Remember that the winter gathering is happening in 3 weeks at Kawhia.

Nice beach. No dune riding.

Stiff nipple classic 50km race is set for 1pm Saturday. Winner gets the Blue Balls Trophy and Western circuit points. Open to buggies and boards. If not suitable it will be sunday but will be sat unless an absolute lack of wind. Craig will be along to defend the trophy. If you want to beat him you better have a plan.

Paul and I will be shaing a cabin. There will be 2 extra beds if someone is looking to share. Should be around $15-20 each.

I may be in need of a ride to and from Hamilton if anyone is heading down Saturday morning I could meet you in Ham and pay gas money.

This is the 16th annual meet. it may just be a few guys on the beach but it has as much history as any other buggy meet in the world. Be a part of it.

Have a good one boys. i am out for this one. dammit i'll be in the french alps.... bugger. oh well.

yeah some one has to stop those pesky south island guys coming up and cleaning up....

im their.
will be driving from auckland..have 3 spare seats in the van if anybody wants a lift for gas money.
charlie i could give you a ride if you want??

depending on who wants a lift i would probably drive down friday after work or early sat morn.

looking forward to the race, have a plan to get craig steeming drunk the night before, it just might work!!

yep got that one in mind, and a few brand new kites up my sleeve.

at the least ill have kites in m2 increments so should have perfect power to keep Craig honest . its a tough ask to beat craig though. im hoping for 3 knots and 10 km straights so Yak GT 12m power can come out or maybe manta 10m .

we need more room around the start finish line this time to do full power turns , it was a very narrow entry last time with 15m or so upwind of the start finish mark

yea, i know what you meen, i always found 15m turning circles a bit tight untill i found out you can actualy use craig hansen on the outside as a reminder of where the correct line is

you could always use tour de france road cycling team tactics. have a sprinter, a pace setter, a blocker.

surely the might of the team is better than the might of the masses?

or draw straws for the sacrificial kamizaki pilot. ooh sorry i didn't mean to crash into your kite and get a mighty tangle!... hehe just kidding.

maybe you need ceramic bearings, wheel spats and a super slippery gimp suit to give give you that extra aero dynamic edge. oh and don't forget rounded shoes.

Failing that. Good old fashioned perfect racing, kite selection and buggy set up.

Man I’m jealous(and tired, overworked and underappreciated too) I’ve been considering a day trip but that's a no go too.

Sounds like Al is well suited to the task. N’gens for tangles to spare… could leave one tangled and have another ready to whip out and catch up with the peloton. Then there’s the new secret weapon in his arse’nal… parts originating from Gannet’s arse’nal! The Mooselander or even the new swifty Libre-bike. Add the Bat-kit or the 007-kit like explosive bridle shredding shurikens, self-deployed remote control eddo rollers with manja lines, road-spikes, kite-bolos and of course everyone’s favourite napalm and smokebombs! (I was on a roll)

However getting into a drinking game with an ex-Zimbo may be hazardous to everyone’s health… least you all like to be tangled and kamikaze’d upon. I’d rather go with practice… lots of practice and a bit of luck choosing right kit on the day.

i still think 25m of room upwind of the mark and 50m down wind. euro racers dont stop to do a turn , they carry 50kmph through the turn and are gone again, that needs more room than a scuff slide, and if some one is in the way and you are closing at double the speed you need room. The raglan race was awesome until i got to the start finish line each time overall still a 9 /10 , im just helping improve it for next time. I'll take 50% of the blame for my embarrasing cornering but i still came 4th out of 13 so it wasnt like i was that bad. 1st pro racer, 2nd his mate , 3rd kite shop owner all Vgood pilots too.

Im thinking every advantage is worth while , suit, helmet , buggy, kite, tyres.
if its what you do , do it well and have fun. 50km race would be cool, charley knows how to do it, im just watching and learning so far.

Look out for the Moose TypeR course this year, its in the planning stages.

true true, i honestly have never carried that much speed through a turn,i dont know how... i guess thats why they ended up doing suicide jybes...i cant do a suicide jybe yet, and the only kite i have that you can work that hard to keep the lines tight through a large downwind turn are 3 n-gens a blurr and another n-gen
so everything might be ok.
i dont know how they do it, to carry 50kph through a turn and not have the kite fall out the sky whilst there travling downwind??
the only method must be the suicide jybe, is that right?

im going to go and practice

i recon the main reason we had issues around the flags at raglan was because of the stupidly light wind. had we had 15 knots or so and every one would have had powered kites the turns at the flags would have been easy as.

During the Raglan race it was apparent early on that the mark at the north end was down wind too far. We moved the mark out toward the sea as far as we could and that helped a lot. Unfortunately we did not have a very wide beach and the advancing tide forced us to move the mark back again. While the flag was further upwind there were less rounding issues.

any chance of a triangle coures this year, maby with an upwind turn?
and are we having a shortcoure race if its windy??
and and can we have an icecreem van
im very exited.

It all depends on how big the beach is . I was planning on running a 3 flag course at Raglan in January but we ended up with a narrow beach and had to use a straight course without many options for flag positions.
Short course racing is a good idea as is short course pursuit. I just don't want to spend all my time holding a notebook.
Your van is now the ice cream van. Stock it up.

haha, frekin awsome...altho i dont have an icecream fridge, i can cook plenty of sausages and burgers...id rather be the burger van.

looking forward to any race, i like the persuit idea...havnt tried it yet but i must say i do like the upclose and personal race that standard shortcourse is, and you dont have to have a note pad....
i always felt 4 man knockout (darkhorse) was a good idea for for shortcourse ideas but you need numbers..... idea is first two (winners)go throught to "pro" status and contunue to have knockout trough all the pro winners..the last two go throught to "darkhorse" status and race against the other darkhorses, and in the end they come back togeather for the final race,top darkhorse winner and top pro, like a cruel twist, but the darkhorse winner has earned a race against a pro right?? so the darkhorse can jump to "legendary" status if on the final race he manages to beat the pro finalist...

Te puia Road seems to be the one to aim for

Jimmy22 wrote:


Thats the beach we always go to. It is a fine strip of sand.

See you there.