Gary Baird takes 2015 Irish 1/8th Off-road Champs

The final round of the Irish 1/8th Off-road National Championship was held on the astro turf track in Navan. The usual weather playing games had the drivers need sun cream for the Saturday and a wet suit for the Sunday. Qualifying was mixed for a lot of drivers. The new astro they laid in Navan had plenty of gaps in it that randomly spun your car, but also rubber balls instead of sand, so it smelt delightfully of melting rubber. The man on a mission Alan Scroggie took TQ with pretty impressive runs. Andrew McClean would line up 2nd looking very controlled and starting to give the older drivers a lot to think about while Gary Baird would line up 4th and Barkley 6th. Three of these drivers were separated only by 2 points in the overall championship.

So for the final the weather decided to empty down with standing water appearing in parts of the track and the first few laps would be a case of avoiding dipping in and out of the puddles. Scroggie never looked back, he gave himself a commanding lead by the half way point in the 45-minute race and “machine like laps” continued right to the end where he took a very impressive win. Gary Baird had a glitch at the start and lost a little time, however he drove a fantastic second half to the race to catch Barkley and finish 2nd. With Barkley finishing 3rd and the other two in their positions the overall title goes to Gary Baird with 299 points. Alan finishes runner up again for another year on 298 and Barkley 3rd on 297.

Source: Nemo Racing [nemoracing.com]