Bowen travelled to Dunedin last Friday to participate in the RTR Nationals. The competition was held on Friday night, Saturday and Sunday morning.

I drove down to Dunedin with my Grandad on Friday morning and we went to open practice in the afternoon. After practice there was a race briefing and I noticed there was one other junior and he was 13 years old. Everyone else was an adult and much older. They had all been racing for most of their lives. The first race was the GT Classics and this is the kind of car in this photo. I finished around 16th out of about 19 competitors. I wasn't happy with my qualifying time so I had to race in a lower heat. 

On Saturday we had to be at the track about 9am and my next race was in the muscle car and I thought I drove really well and placed around 14th. I placed higher than my Grandad so I was pretty happy with that. My next race was the formula 1 race and in the practice my gearbox stopped working so Grandad gave me his car to race. I did pretty good in that race too. The last race was the GTA and I finally persuaded Grandad to let me race his purple car and I found out it didn't have a lot of grip like our home track. I felt really good about racing this car because I've wanted to for ages and it's my favourite. 

Between the races I asked lots of questions, listened to heaps of advice, learned how to adjust how I race. I really learned a lot from other competitors. I finished15th in the competition. I wasn't expecting to win anything and felt really proud of myself for my achievements. I came away with a certificate, a trophy, a cool car and a voucher for the Nelson Slot Car shop. I'm hoping to spend that on buying a new Formula 1 car body.