March 21, 2025

McBride finally delivers in Q3 in New Zealand

Kyle McBride finally delivered on the speed he has shown all day at Round 1 of the Asian Buggy Championships in New Zealand by closing out the first day of qualifying with a TQ run in Q3.  Opening Friday’s action with a P2 and then a P3 in Q2, mistakes dropping him of the top of the timing screens in both, the former pro racer again didn’t have a clean run however on the third time of asking he had the pace to snatch back the TQ on the final lap.  Behind the Aussie, the WIRC of Kiwi Kasey Dawson would also end the day with his best nitro run for a result that makes him one of four remaining contenders for the overall TQ going into Saturday’s fourth & final qualifier.  An impressive drive by Mayako’s Dylan Toia saw him complete the Top 3 ahead of Q1 winner Jayden Jamieson.  Having taken Q2, Jayden Edmunds was unable to back that up after he made a tyre change that resulted in his Mayako having too much grip and he was only P7 for the round.  In eBuggy, HB Racing’s Logan Toia backed up his Q2 performance to claim another TQ run and only Q1 winner Dawson can deny him the overall TQ but in order to do so he needs to top Q4 in the fastest time of the weekend.

‘The car was good, the driver still needs some work, I made it hard for myself that win’, was McBride’s reaction to his TQ run.  He continued, ‘the car is really getting good so we are moving the right direction there, I just need to clean myself up.  On this track it is so easy to overdrive and just try to push too hard and that is when the pipes suck you in and you make mistakes.’   Asked his plans for Q4, he said, ‘get a good sleep.  Probably not going to change too much, tried some different tyres and they work really good so we’re going to stick with those.’

‘Almost’ was Dawson reaction at the end of Q3.  The local racer explained, ‘we made a small shock change at the rear which made the car noticeably better. I think the tyres were just a bit too old for that one but I definitely picked the right compound for the conditions, the track was half in the shade.  I had good consistency through the run but it was tough with Kyle.  He crashed 2 or 3 times and went back behind me and I let him go and the last one with about a minute to go I didn’t know what to do so I drove around for 2 or 3 laps and eventually let him go because it didn’t feel right but it’s a tough one.  I mean you’re battling for the lead and they’ve crashed multiple times, it’s not in your best interest to keep waiting and allowing third to catch up.  It’s a strange one.  It’s qualifying and you let the fast guy go but in that situation when you are battling for the lead you kind of dig your own hole but I still felt I needed to let him go but it is gutting to get to the second last lap and still have the lead and I just have a slight messy last lap and lost that.’  Looking to tomorrow’s final qualifier as one of the drivers who could secure pole for the 45-minute A-Main, Dawson said, ‘this wasn’t a situation I expected to find myself in having had a 7 in the first round and DNF in second’, that retirement coming after he pushed too hard and fired it into the fence and broke a link.

One of the young guns impressing here this weekend, Dylan Toia, who set the fastest lap of Q3, said, ‘I had a good start, the tyres were amazing, they caught on just as I went out for my first lap, the Green Falcons (JConcepts) are an amazing tyre out here.  So yeah we got off to a good start, I had a few little bobbles in the middle of the run and then I had a roll on the first corner and got stuck in the pipe which I think cost me 3 or 4-seconds so that dropped me down to I think third, I was leading before then.  From there I sat in third for the rest of the run and came out with a P3.’  Asked about the improvement in performance the 11-year-old said, ‘it came mostly from my driving.  I wasn’t driving too good this morning and in the middle.  I think also as it got later the car hooked up more.  Me and my car are better at the rougher tracks rather than the smoother tracks its just my driving style.  As the track gets bumpier its suiting me better.’   Asked about changes for Q4, he replied, ‘I will see what it is like in the morning and go from there but mostly we’ll just rebuild the shocks and the diffs.’

On his Q3, reigning New Zealand National Champion Jamieson said, ‘I was on target to go good but as I took the lead I clipped the pipe and rolled over so unfortunately that put me out of the TQ position for that one but I think being only 4-seconds off the lead at least I know the pace was there to potentially take that one.’  Asked about tyres having announced early he would have to change pattern to save the last set of tyres he had been using he said, ‘because of how late we ended up running I ended up going on a supersoft 500.  I was about to go on a soft 200 like I did on the last eBuggy one but I seen the track got colder because the sun dropped so I got to run supersoft.’  Asked if he planned any set-up changes for tomorrow he said, ‘not at this stage no unless I think of something in my sleep’.  On the track, the regular visitor to the Counties RC Car Club track said, ‘It’s getting a little bumpy here and there and in that one it was a little hard to see the bumps with the sun especially the whoops because there were shadows all through them so it was a little bit tricky other than that it’s not too rough yet.’

Asked about his eBuggy TQ, Logan Toia replied, ‘awesome eBuggy, terrible Nitro Buggy’.  The 17-year-old driver continued, ‘I left the eBuggy as is and just threw a battery in it and drove it, the car is awesome.  Nitro I went with too soft a tyre and the car was real edgy to drive and I got caught up with traffic that was about it.’  Asked how he could improve his nitro buggy, he replied, ‘my car pretty much works here, it’s just putting the right tyre on at the right time and I picked the wrong tyre then and then I was just getting angry with myself for making mistakes.  Its frustrating.’

March 21, 2025

Chassis Focus – Jayden Edmunds (Mayako)

Chassis – Mayako MX8 25 Limited Edition
Engine – Corsatec CTN7
Fuel – Sidewinder
Tires – Matrix Nebula
Radio/Servos – Sanwa M17 Limited Edition / Mach1 M81SR
Body – Mayako 2.0

Notes – Jayden’s buggy is fitted with a T-works screw kit and a bearing set from Australian’s Plaig Bearings.

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March 21, 2025

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.’

March 21, 2025

Jamieson from McBride in opening Asian Buggy C/ships qualifier

Sworkz’s Jayden Jamieson has taken the first qualifier at the season opener of the Asian Buggy Championships, a last lap bobble costing Kyle McBride a TQ run at the New Zealand event.  Opening the first of the four rounds of qualifying strong to set the early pace, a mistake on lap 3 cost around him 3-seconds and he dropped to 4th but laying down the fastest lap of the run he hauled himself back to the top of the timing screens to go back ahead of Jamieson.  As the only two drivers to go 10-laps, as McBride came around for his final run down the straight his Team Associated got crossed up, enough for the Aussie to eventually cross the loop 7/10ths of a second in deficit to his Kiwi rival.  Behind Top Seed Caleb Noble salvaged a Top 3, the Tekno driver’s set-up not ideal for today’s warmer midday conditions.  In eBuggy, Top Seed Kasey Dawson carried his pace through from yesterday with his WIRC registering the first TQ run ahead of brothers Logan and Dylan Toia.

‘We didn’t change a hell of a lot we just literally put a new set of tyres on and a lexan wing and gave it a go and it worked’, was Jamieson reaction to his Q1 win.  Switching to a harder compound of TZO tyre, he said he made that call after struggling in eBuggy with the supersoft tyre and that was in cooler conditions.  Asked about the wing change he said the switch was ‘just to try it’ but added he was looking for a little more corner speed and hoped this would help.  With the tyre change he said it was hard to tell if the lexan wing had improved things or if it was the tyre that hindered the corner speed a little bit.  He added, ‘the tyre was good at high speed but in the low speed stuff I was just lacking a little bit so if I can get a little more corner speed out of it in the low speed stuff we’re looking pretty good.’

Asked to sum up his Q1 performance McBride said, ‘My run was pretty good in nitro.  On the third lap I had a crash on the right side of the track which set me back a little bit at the start but the car was good and I was clicking off some fast laps, I just probably need to get a bit more comfortable with the suspension of the car so that its a little easier and consistent but the speed is there and my driving is starting to get better and better.’  Asked about changes to his nitro buggy for Q2 he said, ‘we are just mucking around with suspension and we are just going to stiffen it up a little bit cause it feels like my car is doing a bit too much moving on power, so just to get it nice and settled so I can really get in to the throttle.’  Only P6 in eBuggy, describing that as ‘just a bit of an average run’, he said, ‘I am a lot more comfortable with nitro in general than electric and as I don’t race a whole lot of EP it takes me a little more to into the swing of it but nitro is feeling good and we’ve just got to follow along with eBuggy.’

‘It was OK’ was Noble’s reaction to Q1 adding, ‘I kind of just drove the car I had.’  He continued, ‘the car was a little soft in the rear and didn’t have a lot of confidence in the bumps but I dragged a third and finally had a clean round.’  Asked about the change in how the car was working today, the Asian Buggy Championship race winner said, ‘I think it was just because the temperature has come up a little bit higher than yesterday, it is more or less the same car.  I am going to tweak some roll centres and springs and have another crack in Q2.’  On eBuggy he said, ‘it was a mess, the car was too stiff for the morning run so I struggled and had a really bad first lap and made two big mistakes which cost me about 10-seconds but drove back to 5th.  It’s only the first round so nothing to stress out about.’

Fourth fastest in Nitro Buggy HB Racing’s Logan Toia described his opening effort as ‘good’ until a late error on the last when he ‘endoed’ coming into the last lap which cost him a 10-lap run ‘which was a bit annoying as I really wanted a safe run.’  The 17-year-old championship regular explained, ‘So many times last year I didn’t have safe runs and was struggling from the getgo so Top 4 is a good start’.  Asked about changes for Q2 he said, ‘we’ll make a couple of changes to get more speed out of the car, we are missing just a little bit of track time in both buggies.  Kasey was real fast in that electric heat, 31.6 is fast when the track is like this.’  P2 in eBuggy he said, ‘I thought I wasn’t going to finish, it was loudest car out there by a mile, it was like a nitro buggy going around.  The ESC moved so it was rubbing against the centre driveshaft.  We’ve got that fixed now and will go out again.’

Dawson summed up his eBuggy TQ run with ‘the car was beautiful.’  Choosing JConcepts Falcon’s he explained, ‘we made the right choice with tyres and the car was already in really good place, we’ve made very little changes to the car so far this week and there probably wont be anymore made.  I just got to keep doing what I am doing in being consistent’    The 19-year-old continued, ‘I was a little worried if I had Caleb or somebody behind me that I just wont be able to keep my composure but I put myself in a good place on track and traffic was good so I could drive my own race.  I had a traction roll on the last lap but I had enough of a lead.  I am really pleased because I didn’t expect to be coming in with this competitive pace for the weekend.’  With Counties RC Car Club his home track, asked how the track was evolving he said, ‘its great, you just have to be careful, there are certain parts where is it starting to dig out a bit and if you hit it too quick or don’t catch the right angle it will either roll you or fire you offline, that’s what happened to me on the last lap.  I pushed a little too hard into the infield and I think the wheel dug in and I flipped over but it was a factory roll over and I marshalled myself and carried on.’

March 21, 2025

Chassis Focus – Caleb Noble (Tekno)

Chassis – Tekno NB48 2.2
Engine – Ielasi Tuned .21 Terra
Fuel – Sidewinder
Tires – TZO 500
Radio/Servos – FlySky Noble NB4+ / Power HD GTS-6
Body – Leadfinger Racing V2 Beretta

Notes – Caleb is is using Position Sensitive Damping system from Australian company SOTA RC and his buggy is also kitted out with TKO bearings.

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March 20, 2025

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.’