McBride wins 2016 Keilor Invitational

The 2016 Australian racing season kicked off in a big way with the 2016 Keilor Gforce Invitational held at the Keilor track in Melbourne, Australia. Running a Reedy Race style format of head-to-head racing with 2WD and 4WD buggies, this year's event saw a huge surge in entries with racers from all around Australia and close to 180 buggies running over the weekend on a new clay track constructed for the event. The Invitational classes were run over five heats of 2WD and five heats of 4WD, and open classes were offered with the victor getting an invite to the 2017 Invite class. Unique to this event, classes are run for both modified and 17.5 buggies.

Modified Invite Class
Australia's most successful International racer Kyle McBride headlined the 18-person Modified field with his Team Associated buggies and Reedy power and was the favourite to win. He was pushed very hard by multi-time national champs Ari Bakla and Josh Pain, but took the win overall with a heat remaining. The racing between these three was spectacular with the crowd loving it! Fourth place overall was 2013/2014 winner Ray Munday (AE / Reedy) and fifth new AE signing Cameron Zammit. Mark Rogers, Glen Bonetti, and Darren Johnston also placed in the top ten, putting six AE vehicles in the top ten!

17.5 Invite Class
This was all about 16-year-old sensation Josh Mason from Sydney. He took seven out of ten race wins to dominate this class with his Team Associated buggies.

Videos of all Invitational races have been uploaded to the Keilor Facebook page here: Keilor offroad RC club

Open Modified Classes
With 2017 Invite class positions up for grabs, the competition was intense in these classes with a single 10-minute final to determine the winner. Nice guy Andrew Adamic TQ'd both 2WD and 4WD, winning the 2WD final, with Mildura's Jai Davis taking the 4WD final.

Open 17.5 Classes
Brady Anthes travelled from Tasmania for his first interstate race and it will be a race he won't forget -- taking the win in 2WD 17.5 and finishing second in 2WD Modified! In the 4WD class. 11-year-old Jordan Isergin TQ'd with his brand new B44.3 buggy, but in the final Gary Carvajal (B44.3) was too good, earning himself a place in the 2017 event.

Junior 17.5
This class is run for under 16s with 2WD 17.5 buggies. Ten juniors lined up for the event, most under 12. Dustin Densley from Mildura took pole but in the final it was local Brodi Jaensch (B4.2) who took the win from Densley, with 7-year-old Cooper Richardson an impressive third after a great drive! The winner of this class receives a pit mat signed by racers from the Reedy race in OCRC in two weeks time thanks to Team Associated!

Products used
#9063 Factory Team B44.3
#90000 RC10B5M Factory Lite
#9042 RC10B4.2 Brushless Ready-To-Run

Thanks to Raymond Munday for this report.

Team Associated - Champions by Design