped the start, then stopped again and lost momentum, he was swallowed up by the field. Rocket jumped into the lead, Guyatt second and Hume third.  Rocket basically disappeared, the Slash working well with Guyatt just hanging on in second.  Hume and a recovering Wells see-sawed for several minutes before Sam edged away to secure the final podium position.  Of note was the good performance of Ian Scott – Ian has only been racing about a month or so, with a couple of appearances at Paddy’s Hillwood dirt track.

1. Rocket (Slash)    18: 5.08
2. Scott Guyatt (SC10)  17:5.06
3. Sam Wells (SC10) 17:5.15
4. Patrick Hume (SC10)  16:5.18
5. Andrew Greene (Blitz)  15:5.0
6. Peter Hutton (Sc10)  13:5.00
7. Ian Scott (Blitz)  11:5.30
8. Chris Brickwood (SC10) DNS

(Rocket gets away on the run to turn 1, photo courtesy Richard)

Buggy/MT

A field made up of all sorts of EP buggies and trucks made for some interesting action tonight!  A couple of 10th EP stadium trucks were joined by a pair of Traxxas Mini E-Revo 1/16th scale trucks, a Himoto 4wd buggy and Aaron Peck’s mighty Traxxas E-Revo.  Qualifying proved another win for Rocket – his Mini E-Revo fighting out some entertaining duels with Peck’s full sized example.  Dwaine put his mini e-revo into the frame with Sam Leeder doing a great job first time out in the Himoto 4wd buggy. Both Richard Green and Ian Scott were out with mechanical damage during qualifying.

Rocket jumped away at the start and proved too strong, going on to his second win of the night – and at this point standing undefeated in finals racing at the new Rutherglen circuit. Rocket’s Mini e-Revo looked fantastic, particularly dancing across the stutter bump section.  Behind him Aaron man-handled the big Revo around, driving beautifully and enjoying the table top jump to get home ahead of Dwaine Griffin”s mini Traxxas. Sam drove a great first night of racing with the impressive Himoto 4wd. Sam ran out of battery in the final laps of the final, but enjoyed his first night out.

1. Rocket (Mini E-Revo)   16:5.08
2. Aaron Peck (E-Revo)   16: 5.13
3. Dwaine Griffin (Mini E-Revo) 13:5.09
4. Sam Leeder (Himoto)  10:5.23
5. Richard Green (HPI E-Firestorm) DNS
6. Ian Scott (Losi XXXT-Sport) DNS

Peck puts an unorthodox pass on Dwaine Griffin. Duck! (photo courtesy Richard)

All in all, a great first night. The track worked well and with continual improvements planned has lots of potential. The venue is super, and while it rained and rained all night, we raced on and on…..just the way we hoped when we went indoors!

For a stack more photos, visit Scott’s photo album here. Richard will have some shots as well, and I’ll post a link when they’re ready.

More racing action, now just 14 days away!