12th Circuit - Round 1, Milton Keynes

September brings us to the start of a new seasons racing within the 1:12th Circuit section, this year the first round of the national series took us to Milton Keynes. For the benefit of those who may not know how the section operates it's meetings, there are two nationals run back to back over the weekend. Saturday's meeting is restricted to 19 Turn Spec motors, with Sundays meeting having two classes sports and open modified. Open modified is, as it suggests, completely open to modified motors conforming to the electric board homologation lists for brushed and brushless motors. Sports Modified run motors conforming to the modified homologation lists with the added limitation of a minimum 12 turn armature.

The Milton Keynes Club did a superb job with the building they had available to them, the track at first glance looked to be difficult and I was expecting the marshals for the lower heats and finals to be run ragged, fortunately I was mistaken. The track flowed nicely with challenging aspects for every level of driver at the meeting.

Qualifying on the Saturday showed that the drivers at the top end of the sport had not lost any of their skills during the summer break, with only two and a half seconds splitting the top 4 drivers, with a first time 12th Circuit pole for Chris Kerwell. The A final did not go the same way for Chris who, after the 8 minute marker came in 7th. It was to be the first national win for Matt White who drove at a consistent pace throughout the race to bring home the victory, despite the efforts of Keith Robertson who put in a late charge to finish a fraction over a tenth of a second behind.

Matt White collecting his first national victory, lets hope it's the first of many.

Sunday saw the split classes of Open and Sports modified, the split of the classes has been a controversial decision, and subject to a lot of discussion throughout the summer. The main intention to the split was an attempt to allow the drivers who do not want to compete in the open championship the opportunity to make a full weekend of it, the intention appears to have been fulfilled with only a handful of racers not attending on the Sunday. Open modified saw normal service being resumed with Andy Griffiths holding bragging rights all the way through qualifying. The final saw Andy lead from start to finish with a faultless drive, not bad considering he had to replace his chassis after the final qualifying session. The sports modified saw Jim Spencer fighting off Mark Jewitt and Mark Carter for the all important pole, with Jim holding onto the top spot at the end of qualifying. Jim didn't have it all his own way in the final though, with Mark Jewitt coming through to take the victory.


Andy Griffiths - Open Modified, 1st Place	Mark Jewitt - Sports Modified, 1st Place

Results Summary

A full set of results including current handicap tables can be found at www.bevens.co.uk