Report by Barkley Abernethy

With the rain causing problems at our home track over the winter I decided like a lot of the guys to make the trip to middle Ireland for some winter running on Navans all astro track. 4 from 5 rounds count towards the winter series.
The track has a mixture of testing areas with slow off power corners, balls out jumps and is a real test for any car, mistakes on the triple double will break your car on any given lap.



With 4 round gone and 400 points I went into the last round with nothing to loose already having enough points to secure the championship.
Taking TQ from round one and two gave me the front of the grid for the 30min final.
It started off well and after the first 4 laps I had pulled a good few seconds on 2nd place Mark Harron. Coming up to a back marker I got sideswiped and lay on my roof for what seemed like an eternity before the marshal set me back on the track. Righted I was now back in 3rd place and feeling quite flustered.



With the first round of fuel stops coming up I knew I could make some time up as the others where coming in at about 7 and a half mins and we where on for 10min stops with the 21 TUNED GRP engine! The GRP Engine was giving me very good fuel mileage and could stretch to 13 or so if needed! By the 20min mark I had mark only a couple of corners in front and all my stops done with him still to pit made for a close final few laps.



2 minutes from the whistle and Mark was only 6 seconds up on me when I made a mistake and clipped the pipe on the entry to the triple, but as nitro can be cruel (to my advantage) Mark stalled allowing me to pass by just a few seconds before the buzzer went making me a lap up and giving me a perfect score for the series. The XRAY XB8EC has been very good throughout the winter with little needing changed in the set up all year.

Barkley's round 5 set-up