Kyle McBride wins 1/8th Nitro Off-Road Australian National Title's Round 1 with his RC8B3 and RC8T3

Friday, Feb 19, 2016 at 12:00am UTC

Last weekend the 1/8th Nitro Off-Road Australian National Title's Round 1 was held at at NWRCCC down in Tasmania, Australia. This year the nationals has turned into a three-round series -- instead of one national title, the events are spread over the year and are held at the start, middle, and then the last round at the end of year to decide the overall national champion for all three rounds.

Me and my father got to the track on Wednesday to get settled in and check out the track for the first time. The track looked to be a very loose and slippery type with most likely a very low-medium grip tire wear to begin with.

Thursday morning practice kicked off with me running my RC8B3 and my all-new RC8T3 truck from Team Associated. The track was very loose and dusty but had an awesome layout full of undulations, off-cambers and awesome rhythm sections, along with a set of speed bumps (whoops). As expected, my buggy right off the bat was handling fantastically. My RC8T3 was extremely good as soon as I put it on the track, with minimal runtime I was surprised at how plush the suspension felt and how good the truck felt on the track. I didn't make barely any changes to my vehicles during practice as both were great as is; it was just a matter of sorting out what tires I was going to run for the first qualifier later on that afternoon.

After a few minor tweaks to the setup I was ready to go for qualifier 1. As expected, my cars ran flawlessly throughout qualifying and I ended up TQ'ing all five rounds in truck and four out of the five qualifiers in Buggy. The track stayed consistently loose throughout qualifying but began to come up with a groove but a really polished groove that was almost even slipperier than loose dirt! After qualifying, it was all about prepping my cars for the Truck final the next day and then the Buggy finals the following day. In both classes I had to run a 30-minute semi-final and then the one-hour-long main.

On Saturday I started off pole for semi-final A and managed to get a huge lead in the beginning and went on to win by over a lap on the field. My RC8T3 ran awesome once again during the 30-minute final. After winning my semi-final, it was charge batteries, glue tires, and a big 'nut and bolt' on the car to make sure it would stay together and last the long one-hour final. Starting off pole position for the truck final it was very similar to the semi final, I managed to get a big lead off the first lap and never looked back from there. I lapped all the other 14 cars by almost two laps after the final was finished to take the National title for Round 1! I could not be happier with how my new RC8T3 handled all weekend -- the new truck has an extreme amount of potential.

After winning the Truck final I was feeling very confident for my two Buggy finals the following day. On Sunday I lined up off the number 1 position for my semi-final. Buggy was much like the Truck racing -- I got off to a great start pulling away from the rest of the pack to go on and lap the field again after the 30-minute semi-final to put myself first on the grid for the big A final once again. Coming into the final I was confident that I was going to be able to dominate the final and cruise to a comfortable win with my Team Associated RC8B3. Low and behold the A main final ran perfect as ever and I couldn't have asked for a smoother race and win. I had what was an almost flawless one-hour final to bring my Reedy-electronics-powered Team Associated RC8B3 to my 6th National Australian Championship in a row.

I could not be more happier with my entire package, I couldn't have asked for better cars, electronics, and pit man of course. I am happy to have brought my 6th national title back home in a row for all of my sponsors and hopefully we will continue to go on and win more and more. Such a big thank you to the following: Team Associated, Reedy Electronics, Proline Racing Tires, Scott McBride, Brent Thielke, Richard Saxton, Kody N and the rest of the Team Associated family.

Products used
#80914 RC8B3 Team Kit
#80917 RC8T3 Team Kit

Thanks to Kyle McBride for this report.

Team Associated - Champions by Design


Pictures