Edmunds earns biggest career win at Asian Buggy Championships opener

Mayako Youth Mentoring Program driver Jayden Edmunds earned the biggest win of his career today with victory in New Zealand following an exciting season opener to the Cayote backed Asian Buggy Championships.  With the Counties RC Car Club track hosting the first of the four encounters that make up the third season of the 1:8 Offroad Championship, Edmunds sent the first hint of his potential when he topped the second round of qualifying before the highly experienced Kyle McBride hit his stride to take the final two qualifiers and the overall TQ.  Lining up P3 for the 45-minute final behind Sworkz’s Jayden Jamieson, after plenty of shuffling for position at the start, four different leaders in the opening four minutes, Edmunds would settle into serious contention when he took the lead from HB Racing’s Logan Toia on lap 33.  With McBride and Toia, who had three stints at leading, both suffering multiple flameouts ending their challenges, Edmunds would find himself under attack from fellow countryman Caleb Noble.  With a very fast car, his Tekno posting the fastest lap of the race, Noble went to the front with a nice pass coming onto the main straight however as both drivers made their final pit stops, Noble pitting a lap earlier, Edmunds’ stop helped him to retake the lead.  Again Caleb appeared quicker but Edmunds played it cool.  As they came around to start their final lap, a mistake by Noble gave Edmunds the breathing room he needed to secure a very popular first international race win.  Finishing 6-seconds back, Top Seed Noble was clearly unhappy with his second place.  Opening the event strongly with a TQ in the opening qualifier, before starting to feel under the weather on Saturday, Jamieson was happy to survive to finish P3 and claim the Kiwi’s first Asian Buggy Championships podium finish in Nitro Buggy.  Just 3.6-seconds back, the WIRC of eBuggy podium finisher and local racer Kasey Dawson capped off an impressive weekend with fourth while Dylan Toia completed the Top 5.

Reacting to his win, a clearly delighted Edmunds joked, ‘That worked out pretty good I think.’  The 19-year-old continued, ‘I got out to a clean start.  I got into the lead and then made a mistake and lost it but fought back.  Caleb was so fast, he was coming and I had a good battle with him.  It was a great race.’  A driver who strangely enough doesn’t use the now almost universally standard issue radio head sets to communicate with pit crew, highlighting to him how impressively calm his father performs his fuel stops, Edmunds replied, ‘yeah it’s probably something we need to work on, we can always improve but that last one I came into the pits behind Caleb and then got out in front so that was the one that counted.’  Asked how his car evolved over the final, he said, ‘It was definitely hard to hang on to at the end but I think that was the same for everyone due to tyre wear and a very small line on the track.  The track was so bumpy for the final.  I went out in the warm-up and crashed 5 -times in one lap, compared to eBuggy it just got so much bumpier in spots that it hadn’t all weekend.  I just tried to limit the mistakes.’  On his biggest career win he said, ‘the only win I have had before this is sort of local races’ with him then confirming, ‘we’ll be in the Philippines, Queensland and maybe Jakarta’, Indonesia bringing the championship to a conclusion.

Asked for a run down on his race, Noble replied, ‘Not much I can say to not make my brands sound terrible I guess.  I drove shockingly for the first 15-minutes.  Somehow I probably drove the worst car on the grid to within contention.’  Asked what the issue with the car was the 18-year-old replied, ‘I don’t really even want to guess.  eBuggy was super good, shocks were super good and I put them on this car and they were super terrible.’  Asked if he took a risk changing the shocks he said, ‘the eBuggy was really good so I just pulled them off that car and bolted them on this car and it was a like a whole different car.  I drove through the field in eBuggy in A3 twice after getting taken out mid race and then drove back to fourth or whatever it was.’  Putting it to him that he had some very good speed in the nitro buggy final, he said, ‘the car was fast but an absolute handful and just not great to drive, I was just making it happen I guess.’

First asking him about how he was feeling after coming down with something on the second day of qualifying, his voice almost inaudible, Jamieson said, ‘we’re on the way out of it, it’s just a sore coughy throat now.’  Asked if it was a tougher than usual 45-minute final given he was under the weather, the 24-year-old said, ‘I think I went through a whole lot of different phases in that race.  At the start I felt like I was going really good, I got into the lead and if thought if I just hold Kyle up for a bit longer I’ll get his tyres balding off before mine because I knew he was on supersofts and I knew they wouldn’t last but he was quick at the start.  I thought if I can hang on I think I have a chance but then just after I lost the lead my throttle finger went completely numb, pins & needle numb, so for 20-minutes I was hoping and praying I was throttling & braking at the right points.  I think I overshot the first turn twice and the one at the back straight I think three times cause I couldn’t feel what I was doing.’  The reigning New Zealand National Champion continued, ‘then it came right again and I think I got back into third when Logan had his second flameout and I thought I’d be pretty happy with third after all this.  Caleb and Jayden were ahead of everyone in that one so I’m happy with third.’  On his pit stops, having lost out on a podium at the race last year due to a flame out, he said, ‘In the warm-up we ran the engine to test fuel mileage and at 10 minutes 40 we could still drive up the pit lane so in the main we knew we could run nines (9-mins) no drama and that probably helped me beat Kasey.’

‘Not good’, that was how McBride summed up his nitro final.  Having secured the eBuggy win earlier in the day and finishing on the Nitro Buggy podium in New Zealand last year, the World Championship finalist ended today’s the race in 12th & last position.  He continued, ‘I started off surprisingly pretty decent but then I got into the pipe.  I was putting in some clean laps but my car probably about 10-minutes in just felt like it didn’t have rear traction so I don’t know what happened whether it’s the track or maybe my tyres weren’t build for those conditions, I’m not sure.’  Asked if he changed tyre choice for the final he replied, ‘I was running exactly what I was running yesterday.  I didn’t make any changes but the car just wasn’t able to track straight.  I was trying to push and it was just going south so just one of those things and it turned into a bummer of a race and then I flamed out twice after that so game over from there.’  On the flameouts, asked if they were down to pushing fuel mileage or something else he replied, ‘I’m not too sure, I think it was just maybe the idle was too low, just happened twice but yeh a bit of a bummer I was expecting a lot better coming into the final but that’s RC racing for you.’

Edmunds takes Q2 at Asian Buggy Champs

Mayako Youth Mentoring Program driver Jayden Edmunds has TQ’d the second round of qualifying at the Asian Buggy Championships in New Zealand, a switch of tyre completely elevating the Australian’s performance after he opened with a P8 in Q1.  While a slower track, no one making 10-laps as they did in Q1, the second of the four qualifiers would prove a super close battle with the Top 3 covered by 6/10ths of a second.  Once again it was Kyle McBride who had the fastest car around the Counties RC Car Club track but again it was a mistake that denied last year’s podium finisher from registering a TQ run he certainly has the speed for.  Having taken the opening qualifier, Sworkz’s Jayden Jamieson backed that up with a strong P2 0.492 off Edmunds and a 0.099 ahead of McBride.  In eBuggy, HB Racing’s Logan Toia went one better than Q1 to TQ the second round as WIRC’s Q1 winner Kasey Dawson ended up overheating his tyres dropping him back to P4.  Tekno’s Caleb Noble would be second fastest in eBuggy with McBride completing the Top 3.

‘It was consistent from the start and I knew I was up in the top few so I just tried to keep it together and keep it on four wheels’, was Edmunds reaction after Q2.  Asked about changes made to improve his Mayako, the 19-year-old coyly responded ‘we made a few changes and some invisible speed was added’, a reference to both Mayako’s JQ and his switching of tyres for Q2.  He elaborated somewhat on the set-up changes saying, ‘I did go up in rear shock oil because the rear was digging in and bouncing all over the track and that helped plus I also think I drove cleaner.’  For Q3, he said the plan was to run ‘the same again’ adding ‘I think I have been driving well all weekend but was just lacking pace and we sorted that out in that round.’

Jamieson summed up his performance with ‘it wasn’t bad’.  He added, ‘we made a change to a stiffer front spring just to help with jumping over the double double after the table top and it helped there but it wasn’t how I wanted it in some of the bumpier sections so we are going back to the softer spring and are then going to try a different tyre pattern.’  Asked which tyre he would use he replied, ‘I only have one more set of the same pattern and compound that I have been on so I am saving those.’  He explained, ‘my alternative at this stage is probably going to be between a (TZO) 202 and a 200 in soft compound so the next one is testing!’

‘Not too bad, I had a solid run’, was McBride’s thoughts on Q2.  He explained, ‘we are mucking around with a few different things and a harder compound tyre to see what it felt like.  Honestly the speed is there I just need the consistency at the moment as I am just making a few too many mistakes.  Probably from a lack of driving and time with the car but we we are getting there slowly but surely.’   Asked if the shock change he made for the qualifier had worked he replied, ‘we are going to go back.  Basically we just thickened the shock oil up and in some sections it made the car easier to drive but I lost probably a bit of speed and also it was worse for the rough being a bit more rigid.  I will probably keep the harder compound tyres cause they felt pretty good and obviously we are looking more towards the final as well.’  Asked if it was his own driving that would bring the biggest improvement, the World Championship finalist said, ‘I think so, we are changing a few things on the car but probably its more so my driving.  Just getting me comfortable, small mistakes is the only thing holding me back.’

‘Stoked’ that was Logan Toia’s reaction topping eBuggy and getting another P4 in Nitro Buggy.  He continued, ‘eBuggy was amazing and that’s the fastest its been all weekend and I kept it together almost the whole time.  I almost threw it away on the last lap which was a bit scary, I just clipped a rock or something at the front double double and it sent me sideways, but luckily I pulled throttle and powered out of it and yeh got by a 10th and a half in the end.’  On nitro he said, ‘it was OK,  I was kind of getting stuck with people.  I would let them go and then they would crash in front of me.  I kind of got sick of it at the end and just kept going.’   For Q3, which brings the second day of official action to close here in Pukekohe, he will leave eBuggy unchanged but feels there is more speed to be got from nitro buggy and he will try to change it more to his eBuggy set adding, ‘I’d like a Top 2 run, I definitely have the pace for that 10-laps so we’ll mount up new tyres and away we go.’

Opening qualifying with a P3, Top Seed Caleb Noble could only mange a P5 the second time of asking.   He explained, ‘We have been chasing an issue all weekend with the nitro buggy rear shocks and we are not really sure what it is specifically but we can’t seem to get any pack in it not matter what we do geometry wise it doesn’t seem to change it.  We did a heap of changes to the eBuggy for that round and it was really good.  I cost myself the TQ on the last lap with a scruffy lap in the whoops.  We got good pack in that but when we did the same to the nitro it just didn’t replicate even though they have the same oil, the same settings.  For the next one we just going to try harder oil and see how we go.’