Raukawa International Raceway

Great morning everyone,

It's been slightly better weather so far this week and everyone is walking a little taller, feeling a little happier and generally feeling better about themselves!

And while you are on that high, we have just had another 3 Sprint cars arrive in stock, so you can have that feeling for a lot longer! These are the Red/Black cars with the included Spektrum SMART batteries, so if you are new to RC, don't worry these cells and chargers take all the mystery out of RC ownership. These cars are $895, and the S155 charger is $125, so you can pick up today and living your best life within 20 minutes!! Give me a call or message to secure yours today!

We also have round 2 of the Indoor series next Sunday, so you still have another few sleeps to sort your cars and get ready to rip the Astro!!!

This week I have seen some posts from other Speedway tracks in the US, and seen the prep work getting the surfaces ready, and boy, they are amazing. It's been really interesting looking at the machines they use, and how they prep, which has been great to see. Also interesting that some pack the surface and others leave them loose and wait for the track to come in. So long and short of that is I reached out and now it's like the RC family has found a long lost relative! So to all our new found family in the States, welcome to New Zealand - Raukawa International Raceway and the Citrus Bowl Raceway and we look forward to seeing how it's done from the home of Dirt Oval.

And finally this morning we wish our new members from Freyberg High School as they are now on their way to Switzerland to compete in the H2GP race, and we look forward to seeing how the team go. It's been so good to see how our new drivers Ben and Kiana have developed since Feb, and for the next trip to Aussie, Indy and William will be in control and we look forward to their results in August!

Right, wrap up warm, keep thinking positive sunny outdoor dirt racing and we'll catch you'all next Sunday!!

Hulio

Thanks everyone for a great day of racing! So good to have the track setup so early, and then the racing smashed through and then a packup in plenty of time!! So good!! Congratulations to you all for your contributions and to the many new or first time racers indoors and the great number of people that called in for a look. I'm sorry I did'nt get to you or back to you, give me a shout during the week and we can sort you out!
Big thanks to Glenn and Jimmy for their help on timing during the day, we will see you all in 3 weeks for round 2!

Link to the results will be in the comments so you can check out how you did and things you have learnt to improve for next time!

We also hit the big 1/2 Million race laps on LiveRC to day, so looking forward to the one, being the Million!!!! That will have to be a celebration.
One thing we have'nt mentioned yet, is at the conclusion of the last round we all head down to Speedway Bar for an ale and chips to celebrate the indoor season and a debrief of racing!!

See you all next time

Hulio

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All righty peeps, event is created and loaded, check your heats, we will do a transponder check for round 1, Qualifying is 2minutes x 2 rounds, we will keep you all in the same heats for round 2 and then resort for racing.
We need to "MOTOR" through the day to get it done, so please make sure you are ready, at least 1 RACE PRIOR to yours to make sure you are ready to go as soon as the last one finishes or we will simply runout of time to complete the day.

Right trailer is loaded, cars are in, battery are charged let's do this tomorrow - PS its's forecast to rain tomorrow so we are spot on to indoor racing time!!!

Please read the last post regarding how setup works etc, If I seem grumpy, it's because I have a job to do in the morning and talking slows me down, so please come and chat, but wait until we are up and running to do that.

Cheers

Hulio

Well its only 2 more sleeps until we head to the Manawatu Cricket Association building on Park Road for Round1 of the 2026 Indoor series!! So what better time to review the process!!
1. Doors open, bring your gear in and then help bring track in.
2. Nets back, other gear against left wall, Stands/boxes over to left hand side of doors.
3. Tubes out, layout track then tape all joins with 1 360’ rotation.
4. Hulio will set up timing, sounds, loop and prep day. Once track is sorted a call for registration and payments will occur.
5. Finally set up your pits, and ready to start race at 10am.
6. At end of day break track, move boxes back, clean up.
7. No eating inside building, please go outside. All rubbish into our supplied black bag, not the bin in the hall.

Finally, try and get your entry and payments through today so I can load and put heats up here. If you don’t then we are all waiting for you! Out of club visitors that may attend because of weather cancellations, flick me a text/message/call so I can get you in on the day!! Always happy to see you’all!

And finally, 2 rally cars left in stock, 2 trucks in stock and a couple of favorites here as well!!

Cheers
Hulio

Allrighty, it's going to be a busy week here, so all RC related visits will need to be Wednesday 3.30-5pm this week, so if I need to order anything it will be here for the weekend.

If you are thinking of entering, throw your entry in ASAP so I can get the programs all loaded up and running. We will have to do a little R&M on the track on Sunday morning, but let's get us entered in first so we can get to that point!!

We have a few more rally cars, a few more trucks and buggies and Juniors to enter, so rattle your dags and let's get cracking!!!

Tires are under control for those that have pre ordered them, I have a stack of used ones here, Ill bring them on Sunday help your self.!!

Right, that's this week until Wednesday, Entry link in the comments

Hulio

Round 1 Indoor entry forms now on NZRCA - New Zealand Radio Car Association website for next Sunday - Website preloaded entries from last year, these have been deleted this morning, so please reenter your details from now. I have left the first 2 entries loaded in - Thanks Ben and Stephen. And Ill just leave this here....

Hello everyone, what an amazing weekend we had, still buzzing!!! Thank you all for supporting the Freyberg High School team as well, it all helps them head overseas for the H2GP. It has been great having the team come out and discuss the project, their futures and plans for further engineering education, feels great to be able to at least contribute a small piece of life for them!!!

Tonight there is no activity here as I have another appointment, but we are now only 10 days away from Indoor Round 1, so I will be doing a tire order tomorrow, if you want any please reply so I can get these in for you.

Right have a great day, see you on the 14th at the MCA!

Well it's been quite a day coming back to earth after a great weekend of RC racing to finish off the Super5 Series for 2025/26. The highlight for me was the 17 juniors we had racing in 1 heat, chaos but heat 2 was actually really good once everyone got sorted and understood what happens.

In 2025/26 we congratulate the following Super5 Champions and thank them for their commitment to the series and allowing not only experienced, but younger and upcoming racers to test their skills and share experiences around 5 different tracks and clubs.

Juniors
1. Charlie Croad 342 2. Spencer Croad 329

2wd SCT
1. Matt Lester 348 2. Noah Dudley 332 3. Brook Lester 322

4wd SCT
1. Daniel Contreras-Rojas 395 2. Bentley Chapman 343 3. Warren Coles 335

2wd Stadium Truck
1. Corban Coles 290 2. Stephen Humphries 261 3. Noah Dudley 254

E-Buggy
1. Kasey Dawson 295 2. Corban Coles 270 3. Daniel Contreras-Rojas 251

2wd Buggy
1. Julian Hardy 295 2. Kasey Dawson 261 3. Corban Coles 240

4wd Stock Buggy
1. Corban Coles 282 2. Matt Lester 233 3. Brook Lester 216

4wd Pre96 G27 Vintage Buggy
1.Stephen Humphries 290 2. Elton Tauwhare- Lambert 250 3. Glenn Coles 250. (Tie break applied)

4wd Modified Buggy
1. Kasey Dawson 295 2. Julian Hardy 260 3. Brook Lester 238

2wd Pre96 G27 Vintage Buggy
1. Julian Hardy 290 2. Elton Tauwhare-Lambert 270 3. Matthew Evans 251

And a thanks as always to the clubs for hosting the rounds, and to We Cut Shapes for the round and series trophies for 2025/26.

And now for my second favorite part - Stats! for the 2025/26 series we are down on numbers from last year, with reasonable and logical explanations for all the variances, but still require reasonable and logical fixes to improve the situation for 2026/27 series. As I highlighted at the prizegiving, here are the suggestions I am recommending to the clubs to adopt for next year. 2 Double header weekends, Gizzy & HB plus Masterton & RIR with a single CMR round. This frees up 2 weekends across a limited season and gets the whole series done in 3 weekends. Secondly adopting the RIR race formats, R1 Random Draw, R2 Reverse Finish order R1, and R3 is points, from highest to lowest, and therefore if the pole sitter wins the final race, they win the day. (and for those that think this does not work we run this same race system here for 5 years and have fine tuned it and also it aligns with full sized motorsport more) I'm not asking for any feedback on this here, I will discuss this with the club reps, but just putting this out there for all to understand.

And now the bit I'm sure you are all waiting with baited breath for: the numbers!! 24/25 season we had 268 racers, 767 cars and ran over 22117 laps. For this season we had 208 racers, 558 cars and 14968 laps. This is a 27% reduction in cars, 22% in racers and 32% in total laps. While this is quite a chunk, the reality is that we are 5 clubs, in very different positions, in different sporting stages, and variances of this quantity do deserve a look into and to ask some questions but more importantly help and support those that would like it to improve the overall position. In no means does this mean we are in grave danger, nor that 1/10th offroad racing is in trouble, (I can nearly explain all the variances myself) but instead it does require strong leadership, strong planning and getting everyone on board with facts rather than hype.

So that's a wrap on a great 5 race meetings, I have loved every bit of it, I'll be in touch with club reps shortly regarding dates and series updates and then we will get it out for everyone to be part of the 2026/27 Super5 Series as soon as we can and once again we will celebrate all things off-road in the heart of 1/10th Off-road racing in New Zealand.

Yours in dirt off-road racing

Hulio

Super5 points updated some are nearly decided some are super close, all will be revealed tomorrow afternoon!!

Holy moly a few more sct trucks so Ive reordered the races, added a sct heat so please check this final list for tomorrows starting heats
ta
Hulio