Going on Charlie's theory.
Build it and they will come.

i thought about holding a buggy/board race at fiztroy beach in New Plymouth.

First up who is interested to travel to the naki for an event? its abit out of the way so i'm worried i'll have little interest. particularily from the auckland crowd.

anyway the the beach here is ever changing and provides some unique challenges. First of all i got all annoyed that it wasn't hard as hell. but then i've come to enjoy the challenges.

The beach changes on a daily basis. you could have hard as hell one day and full of rocks and puddles the next.

So... if i hold a race here it would not be a straight line drag around flags. there'l be soft bits of beach, hard bits, wet bits, possibly rock gardens with fist sized rocks, water ruts, undulations massive puddles and the list goes on. It would require picking a line through the various conditions to get to the flags and back.

Is this the sort of challenge you buggiers like or is it too hard?

Your beaches are fine. My lasting memory is that they are wet and there are rocks.
We had a bunch of western circuit events in the Naki. We had the Taranaki Toast in 98 with one day on Back Beach and one on Fitzroy. We had a couple of 5 day road trips that rolled Through. we had a great 5 buggy race from Waiwhakaiho to the river by East End and back. There was a field of rocks that we had been tip toeing over all day. When we were racing no one slowed down. I thought I had that one in the bag but Paul Crafar passed me for the win with only a few hundred meters to go. We have ridden Mokau a few times and even had the 1996 NZKA NZ buggy open at Eltham. Perrin won that. We had a couple of days on Oakura and a few of us rode on the New Plymouth Horse racing track at a kite fest in 1997.
I believe that the current Taranaki Buggy champ is Brett Cudby who may be enticed out of a 10 year retirement by a meet.

As this is one of the old venues I think if you can get a field together it should earn Western Circuit points.
Taranaki Kawhia Muriwai. That sounds good. Thats sounds better than just 2 points meets.

My wife is always looking for an excuse to go home So I may be available to shout at you all and score and wave the flag. If you can find a Marshall I might even give it a go. Someone has to come last

I'm always keen mate. If I could get away I'd even bring a board to give you some company. In fact once the car is packed with everything the wife and baby needs that's about the only thing that fits unless I stick the buggy on the roofbars. But that's if I could get away - my brownie points expire quicker than I can earn them.

I'm trying to get the northern contingent to offer up Baileys as this year's BBBB venue too.

If by BBBB you mean the Baileys Beach Buggy Bash then Baileys is the only option. we have not had one of those for a good few years. Remember the camp at Redhill. Hopefully it is still there. They were most keen to have us and it was cheap.

The Blue balls is a Waikato event. It does stray from time to time but it is never held in Northland.
If you want a Northland event then you will have to come up with your own silly name and someone will have to step up and make it happen.

This years Blue balls will be held in Kawhia.

If people come from afar can they crash at your place?

I won't need to as I have family there.
When we have an event we pretty much expect that a bunch of folks will be taking over our house. Sometimes they do and other times they don't. If you take the accommodation costs out of a trip it can make the difference between attending and not.

Fat Old Whimp wrote:


I thought that was a blue balls too? Wouldn't have forayed into Dargaville otherwise. Yup, I do remember the camp at Redhill and what occured on the flying fox. That was the year I was prototyping my on C-quad derivative... everyone started kitesurfing after that.

Fat Old Whimp wrote:


Didn't think I was welcome back after I broke the last place in Kawhia. If I strike brownie point lotto to get away I'll make sure to bring a hammer and some nails this time.

As for what kind of Kiwi I am... ...the kind with a family that doesn't quite rough it like I do. Heck the stroller takes up just as much room as my buggy! Looking at a bike rack setup for the small trips too.

i here your pain gusty. i have 3 kids under 6 and there is truely zero time left for manly activities. However if i don't break out every now and then i go postal worker!

Thats my major issue with organising an event. time! if i organise one in np then at least i wont need to stay away from the family.

people can crash at my house. however they will have to contend with multiple kids!

Providing it does not clash with any Prior engagements Brett Cudby and I will be at the Taranki Race.
Brett has been a long time out of the sport but I am sure that it will only take a short while for him to get his form back.

Come on you Auckland lads. If 4 or 5 of you get in a car with a trailer on the back then this trip will be a whole lot of fun.

What about you Ohakune folks? There are 2 at least from there.

Has to be more than 10 years... think I last saw Brett at a Moose in 1998. Does he still make those pretty applique stunt deltas?

IM BACK.... haharrr.

sunny old nz is awsome, and the best news is my van is in the workshop so hopefully ill be back into buggying again as soon as i get my wheels back,its been a while..

its worth mentioning that as soon as i do have my van again i will have 3 spare seats for anybody who dosnt want to drive or needs to share gas (this is me)to any races i can get to, i have however come to the age where ALL of my friends including myself are geting married, all in one summer,so i may find my weekends free for buggying sparce..

awsome race by the looks, welldone charlie for pulling all that togeather,i wish i cudda been their ..but i woulda looked a proper berk with my old 1150 standard arc,my largest kite...i dont think i would have been competative really.
cant wait fora windy day to try my new 2.2 N-gen...lookout all ye with dinky kites!!!

worth mentioning the little hord of small foils that has just appeared on trademe....also including an N-gen and even an small preditor, never flown a preditor but their ment to be fast as hell...but definently worth looking into the N-gen if you want a cheap fast secondhand kite.

to many threads to reply to indavidualy so just go ahead and assume ill be at all events and races unless im getting married!!! or, if somebody eles is getting married, or im at a stag party!!
and as mentioned will have 3 seats spare and room for kit.

may the summer commence...YEEE HAAAAAAAAA

Guster wrote:


I don't think Brett has made a kite in a long time.

i may have met this brett before. not in kiting circles but i belief he's now an RC plane nut? am i correct. One thing is certain I have not seen any Buggiers on Naki beaches since i started kiting. and the grand total of 3 landboarders. thats in 3-4 years. sightings are so few and far between your'd have more chance on catching sasquatch or the lockness monster.

i think brent is the guy i bought my buggy off, that was almost 4 years ago...he has a r/c shop in auckland now. never seen him out our way.

good to see you back anyway Al. You missed a mighty fun race. even though the wind was light. you would have been laughing your ass off when i looped my manta into rextons kite and dropped both of them onto the ground on the very first flag,..... hahaha. i've learned my leson. stay clear of other kites!

did you see this footage

thanks,its good to be back....cant wait to get into a buggy again...iv been twice since the moose!!

awsome vid, cant get over all thoes pilots actualy racing rather thanjust out for a session,its awsome.

shame about the tangle, always a bugger at the start but not much you can do, will be intresting to see what you come up with as far as rounding the flags...maby a hard toeside drift?
what you got in mind??

in answer to your question,yea im up for a trip to the naki, got family their and its where i learned how to fly/dirtsurf!! before i got a buggy!! would be awsome to race their.
got spare seats aswell.

Welcome back from a land of the frozen nozzle young Northy. Good to hear last years' despondencies are a distant memory and finding your way home over ice and knee deep snow has rekindled your fighting spirit.

Question, what new contraption will you be welding first?

i have a couple of idea's in mind AL. The kitesurfers do a nifty slide hell to toeside then downturn/loop a toe to hellside carve.

Theres of course the mad options of kiteloop transition jump. essentially your belting along in one direction wang the kite past the zenith behind you, charge into the air and just keep looping. thats probably the fastest method but requires large gonads and bones snapping if you stuff up too bad.

also depends on wind and kite used aswell.

part of the fun. i'll pratice when i'm next out.

Now that i'm delving into the dark side (kitesurfing) my sessions are split between land and water depending on the day... water is new so its winning the internal struggle an the mo. unless its sub 15knots then the land wins.

think the first thing im gonna make is the kitebuggy balance stand, iv been wanting to make that for ages....and then a new swan neck, i actualy need one of them.
after that itl be after the wedding and il hopefully have enuff cash to invest in some nice tubing and make a buggy, havnt got any big ideas, just a slightly relaxed v-max to start with i recon...

i was thinking, plumbchops...flip the heelside into a toeside and backloop the kite just as you lean on the apex so the kite exits low with heaps of pull to ping you out again and then throw the switch before you pick up to much speed,it looks so smooth in my head.
when i was dirtsurfing you couldnt switch but it was easier to toeside hard and work the kite for pop even tho the kite was behind you ,than anything i could do on the heelside.

Hey Al, good to hear you're back in the land of the long white sand dune.

Cheers

northernal321 wrote:



You bought your buggy off Matt. Matt was always the fastest. He came from a sailing background and had a great eye for a fast line.
Yes he does own the RC Bandit shop in Auckland.

Brett had The RC modelshop in New Plymouth. Before that he made kites under the name The NZ Kite Co.

my god man, you are the undeniable nz kitehistorian....i feellike sutch a newby.

It sounds like Paul is keen to share a ride with someone. He is a couch surfer from way back and he won a race on Fitzroy back in 96.
Once a date is set we need to make sure that all the north enders text each other and get a couple of cars and a bunch of kiters in them.