27/11/2006

Richard Hicklin wrapped up the title at the last round of the series just piping Tim Wood and Neil Diver by 2 points! while Ian Campbell wrapped up the Junior title in style at round 7.  Here is rough account of how it happened.

A wet start

The season got under way at a very wet Mendip circuit. With a few top drivers electing not to run it was the ideal opportunity for others to snatch some early points. Pete Hastings got things under way with a win closely followed by Richard and Tim.

At Halifax a few weeks later it was considerably drier and the true speed of the top drivers was on show. The Bells were on the pace with their new Serpent/Nova-Rossi combination and Mark Green was soon breaking lap records.  After some bad luck for Mark and the Bells, Neil Diver drove a flawless race to win with his new Ninja engine. Richard was in second and it was already clear that the championship would be wide open.

The next two meetings were very wet and threw up some surprise results. Showing his determination and skill in any type of weather, our ladies favourite Merv Marshall qualified for both A finals.

Midway consolidation.

Back to dry racing at Tibshelf in round 5 and the Bells take their first win at the super fast circuit and put themselves right back into title contention. Tim, Neil and Pete Hastings are right behind Gareth and consolidate a very strong start to the season. 

The championship race is well and truly on, Gareth, Richard, Tim, Neil and Pete are all right up the top. 

Neil Diver takes a very hard fought win at round 6 at his local Crystal Palace circuit followed by Mugen/Ninja team mate Pete Hastings while the other contenders fall victim to the unforgiving nature of the "Palace". 

2006 BRCA Junior Champion Ian Campbell takes his first TQ at Round 7 Halifax after making the best of the intermittent weather conditions. In the dry final the Bells wrap up their second win of the season with their Nova-Rossi powered Serpent. Tim, Neil & Pete follow in 2nd,3rd and 4th. Unfortunately for Gareth this means his title chase is over as his good string of results is not enough to make up for early season mechanical and rain affect races.

With two rounds to go, Tim Wood leads the championship but Richard, Pete, and Neil can all still snatch it. A bad round 8 for Tim, Neil and Pete at Mendip and a win for Richard helps close up the title chase.

The Final

The final round at Tibshelf proves to be a real thriller, If Tim wins or is 2nd he is champion, Neil can win with a top 3 finish if other results go his way and Pete would only need a 4th if the others drop out. Richard needs to maintain his form from Mendip and finish in the top 3 and make sure he beats Neil & Pete.

Tim is the early victim as he comes up short in qualifying amid some record breaking racing and fails to qualify for the A final. His championship hopes are no longer under his control. Richard just sneaks into 9th place with only 3 seconds to spare; Neil and Pete are looking very strong.

The opening few laps of the final that was to decide the championship were breathtaking. Ten 1/8th cars at record breaking pace around the very fast but short Tibshelf is a sight to behold and not for the fainthearted.  On the 5th lap disaster strikes the Mugen team. Neil loses the backend coming of the bank and team mate Pete crashes into him. Pete is out with broken front suspension; Neil's car looks ok. 

By midway Richard has kept it clean and is worked his way through into 2nd place; Neil is right behind in 3rd. Richard's and Neil's lap times are identical but Neil needs to get past Richard and hope Richard drops back.  With 6 minutes to go there is less than 3 seconds between them.  In the last 3 minutes Richard makes his final pit stop, almost unbelievably he taps the pit wall coming in and spins in the pits. Pit man Pete turns a strange colour purple as he dives for the car. Very luckily for Richard its all in one piece and he gets out just in front of Neil to finish 2nd. Enough to clinch the 2006 title.

Final results can be found here

It has to be mentioned.

While the top boys were out contending for the title there was a fair bit going on behind the scenes; here are a few of my highlights.

• Guy Adam discovers it was huge mistake to introduce Frank Chung (a.k.a Mrs Marshall) to red wine.

• Kyle Branson pulled some opening lap moves on a few of the big names at the Euro B's that were astounding.

• Martin Bell and Phil Jones were relived of a few notes after being well and truly hustled playing pool.

• Pete Hicklin's face turned a very strange colour after one to many Perno's in France

• Guy Adam enjoys a 9 hour round trip to Mendip after discovering just 5 miles from Mendip that he has forgotten his gas car.

And finally.

On behalf of all the drivers thanks go to everyone thanks makes the series possible. A special thanks to Eric White and his long suffering family that have spent endless days race directing. Eric has retired from race direction and can now sit back and enjoy the thrills that is 8th IC circuit racing.

Scott

Copyright BRCA