Some excellent racing highlighted another enjoyable night at Rutherglen tonight.  Numbers wise it was a quiet night, but those present enjoyed some of the best track conditions we’ve yet seen.  With construction works in the building slowing down, dust levels have decreased, and traction is up.  Steve Madziara (8th and 10th Buggy), Rodney Houghton (Touring Cars), Nathan Clark (Short Course B) and Scott Guyatt (Short Course A) took the wins.

Full results from tonight posted here.

Full results from last fortnight also uploaded here.

Read on for all the details!

Touring Cars

Rocket, Peter Hutton and Graham Viney fought out the TC class tonight.  Rocket was definitely the quickest, taking the fastest time in qualifying over a closely matched Viney and Hutton.  Over the two-leg final, Rocket continued his winning ways, setting fastest time of the night in the first leg, with Viney second on each occasion from Hutton.  With track conditions improving (in terms of dust), it might just about be time to dust off a touring car for some flat track action.  Anyone interested?

Tenth Buggy

Steve Madziara had his Traxxas Bandit working sweetly tonight, and dominated proceedings in the 10th Buggy class.  Madz took fastest time in qualifying ahead of John Silczak to secure pole position for the twin finals.  First time out in the class saw John Scott sit third on the grid, while a welcome return from Paul Tenteye rounded out the field.

In Race 1 it was all Madziara, winning by a full lap from Silczak. The real action was further back, with Tenteye getting hime for third just two tenths of a second clear of Scott.  Race two was the same up front, Madziara going away to win.  Behind, Tenteye was stepping it up, improving his best time of the night by more than a full lap to put all sorts of pressure on Silczak. Johnny held on for second, but it was a close run thing.  Overall then, Madziara, Silczak, Tenteye, Scott.

Short Course

13 trucks is a little down on the normal field, but still plenty competitive. The two qualifiers were tightly fought with little time between the front runners, and a very tighly packed midfield.  Scott Guyatt took the pole from Rodney Houghton, Sam Wells and Josh Fogarty.  Andrew Green, Paddy Hume and Chris Madziara rounded out the A finalists.  BQ (top qualifier in the B final) was Nathan Clark, alongside Corey Dolbey and with Sam Leeder not far away in third.  John Scott, Alex Dadson and Ian Scott filled the remaining grid positions.

In B1 Clark won in a flag-to-flag effort – and his fastest time of the night.  With more horsepower to come in the near future, Nathan will be one to watch out for.  Dolbey and Leeder had a ripper race, finishing in that order, but with not much between them for most of the race, and just one second at the death.  B2 and Clark had to work for it, overcoming a poor start to chase down Dolbey and Leeder and take the win over that duo – once again a cracking race.

Both A finals followed a similar pattern up front. Scott Guyatt made the most of a clean start, and with Houghton and Wells caught up in first lap incidents, Scott was left to cruise to a pair of wins.  In A1 Rocket and Wells got back to the podium spots, Greenie recovering from a horror start to make it back to fourth.  In A2 it was Josh Fogarty putting in the pursuit of Guyatt. Josh drove easily his best short course race yet (and fastest time) for an easy second, while Sam Wells made a good recovery after sitting last at one point to make it back to third, Green again fourth.  Overall it was Guyatt, Wells, Houghton, Fogarty, Green, Hume Madziara.

8th Big Bangers

Some super racing in our 8th scale class tonight, with Steve Madziara and Josh Fogarty turning it on.  Fogarty grabbed the TQ spot from Madziara with a very tidy Q2 run, with Wilson consistent in third, Silczak battling traction rolls in fourth and Ian Scott fifth.

In A1 Fogarty got the jump, leading early before a horror lap dropped him to second, and gifted Madziara a big lead.  From there Josh applied the blowtorch, turning in some of the best laps of the night to gradually cut the gap from more than ten seconds at one point, to less than three at the death. Madziara took the win, but the chase had been thrilling. Wilson was third in what became a race of attrition.  A2 was once again a battle between Madziara and Fogarty. The pair swapped places early before Madziara settled to the task and started banging out fast laps.  It was Steve’s ability to consistently clear the double jump that made the difference, and he went on to the fastest time of the night, Fogarty second and Wilson again third.  That was also the overall finishing order, Silczak fourth from Ian Scott (mechanical DNF).

Don’t forget this weekend is the Scottsdale Show race, and the Tasmanian 8th Offroad Champs are coming up.

And leave your thoughts on tonights race format (two qualifiers, two finals) in the comments section.

See you next fortnight as we get close to the end of our first year of racing at Launceston R/C.