McBride claims 7th National Championship in a row at Australian Nationals Round 1

Last weekend I attended the first round of the Australian Nationals, held at a track run by the South District Model Car Club (SDMCC) down in Adelaide, South Australia. This weekend I would be running my RC8T3 and my RC8B3 for four rounds of qualifying and then into the semi-final to the final. Long story short: I had a fairly successful four rounds of qualifying in both my Team Associated vehicles -- I was able to grab the overall TQ to place me on pole position for both of my semi-finals.

The track by Saturday (Truck A-Main day) was high in traction but also very rough and difficult in plenty of sections. Though my race was up and down with a few crashes, I still won my semi-final easily, netting me second place on the starting grid for the one-hour final. I had a beautiful start at the beginning of the final and after 10 minutes I had grown a 10-second gap on the field and was pulling away. Unfortunately, my hopes of dominating the Truck A final came to an end when I landed off a small double and had a random break.

Sunday held the Buggy lower finals and then of course the semi-final and one-hour-long A final. By the time my semi-final had finished, the track had gotten even more difficult, along with more dust on the track. Still, I had a very smooth and clean race and managed to lap the whole field by over 30 seconds to put me on pole for the A-Main final. By the end of the one-hour race I had almost lapped the entire field up to second twice over to take my seventh Australian National Championship in a row!

Products used
#80914 RC8B3 Nitro Team Kit
#80917 RC8T3 Nitro Team Kit
#315 Reedy LiPo 2100mAh 7.4V RX/TX Battery
#324 Reedy 2100mAh 20C 14.8V LiPo Starter Box Battery
#27107 Reedy RT2207A Digital HV Hi-Torque Aluminum Competition Servo
#27200 Reedy 1216-C2 Dual AC/DC Competition Balance Charger
#1751 FT Compact Starter Box
#1738 FT Glow Starter

Photos courtesy of Scott McBride. Thanks to Scott McBride for this report.

Team Associated - Champions by Design

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