Castlemaine R/C Car Club News 2002

All the news that's printed to fit, from the Castlemaine Radio Controlled Car Club Inc.

Castlemaine R/C Car Club were invited, and accepted the invitation, to host the 2008 AARCMCC Off-road State Champs. Although the invitation came a little later than we would have preferred, the committee are going full-steam-ahead to get this event organised. With last years Truggy and Monster Truck States under our belt, we know how to make this event much bigger and better than last time.

The new distributor for the Himoto brand of cars, Ecka P/L, located in Macedon, have signed up as major sponsor for the event.

We will be holding a major fund raising raffle in conjunction with the State Champs and the prize list is looking pretty impressive already.

Just to get the ball rolling, we will hold an Off-road Trophy Day on Sunday June 1st, 2008.

Saturday morning will see a "Come and Try" session for interested locals, followed by controlled practice in the afternoon.

Sunday will be the real race day with qualifiers in the morning and finals in the afternoon. Last years Trophy Dash was a great event and the way that word spreads around the racing community, this year is going to be even better.

Another top day of off road racing. Although the race day was moved at short notice, we had a great day racing, breaking 6 track records in the process. One of the high lights of the day was the battle between Joe Glavic and Travis Stewart in Monster Truck, at one stage racing nose to tail through three laps in the fourth heat. Great stuff to watch.

The Pro Buggy drivers were punching out fast consistent laps on the track which was in perfect condition after the rain early in the week.

Due to a clash of dates, it had been proposed that we cancel our April Off-road race meeting. When this news broke at the Barmah Off-road race meeting today, there was such an outpouring of emotions (shock, anguish, sorrow, loss, desolation) that the original proposal has been reconsidered and we will now be holding our April Off-road race meeting one week early, on March 31 instead. This race meeting will include round 2 of the RCGarage Nitro Buggy Challenge. So if you want to have a shot at the new race motor up for grabs, you had better get your backside trackside.

Thanks to much hard work by Craig Hutchinson, our forum has been de-bugged and resurrected and is ready for use again. Everybody, please feel free to utilize this valuable resource, be it for asking advice, offering advice, keeping everybody informed about what is going on, or just chatting.

Another terrific on-road race meet today. Big fields and super close racing all day. Club Spec 540 is proving to be a real hoot. All the cars are specced the same, so the only difference is how you drive. Racing all day was so close, that placings in three classes were tied and had to be decided on count back of dropped rounds.

Look out for next month, as fields will be even bigger and racing will be even better.

Everyone please note, club memberships are now due, so please renew your memberships at your earliest convenience. Many thanks to all the newcomers who have attended our race meetings and have joined up in the club.

On March 2nd, Castlemaine will be hosting the first round of The NITRO-X Masters This is going to be a great race series for 1/8th Buggies, with the ultimate winner of the series being awarded an airline ticket to take them to participate in an Off-road meet in South East Asia.

Nitro Buggy challenge. The club will be holding a Nitro Buggy Challenge over the February, April, May and June off road meets. This is a point score event with the prize, a GoTech 21 Buggy Motor proudly sponsored to the club by RC-Garage. Make sure you get to all the races as the top point scorer at the end will walk away with a brand new motor.

Truggy Challenge will be held over the August, September, October and November meets, with the winner here taking home a GoTech 21 race motor, again proudly sponsored by RC-Garage. Format will be the same as the buggy challenge, so get yourself geared up to have a go.

Thanks very much to Nick and Adam of RC-Garage for supporting our club and Off-road racing in general.

2008 Race Calendar posted. This Calendar is correct at time of publication but is subject to change. Please check it regularly as more events will be added.

Please note:- The race dates/days for the 2008 racing season will see a swap between on-road and off-road race days. Off-road will now be on the first Sunday of the month, and On-road will be on the second Sunday of the month. This should avoid clashes with other clubs and may help with the attendance at our race meetings. The calendar for 2008 should be up on the site in a week or so.

Please note that the date of our October race meet has been changed from the 7th to the 21st due to a clash with Bathurst.

The club will be holding a Trophy Dash race meet in conjunction with our usual race meeting on Sunday the 4th of November. Full details of the classes and race format are available on the entry form, which can be found HERE.

The club is considering entering a float in the Castlemaine Show Parade on the Friday night before the Trophy Dash. Anyone interested in participating should contact Chris McKendry for further information.

After 3 weeks of perfect weather, racing started Friday on a fast, clean track following overnight rains. If you are in a drought, just plan a big race day. Always works. :-(

All the same, everybody turned up on time and racing started pretty near on schedule.

Concours judging was first and the vehicle judged to be best presented was the X-Ray Truggy of Edwin Gunawan.

Three rounds of controlled practice followed giving the visitors plenty of time to get to know the circuit at Castlemaine.

After the lunch break we got stuck into the first two rounds of qualifying which were made a bit more interesting with the addition of a few of showers of rain, one or two of them a bit heavier than we would have liked. Early questions about watering the track were answered by the rain gods.

Quite a few of the Truggy drivers chose to sit-out round 2 qualifying because the sticky wet clay made the vehicles particularly (horrendously) heavy.

After two rounds of Truggy qualifying, Ron Maya (Sunshine) was leading from Brad Gale (Bendigo) and Nick Bowen (Colac).

In Monster Truck, Dave Gresch (Sunshine) was leading from Scott Matthews, with Shannon McAuliffe (Bendigo) and Ray Debrincat (Sunshine) tied on points for third spot.

For Sale page has been cleaned off and new items will be added as people wish to list them for sale. First item listed is a Mugen MTX-4.

Please note the date for our on-road race meeting has been changed form the 7th to the 21st of October, due to a clash with the Bathurst 1000 race.

2007 AARCMCC VICTORIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS FOR MONSTER TRUCK and TRUGGY (Off road) to be held 13 - 16 September 2007, Entry form here

With the State Champs fast approaching, we are pleased to report that this event is going to be HUGE. If early entries are anything to go by, there is going to be a massive turnout of entrants ready to test themselves for the State Title in sunny Central Victoria.

The track is in absolutely perfect condition, smooth and fast, with some extra track edging having just been installed. The Mt. Alexander Shire Council has just regraded and resurfaced the access road and ample parking is available.

Any reports you may have heard about the track being hard on tyres are completely bogus. Now that the track has settled down, the surface is pure clay with barely a lump of anything harder to be seem.

Massive Mods and RC Garage are proudly sponsoring the event with motors and fuel being the main prizes.

Anybody wishing to have an eye-opener is welcome to attend our club race day on September the 9th (the weekend before the State Champs).

If you have any further enquiries, please do not hesitate to contact Glenn on 0438 705 352 or via email to rccars@castlemaine.net

With the return of sunny weather, the club had a great turn out for on-road racing. As usual, much of the racing was very close and the final placings in more than one class had to be decided on a count back at the end of the day. Great to see a few new faces there as well. Six classes were contested, so make no mistake about it, On Road racing is extremely well supported and a thriving area of the sport.

Many thanks must to go Rob McClure and Co. of R & R McClure Earthmoving for the enormous amount of work that they have put into the construction of the clubs off road track. The whole operation would not have been possible without the generous support and assistance of Rob, Ruth, Tim and the guys. The drivers stand platform has been raised a further meter allowing even better track view, while the pit area has been levelled and should be covered with crushed rock before next weeks meeting. If we are lucky, the pit lane should also be constructed by then.

The Annual General Meeting for the club will be held at the July on-road meeting. All positions for office bearers will be vacated at the start of the meeting and a new committee will be elected. Got anyone in mind? Be sure to put your hand up on the day. If you don't say something, then no-one else will and the club will not progress forward. If you have any issues that you would like to raise, especially with regards the clubs structure, aims and achievements, PLEASE put your hand up and say it. All views and opinions of members are encouraged and welcome.

Just in case the July meeting did not have enough going on, we will also be running our annual Concours d'Elegance. this is basically a show and shine type event, but all vehicles entered in the Concours MUST complete three laps of the race circuit to prove that they are at very least roadworthy.. We will be holding a separate Concourse for the Off road vehicles on the following weekend on the Off road race day.

Since the last off-road race meeting where we had a little bit of trouble with infield puddles, the club members have done some fairly extensive drainage work to alleviate that problem. Drainage lines have been dug to drain the problem areas and in a couple of cases, pipes have been laid under the track to drain remote areas. We hope all are happy with the works and that we will see you all at our next race meeting.

The rules that we run electric races to have been amended to bring them in line with Vortec and other local club rules. Please check the Classes page for further details.

Our first real off road race meet is scheduled to kick off next Sunday 11/2/2007. All classes of off road vehicle are welcome to compete. No matter what you drive, we will find a place for you.

One proposed class that is generating a fair bit of interest is 1/10th rally. This will be a spectacular class to watch or participate in, with the cars basically being 1/10th touring cars, either nitro or electric, but with the chassis being jacked up a bit, knobby tyres fitted and wearing a rally body (i.e. Subaru Impreza, Citroen Xsara, Mitsubishi Lancer etc). If nothing else, it should be a lot of fun.

Today the club membership passed the proposal that we should add off-road racing (with the track to go with it) to the racing calendar here in Castlemaine.

A sub-committee will be formed to handle such matters as co-ordination of track construction, race classes/rules etc.

Again, if anyone is interested in participating in the racing, or assisting with the track construction (tentatively scheduled for 25/11/2006) please contact the committee (see contacts page).

Well, the Vortec round at Castlemaine has been run and won.

Congratulations to all the winners at the event and many thanks to all the other participants, without whom there would not have been an event or even a Vortec series.

Full results are available on the Castlemaine site on this page. http://rccars.castlemaine.net/Vortec 2006 contents.htm

The club members, wives, friends, etc put in a fantastic effort to make the event come together and run very well.

Special thanks go to:-

Nicole Stuchbree, Elke Meyer, Diana Stuchbree and Lynn Ellery - catering.
Phil McKendry - Pit Marshal
Nigel Chislett - Tx Pound
Rob Stuchbree, Grant Farrell - General assistance
Mt Alexander Shire Council - Barricading
Team Cobra Racing - Superbly finished race bodies for fundraising auction
Ozzie traders - TQ Fuel for raffle
Allan and Heather Harris - Fuel Voucher for raffle
XR400 Racing Products - Blitz bodies for raffle
Vilis Pies - Pies and pie warmers for catering

Special mention has to be made of Peter Jovanovic for absolutely smashing the club track record, taking nearly 3 seconds off the previous mark. His best lap was 24.074s. Racing was so hot all weekend that there were quite a few laps in the 24s, but Peter really iced the cake with this particular lap in the third round of qualifiers.

Congratulations once again to all concerned and we hope to see you at an event up here again soon.

This year, the Castlemaine R/C Car Club will be holding its Championship presentation, in conjunction with a Social Night and BBQ at Chris McKendrys ranch, 69 Princess St, Campbells Creek, on Saturday evening, November 18th, starting at 5.30 pm.

The evening is open to all members, regular racers and friends of the Castlemaine R/C Car Club. The evening is not just for the drivers, but all wives, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, in-laws, out-laws and kids too.

Because everyone is busy with racing on race days, this will give everyone a chance to get to know each other better and maybe talk about things other than cars (as if, LOL).

For $5 a head, the BBQ will be fully catered, so you only need to bring your drinks and chairs.

Please let us know ASAP if you will be attending so that catering can be organised.

The club has been asked a number of times recently if we are going to hold off road races. The committee discussed this at a recent meeting and could find no reason why we could not hold off road races. The Wesley Hill Recreation Reserve Committee of Management (managers of the reserve on which we currently operate) were approached as to us using some land to construct such a track and had no objections. Next step is to check with the Reserve Redevelopment Committee. If anybody is interested in participating or even helping with the track construction, please get in touch with the committee and lets get the ball rolling.

Due to the plethora of vehicle types available, the possible classes could include:-

Classes that will be run will be dependant on how many of which class of vehicle turn up.

Electric touring car racing has come back with a vengeance at Castlemaine. The October meet saw a near full field of electric cars (both 540 and Minis) take to the track. Specifications for this racing class is pretty simple. We want to keep the class cheap and competitive, so have limited the modifications allowed on the vehicles, and so far the class has produced the closest racing you will see anywhere.