Words and images courtesy of Scott Guyatt - Action R/C
By now, of course, you know lots of the stories from the Campbelltown Hobbies 2024 RCRA 1/10th EP Offroad Australian Championship. You’ve seen the photos, watched the stream, stood trackside, checked out the results, seen race updates from many drivers, and probably seen “that” pass by Spencer Rivkin a dozen times or more. So the last thing anybody really needs is another race report…and yet I cannot help it! And, if it’s not your first time here, you know it’s long. I’d apologise, but honestly I’m not sorry at all about the length of this report!
So, where to begin to reflect on such a weekend? Let’s start with perhaps the most important people of all:
THE VOLUNTEERS AND HILLS CREW
Putting on a big race is never easy. It takes months of planning, weeks of work, and ridiculous hours in the days before and during an event. Anybody who hasn’t been involved might see all the work that goes on – but it’s there in spades. So before we get to any of the rest of the stories – hats off to all the Hills Off Road RC crew, and friends of the club that came from far and wide. To those who cooked and served, who ran tech inspection, prepared and repaired the track, printed and gave out stickers, ran timing and scoring, stood on the driver’s stand all day refereeing, restocked toilet paper and cleaned bathrooms, put up and took down tents and tables, did transport duties, setup car parking and air compressors, chased up sponsorship, designed trophies, hung banners, painted grid markings and all the dozens of other jobs seen and unseen: thank you.
On behalf of the racers of Australia – those who were present and those who watched on from afar – we salute you. We know this event doesn’t happen without all that effort. And to the club’s leadership – even more thanks. To take on the ambition of hosting a World Championships in 2025, and then run the NSW Champs, host the Chilly Bowl when Ryde was unfortunately closed, a Nationals – and looking forward to a Worlds Warmup and the main event itself? That takes serious commitment, serious imagination, serious leadership. And we extend serious thanks.
THE RACERS
The racers of Australia responded – a huge local crew of course but also from the West, from South Aus, all the way up the coast to Cairns and south to Melbourne and beyond. It all added up to over 300 entries, the second-biggest Nationals ever, and stacked fields in just about every class. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: the Nationals do matter as a race meeting that crowns the nation’s best, but they are also a celebration of the sport, a gathering of the tribe. And boy did the tribe gather. Well-prepared cars, on a perfectly presented race track, and row-upon-row of pit tables heaving with cars and tyres and tools and ambition.
THE INTERNATIONALS
It’s a unique feature of RCRA Australian Championship events that we are open to international racers. It’s a tradition that goes right back to the origins of the sport in the early 80’s when UK stars like Gary Culver came to race for the 1/8th On-Road title (Gary won in 1984). Masami HIrosaka famously swept the 1988 EP Offroad Nationals – beating home Andy Nelson and Ray Wood in 2wd, Peter Phillibosian and Andrew Bolton in 4wd. In more recent years the likes of Nicholas Lee have been regular visitors at EP Touring Car nationals, Lee twice on the podium (including once behind Japanese driver Yugo Nagashima and ahead of Chris Sturdy in 2018). This year it was Spencer Rivkin, Chase Lemieux, Scotty Ernst and Troy Lysaght making the trip from the US, and Logan Toia, Kasey Dawson and Kenley Brown from across the ditch. Every one of them was a credit to their country, and their sponsors and supporters. Clearly here for Worlds practice, they nonetheless respect this as Australia’s most important race. Personally, I celebrate Australian RC’s openness to international visitors at our biggest race of the year. Long may it continue!
THE TRACK
The centre-piece of a Nationals is always the track. This year, of course, there was extra emphasis with Hills having been named host venue for the 2025 IFMAR Worlds. For many across the globe the notion of 10th off-road being raced outdoors, on dirt, is as foreign a concept as indoors on carpet is to many in Australia. That meant a little extra interest and attention on the track and conditions than normal. Everybody wanting to race the Worlds is keeping an eye on the venue and track.
With so much work ahead of the club, my understanding is that an agreement was reached with RCRA to continue with the same track layout for the Nationals. It’s a lot less work to scrape and prepare an existing layout than put down something completely new – particularly when that’s a non-negotiable for 2025. Continuing with the same layout (albeit a beautifully prepared racing surface that regular Hills racers described as the best it’s ever been) did of course offer even more of a home-track advantage than normal. Again, speaking personally, I think that’s an appropriate trade-off given all the club has on its plate for the next 12 months.
The other aspect of a track is its surface, and here things got pretty interesting. The club’s normal daily preparation involves heavy watering in the evening to prevent the track drying out too much and becoming brutally abrasive on tyres. The consequence is a wet and reasonably grippy track in the morning, going through a slippery phase before starting to dry out and grip levels ramping up from around lunchtime onwards. Track conditions change run by run, with a constant challenge to keep on top of car setup and tyre choice to match the conditions. One racer pointed out to me that the colour of the dirt gave a good insight into grip levels. Early when it’s dark brown, the grip is good. As it starts to dry out the dirt goes through a lighter brown colouring – and it’s here that the track is at its most slippery. Later the surface turns grey, getting lighter and lighter in shade – and that’s when the grip goes up and tyre wear skyrockets. That’s the conditions we encountered every day for finals. All of that makes practice tricky – racers really have to be practicing both driving and setup for the particular time of day and track conditions. With only a hand-ful of runs across the two days, dialling in for visiting racers proved tough.
THE TYRE GAME
The Nationals is of course a control tyre event. On this occasion (as I believe it will be for the Worlds) the tyre of choice is the Raw Speed SuperMini. A pin-style tread pattern, the tyre proved, I think, a good choice – generating performance no matter the condition. For racers the challenge was to figure out when the tyres were at their best, and how to manage the limited number of tyre sets available this week. For many of the leading modified drivers, the preference was for second-run tyres as the best performing. Tyres tended to be a little edgy for their first few minutes of use, before settling in after that and being at their best on a second run. Some opted to break-in tyres on practice day, others took the pain of running new rubber in qualifying, planning to have second run tyres for each of the three mains. One driver I spoke to decided to use second run tyres in the latter qualifying rounds in the hopes of earning a higher grid position for the mains – knowing they’d then suffer with having to run new rubber in those head-to-head races. To complicate matters further – the truck tyres run a different (closed-cell) style of foam insert – and the break-in and performance profile was different again!
THE RACING
I’m not giving a blow-by-blow race report here – you can head to hillsoffroad.liverc.com to check out the full results, or to http://www.youtube.com/@rcracemedia to re-watch the live-streamed coverage. But there are a few observations to be made, and highlights to pick out.
MODIFIED
Up front, both modified classes ended up being a battle between international racers Spencer Rivkin and Chase Lemieux, and the fastest Sydney drivers Lachlan Donnelly and Ari Bakla. Others, notably Victorian duo Lachlan Munday and Jordan Isergin (battling illness, particularly on 2wd day), were close by, but those four had a margin. Defending champ Chris Sturdy never really settled, and despite flashes of speed (Truck A3, for example), wasn’t a factor in the podium battle. In 2wd, Rivkin always seemed to have a small edge. He took the first two qualifiers, gave up the third to Donnelly with a late error, then lost the fourth to Bakla in a thriller. Come finals time though, and he had a little too much in terms of speed and consistency, securing an Australian Championship ahead of Donnelly and Lemieux (who looked much more comfortable in the higher grip conditions of Q4 and finals than earlier in the day).
If 2wd was good, 4wd Modified finals were the stand-out highlight of the weekend – all three of them. Lachlan Donnelly had earlier secured TQ ahead of Bakla and Rivkin (Bakla again winning a thrilling Q4 fight) and that set the scene for the finals. A1 was as good as motorsport gets – five cars nose-to-tail in a ferocious battle. A2 was almost as good as well. In both, Donnelly prevailed and the title was his. It was just reward for huge effort - the talented Sydney driver set for a long stay at the front of the Australian field, and a big tilt at the Worlds in 2025. A3, far from a dead rubber, produced a knock-down drag-out battle between Bakla and Rivkin, Spencer getting the lead on the final lap with an audacious overhead pass that has to be seen – hit RC Race Media for the clip. All three 4wd Mod finals were brilliant viewing.
STOCK
Sometimes Stock racing is so close it’s breathtaking. Neither 2wd or 4wd finals worked out that way on this occasion – but despite being quite spread-out up front, they proved interesting for other reasons. Michael Stone’s dual wins had a sense of inevitability about them, but Nathanial White and Scott Hill (2wd) and Justin O’Connell (4wd) got in front of Andrew Selvaggi (expected to be Stone’s nearest rival) with beautiful drives that took advantage of every opportunity that came their way. Those kinds of opportunities sometimes create the moment that a new star arises. Only the future will tell us whether this was one of those moments for White, Hill, O’Connell or Brayden Miller. The stock classes also resulted in a couple of protests – race directors and state juries being asked on two occasions to adjudicate on passes that had been right on the line of what was considered acceptable. Once the protest was upheld and positions were reversed, once the protest was declined, and positions stood. The system allows for that kind of post-race consideration, and it’s a sign of the seriousness, the passion which racing RC cars generates.
THE TRUCKS
Stadium truck was a deep field – one of the deepest in years. For the most part Lachlan Donnelly looked the quickest – Chris Sturdy seeming to be finding speed on day three to bring a challenge. The pair of them tangled early in A1 (out of my line of sight) gifting the lead to Jarod Ment – a position he’d hold to the line, before Donnelly cleaned up in A2 and A3 to wrap his second championship for the weekend. Ment’s second was a good recovery after a difficult weekend, and Lachlan Munday a deserved podium after being quick through the whole event. Peter Seckold wrapped up the Short Course Truck title in a relatively small field – but having to fend off former National Champ Mitchell Pratt, Scotty Ernst and young gun Sam Muffett. Short Course trucks are fun to watch, and fun to race for sure.
JUNIOR BUGGY
We love Junior classes for what they offer – a place for emerging young talent to do battle without the pressure of some-times over-hyped adults! There’s some serious young talent emerging in Australia right now (including the likes of Sam Muffett and Phoenix Eggleton who ran in the open modified classes) and we saw it on display this weekend. Logan Rintoul already holds the Junior EP Touring crown, and added both 2wd and 4wd (Demonstration) class wins this weekend. He didn’t have it easy, Queensland’s Tyler Connor continuing his rapid rise (in a relatively short career), Elliott Grierson backing up his big 2023 result, and the likes of second-gen racers Riley Lander-West and Zac Panic all well in the mix. These youngsters, together with others like William Johnson, Caden Hill and Fin Aiken prove the future is in good hands.
WHAT’S NEXT?
For Hills Off Road RC attention now turns to the official pre-worlds next April, and to the worlds themselves, now under 12 months away. On the wider Australian scene, the FEMCA Large Scale on-road race is weeks away and the EP On-Road Nationals at Templestowe in late November promises to be another modern classic. There’s plenty of big races left in 2024 to get our teeth into.
For now though, huge congrats to everybody at Hills, and the whole RC community in Australia for one of the best National Champs races anybody can remember. What a week!
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