McBride wins at the 2018 Keilor Invitational

0 Feb. 13, 2018, 8:49 a.m.

Main Photo: McBride wins at the 2018 Keilor Invitational

By Mike Garrison
LiveRC.com

Race Report from Ray Munday:

Kyle McBride has won the modified Invite Class at the 2018 Keilor Invitational, Ausrtralia's outdoor equivalent of the Reedy Race in the US. Held every year at the Keilor club in Melbourne, Australia, racers battle it out in summer over 5 heats of 2wd and 5 heats of 4wd for the title of champion. Unique to this event, an invite class is also held for the popular 17.5T class and open classes allow racers to compete for direct invitations to the 2019 event. A junior class is also offered for the under 16 racers in the very strong junior scene.

As always the club created a brand new layout for the event, with the 2018 track being very fast and flowing with lots of undulations. This created spectacular high speed freight train racing which required patience and aggression. Mother nature threw typical Melbourne changeable weather at the track, with everything from hot sun to wind and rain, but the track grooved up spectacularly throughout and kept racers on their toes choosing the correct tyre. Racers travelled from around the country for the event, with over 120 entries received. The race was run and commentated on by the one and only Leigh Cheeseman, the 2017 Stoick Invite winner sacrificing his place in the event to help ensure the event ran smoothly as well as keeping everyone entertained on the mic.

Modified Invite:

Multiple worlds A finalist Kyle McBride was the hot favourite for this event, and started strongly holding the overnight lead after the 2wd races. Big surprise of the 2wd day was Lachlan Munday, the 12 year old taking a heat win and several top 3 places to finish only 2 points behind Kyle with his father 'Old Man Munday' Ray 1 point further back. 4wd day saw Ray claw back the 3 points to Kyle, with the 2 racers tied on points at the end of the event. By virtue of 1 more heat win than Ray, Kyle took the title for the 2nd time from Ray with Lachlan Munday finishing a popular 3rd after tieing with Cameron Zammit, who made a big comeback on 4wd day after some bad luck on day 1.

Stock Invite:

The stock field was also deep with current and past national champs and state title holders in attendance. But it was Mathew Parsey from the Sunshine Coast in QLD who laid down the law on 2wd day, pulling out an impressive lead to put himself in a virtually unbeatable position after day 1. Day 2 in 4wd and locals Rob Jones and Ben Howard scored the best results, but Parseys lead was too big and he took the title from Ben Howard, local Gary Carvajal a popular 3rd after consistent results in both classes.

Modified Open Classes:

Qualifying was all about Jordan Isergin, the 13 year old rising star from Keilor who took a clean sweep of qualifying in both classes to claim double TQ from Jon Philpot. In the 2wd final Isergin cleared out to take the win and seal his place in the 2019 Invite class, Philpot in 2nd and a big effort from Sam Savage to finish 3rd, racing a homebuilt 2wd converted Tekno.

In the 4wd final, Isergin bolted to a lead but had some technical issues allowing Philpot to the lead, chased hard by another fast youngster Carter Sims. In the end Philpot took the win to also get his spot in the 2019 Invite class, Sims finishing 2nd and Tasmanian Callum Mitchell rounding out the podium.

Stock Open Classes:

In 2wd, Luke Chmielewski took TQ from Callum Mitchell and Drew Robson. Robson got ahead early in the final, but Luke reclaimed the lead on Lap 4 and didn't look back for the rest of the 7 minute main, taking the win from Robson and in 3rd place was another local junior Nathan Facciol , racing in his first major event since 'graduating' from the junior class.

In 4wd Nathan Krohn took TQ from Chmielewski and Facciol, and while they finished in qualifying order it was a very close final with all 3 leading at one stage and all 3 separated by only 3 seconds after 7 minutes!

Junior Stock:

The Victorian racing scene has focussed a lot on junior racers in the past few years, and the hard work is paying off with strong fields of juniors at each event and a number of fast kids now running in the open classes. For this event 12 juniors raced hard, with the added bonus of meeting Aussie superstar Kyle McBride and getting a special prize of a wheel signed by the worlds best at the Reedy Race in January. The winner received a body which Ty Tessman used on his 4wd Xray at the Reedy Race! In qualifying it was a tie between Camden Camilleri and Brian Lawrence, TQ to Camden on tiebreak with Claude Camilleri 3rd. A big crash shortly into the final saw Camden drop down the order, leaving brother Claude to lead until lap 8 when Brian Lawrence took the lead and pulled out to take a well deserved 10s win. Camden fought back to 2nd from Rob Holliday and Claude in 4th. Special mention to Shelby Bloss in 5th, a young lady who has been impressing people not only with her attitude and hard work but also her ability to sell raffle tickets!!

The 2018 Keilor Yokomo Invitational was an incredibly successful event thanks to the efforts of many people from the club as well as all the racers who travelled to support the event. Keep an eye out for the 2019 edition of this fun race!

Photo credit: Ben Howard