Success for Southland at RC Champs

There was plenty of Southland success at the Southland Indoor Championships for radio-controlled racers at the Wallacetown Community Centre on Saturday.

Thirteen-year-old James Beck of Invercargill led the way with a win on debut in the TCR front-wheel-drive class with his Schumacher FT8. Never having driven the car before the event he came through two qualifiers and three finals to claim the title.

James, a Year 9 student at James Hargest College, is a past Southland Champion in the Mini Class for 1/10th scale cars with stock motors and he backed up his TCR Class title with third in the Mini Class behind fellow Invercargill RC Racers Club competitors Rohan Brown and Isaac Coburn.

Beck was very pleased with the title being one of the least experienced in the field. “It was very fun!” he said. “The car behaved so well on the track.” James’ father David Beck prepared the car but said, “James gives good feedback to help achieve the good set-up.” In a close finish fellow local club members Andy Blay and Dave Harris were second and third behind Beck in the TCR Class.

Several other local club members did well in the championships. In the Junior Rookie Class, Charlie Waters and Archie Lang were second and third respectively while in Super GT Danny Lang took the title just ahead of Joseph Beck. Lang also secured second in the Short Course Truck 10.5 Class.

Former kart champion Regan Carter was runner-up in both the Touring Stock 21.5 Class as well as the Touring Stock 13.5 Class where David Beck was third and Beck was also third in the 4WD Buggy 8.5 Class.

The club overcame massive challenges to host the eighth edition of the championships with flooding closing off access to the venue on Friday just after a team of five who were building the track got through, most by the main highway and one by back roads.

Ironically, for an indoor event, all of Friday’s activities were postponed due to the road closures and thanks to the endeavours of club members an alternative route taking 45 minutes for the journey from Invercargill to Wallacetown was discovered and a convoy was organised to get everyone to the venue for a massive day of action which started at 7am and went through to 9pm as Friday’s programme and Saturday’s were combined with sixty races being completed.

Race Director for the event, David Beck, was thankful to those that travelled and made the event a record breaker for the club and to the racers who built and packed out the track after a difficult start to the weekend.

The Invercargill RC Racers Club welcome spectators to join them on one of their club nights, held on the first Friday of the month (barring October), at the YMCA Stadium in Invercargill.