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I’m just back from an epic weekend of casual buggy riding and some hard out competitive racing.

The Peter Lynn crew, representing the south island comprised of Manu, our summer guest from Switzerland, Matt, buggying with one broken leg and myself. We flew up to the North Island to take on all comers at Charlie’s beach in Raglan.

Saturday:We arrived at the campsite late Friday evening, unpacked our gear, setup tents and assembled the buggies that we had couriered up earlier in the week. We were ready for a full on day of wind on Saturday and we were not going to be disappointed. We buggied all day from just after 10.30 that morning until 9 that night and flew everything in our kite bags, including a serious session of retro kiting getting out the 2 liners of yesteryear. Charlie had a stack of Flexi foils, i had a Bob Dawson D-Wing and Manu was on a one of Nop’s very noisy but crowd stopping Speed wings. Man those old-skool kites are fun, I had forgotten how enjoyable they are to fly. We packed up late, leaving the beach having made the best use of all available wind. We only just got a meal in town before it all closed down for the night what a great buggy day. Top speed of the day 81.5 Peter Lynn Beach Cruiser and Reactor II 5.5

Race day: Sunday dawned and there was not a drop of wind so we went in to town for breakfast with a eye on the flags and tree tops. It was quite a slow start but a sea breeze kicked in about 11 and we loaded up and went to the beach, dragging the buggies to the tent where Charlie had set up by the start line.

The old adage of “first up best dressed” was the order of the day, with the first and second person in to the Kite bag snagging the biggest kites Myself on the 10.8 Reactor II and Matt securing the 8.6, leaving Manu out in the cold. The beach started filling up with kites and buggies with lads arriving from all over the North Island and setting up for the day. We all got out for a test ride to feel out the conditions, light on shore with a superb hard flat beach.

Racing started at 1:30 sharp and we were off. It was quickly evident there was nothing that was going to match the pace of the Reactors (Good Job we didn’t bring any Vapors). The difficulty of handling and turning kites and buggies in the light winds was a telling factor, particularly when rounding the downwind mark at the start line where you loose all apparent wind on the turn and it is easy to overrun the kite with the momentum of the buggy. Some of the other race kites were just not able to negotiate the mark without a re-launch. The Reactors however, never even looking like they were going to luff or fold a wing on the turns, quite amazing handling and stability for such a fast kite. This gave Matt and I a significant advantage over the field at every mark. In the end I was able to lap the entire field a lead of over 2 km at the finish line. Matt had to gain second place back after having stopped in error thinking he had finished!!

Peter Lynn put up the prize for the event and we won it back so we re-donated the prize and Charlie organized a grudge match between the back markers. Once that race was over we had no time left and had a quick beer to celebrate and then pack up buggies and kites and drive to the airport in time to catch our plane back to the South Island. Top Speed for the race 48km/h on Reactor II 10.8

What a great event.

Thanks to Charlie and the Raglan Lads, and bad luck to the North Island racers, nice try but you are going to have to get yourselves some competitive kites if you want to save yourselves from another pounding at the next meeting, remember we were just on our run of the mill buggy and we still have race kites in reserve for when you get serious.

Craig - January 2010