Gary Baird wins at Irish 1/8th Off-road Nationals Rd2

The second round of the Irish 1/8th Off-road Nationals took place last weekend at the AstroTurf track of NIMCC. The track itself is challenging as it is pretty tight, twisty and full on with a pretty quick lap time of below 30 seconds. Qualifying and the weather was playing its part with sun and showers and although it dried very quickly half the track was bone dry the while the other half stayed slick. Alan Scroggie set the pace followed by Gary Baird, Barkley Abernethy and Aaron Vance. For the finals it was the same story with the weather, with clouds in the sky Mini Pins where a no and most in the main final decided to go out with Spirals bolted to their cars so the first few minutes where interesting until everyone got used to the grip level. Alan had an issue and had to retire by the first round of pit stops which left Gary to take up the lead which he did not come close to relinquishing. Barkley had a flame out at the 10 minute mark and spent 35 minutes clawing his way back up to 2nd. Aaron Vance cut a few times and promoted Colin Whelan to a well deserved 3rd while Gary Baird had a cool 45 minute drive to a deserving win in difficult conditions.

Source: Nemo Racing [nemoracing.com]