Asian Buggy Championships underway in New Zealand, Noble & Dawson top seeding

With a new title sponsor in Cayote, the third season of the Asian Buggy Championships officially got underway today in New Zealand with Tekno’s Caleb Noble and WIRC’s Kasey Dawson topping seeding at the Counties RC Car Club track which once again plays host to the first stop on the championship’s 4 round calendar.  Winner of the third round of the ABC in Australian last year, Caleb would set the fastest 2-consecutive laps in Nitro Buggy ahead of Kyle McBride and the Sworkz of Jayden Jamieson while a strong end to the day netted Mayako Youth Mentoring Program driver Dylan Toia P4.  In eBuggy, local star Dawson had the advantage over Caleb thanks to his effort in the first of the two seeding rounds.  Noble topped the second encounter but that effort was 2/10th slower overall.  Behind them the older of the Toia brothers, Logan completed the eBuggy Top 3 as drivers now get ready for 3 rounds of qualifying in Pukekohe tomorrow.

Asked to sum up his seeding performance, on nitro buggy Noble said, ‘the car has been pretty good.  I had a bit of an average run in the second round but the first run was really good.  The car was still good for the second seeding, I just didn’t drive great.’  Explaining his SP2 effort he said, ‘I got pushed down the driver stand to the whole other end so it was a bit of a struggle as I was seeing things different but it’s alright.  The main thing is the car was good.’  Asked about this year’s track layout, the 18-year-old replied, ‘it’s very fun but it’s getting challenging with all the holes and bumps.  I’m enjoying it.’  On tyre choice, he has been on 3-different treads since getting here which he has since narrowed down to two opting to run TZO500 in soft compound during the day and supersofts in the morning.  Trying TZO’s 200 in final seeding he said while they were good, the 500 were a little easier to drive.’  Transferring set-up and tyre choice from his nitro to eBuggy, he said in electric his best run was in the second round when the track was slower so he’s confident he has two good cars for qualifying.

A podium finisher here last year, despite coming up short on one of his fuel stops, McBride said his biggest challenge today was a lack of sleep.  Only getting in at 2am this morning after his flight from Australia, the World Championship finalist said he doesn’t function great on 4-hours sleep.  Describing himself as ‘driving a bit crazy’ in the last run of the day due to the lack of sleep, they ‘changed a couple of things over the day and overall the cars feel pretty good and they are moving in the right direction.’  Asked his thoughts on the track layout, he replied, ‘It’s good.  At first glance I didn’t think it was going to be too technical but it’s super easy to overdrive and it’s starting to be more rough now so that’s going to factored in as well obviously.  When you get it right it extremely fun to drive.’  Running a pair of unsponsored Team Associated buggies, he said he has probably only run the nitro buggy twice before this weekend and today is his first outing with the eBuggy.  As a former factory AE driver he said while a lot has changed since then a lot of it is pretty similar to what he drove with just updated parts.  He added, ‘I felt pretty comfortable pretty quickly’.  On eBuggy he said, ‘this morning I had to get the feel for the electric again because I haven’t driven it for a while, I’m just getting in the groove.’

Completing the Nitro Top 3 in nitro seeding, Jamieson feels he is in the ball park going into Friday’s qualifying.  He said trying the TZO500 tyre for the first time in supersoft in the second round of seeding had made his Sworkz ‘very easy to drive’.  Running the tyre option first on his eBuggy together with a few set-up changes, the Kiwi said together with that set-up plus further small tweaks to mainly the rear end resulted in ‘a huge improvement’ in the nitro buggy’s performance.  On the track build, the 24-year-old said, ‘I’m enjoying it, it’s a pretty basic layout but I know it gets quite bumpy and rough.  It’s not bumpy obviously yet, it’s got a little bit of ruts here and there but nothing like I am used too here.  It will evolve.’  On his consistency for qualifying he said, ‘that last run I did a complete run and did 10-laps which is quite good around here.  It felt comfortable and easy to drive.’  Fourth in both classes at the Asian Buggy Championship last year, a fuel gun issue causing him to flameout a number of times in the nitro final costing him a podium finish, Jamieson said he is expecting more of himself this year.

Summing up his day, 11-year-old Dylan Toia said, ‘It was a bit of struggle at the start of the day but then towards the end we got it working.  That last seeding round I strung two laps together and that put me Top 4 going into qualifying.’  Asked what he had struggled with he explained, ‘the car just wasn’t locked in in the rear really so we text JQ for some advice and he said to put his DNC rear end on and we went to that and it was definitely way better, more locked in, overall way more grip.’  Looking forward to qualifying, 3 of the 4 rounds making up tomorrow’s schedule, he said, ‘I have high expectations of myself going into tomorrow but we’ll see what tomorrow brings us’.  On tyre choice he said, ‘it’s more compound than tyre choice, most tyres work here so it a matter of which compound to use.’

Another member of the Mayako Youth Mentoring Program, Jayden Edmunds would finish P5 in Nitro and Electric.  Asked how his day had went, he said, ‘The first round of nitro buggy was good and my 5-minute pace was consistent but I struggled a bit in the second one.  I tried a few things and I don’t think it worked so now we know what to do for tomorrow.’  On electric he said, ‘it’s been tough but we’ve been making improvements every run’. Asked what he struggling with the 19-year-old said, ‘just with finding pace and being comfortable with the car.  I focused more on getting my nitro right and now that that’s decent I am starting to switch the focus to getting the EP on pace as well.’  Enjoying working with JQ, Edmunds said the Finn has been busy on WhatsApp helping him with getting up to speed.  On the track the Aussie said, ‘it’s pretty fun, it’s not too technical a layout but with the bumps coming through that makes it technical.  It’s only going to get harder.’

Topping eBuggy seeding Dawson, 2025 his first full season with the WIRC Buggy thanks to support from Rouge RC and also his first year on JConcepts tyres, said, ‘The whole day with the eBuggy has been really good.  We were battling with compounds as we are still learning to understand the JConcepts.  I have been on greens which are supersofts and I have been going to blue which is soft.  I have been liking the greens more but I have been hesitant based on the temperature as to not nuke the supersofts but in the second seeding I ran blues and I sacrificed half second a lap but first seeding round was good enough.’  On nitro buggy, the 19-year-old said he didn’t have outright lap speed so he took out some rear toe which he said ‘overwhelmed it’.  For Q1 he will put the toe back and adjust the front instead to try to give it some more there instead of releasing the rear.  He added, ‘The cars are the same but I can’t set them up the same, the eBuggy set-up just doesn’t suit the nitro.  So there is still a little bit of work to be done.’