The track is getting a nice broad black line as the foam tyres make their mark.

Today the drivers are practicing in their heats with 10 minutes track time. The early heats got 3 runs this morning and the later heats get 3 runs this afternoon. We started the timing of open practice late in the morning so not all the drivers are listed in Open Practice. Tomorrow the morning is 1 round of open practice for everyone then 2 rounds of "proper" timed practice heats. On Friday we start qualifying heats, continue on Saturday then on Sunday we have the Finals.

Qualifying is on Fastest Time. Finals are double sided tree, with the top 4 guaranteed a place in the Main Final and the first 3 from each sub final moving up. The semi finals are a bit different, with the first 2 going up from each plus the quickest 2 from the remaining 16. If it rains, or rather if we have wet and dry heats and finals then there are some special rules. If that happens we will explain how that works!

We are very busy with the timing but we will try to get some pictures on the site on Thursday.

Thursday 19th The weather is set to change and the forecast suggested it might happen this afternoon. Everyone had 10 minutes on the track this morning then 2 five minute races in the afternoon. The quickest are getting round in under 17s so a 19 lapper is on the cards.

Now that we are in full controlled race mode, all the cars get a thorough conformance check after each race. This takes a while and the Technical Inspection team are working flat out. Below are some pictures of part of the process. Getting the results onto the internet in pretty much real time is keeping our phone link very busy so please be patient if it is a little jerky.  

So who is quick and who is not? You can see this from the online results. David Spashett is the overnight leader with 18/ 5m 0.97s scored in Round 2 at about 18:15 hrs, so close to a 19 lapper! Francesco Tironi was keeping him company in Round 1 but elected to run without a transponder in the second round. In heat 15 Michael Salven was "on" for a 19 lapper but fell off the pace on lap 8 with a 22s lap and then dropped out at 4m 15s.

We know what the cars can do in the dry, on Friday the temperature is forecast to be 10c less than today. It is also likely to be wet.............. 

We have 1 round of practice in the morning, followed by the opening ceremony and then 2 rounds of qualifying heats. More later.

Friday 19th
Last round of practice and 2 rounds of heats today. The weather forecast was bad but the weather was good!

Practise was fast but Heats were faster! 19 laps was never on the cards in practice this morning but in the heats this afternoon it was a different story! In Round 1 the drivers in 14 & 15 were knocking on the door but in round 2 the door was kicked in! Tironi kicked it down in 14, only to be nailed in tech. Mark Green did a demolition job in 15 and survived tech so holds TQ overnight with 19/5m16.29s. Even if the weather holds it may be difficult to beat tomorrow. We will see.

Just as we were waiting for the cars to clear tech this evening we got a call to say our server had failed due to the load of all you people following the results. We checked out the download stats and sure enough mid afternoon the hit rate went off the scale! A few phone calls and some more capacity was arranged on a different server. Many thanks to PJ. The mobile phone nearly melted tonight, but we have managed the transfer. Enjoy...............

Saturday 20th
I'm beginning to wonder how many servers will die in the reporting of this event! Today we have two problems. Our mobile phone link at the track is a fraction of the speed it was yesterday and it looks like our new server is already overloading. A call to the BRCA Webmaster and we arrange to put the data on one of the BRCA servers. That will take some time on a link that is worse than wet string. And there are some heats and finals to time, just to keep us busy!

Back to the racing. Yet another nice day. Perhaps we used up all the wet last week! After Round 3 there are 3 members of the 19 club, Tironi, Green and Spashett, with Teemu Saarinen just outside by two tenths. In Round 4 few improve, significantly Tironi improves his 19 to 19/12.12, average 16.43. If he can keep that up for 45 minutes he will almost certainly win. Michael Salven also improved, from the depths of the field, having previously failed tech and dropping out in R3.

Sunday 21st
And so to the sub finals. My Star Driver has to be Mickael Pontal with his Kyosho v-one rrr, wining the B 1/32 with 69/3.34 (average 17.44) in the first Final of Sunday. He qualified into the B 1/64, coming second and continued to bump right up to the B 1/8 where his car flamed from 5th on lap 17, finally retiring on lap 42 after 13 minutes. This time of 69/3.34 was the fastest time in Finals right up until the A Semi!   You don't need a warm track to fly in this scale.

We all watched young Kyle Branson Bump 21 places from qualifying 48th to finish 27th overall (Top Junior). We'll see him on the top of a podium at this level in no time at all!

And so to the main race over 45 minutes. The top 4 drivers had fresh cars and 6 had cars that had done a 20 minute semi race. No one who bumped into the semis got to the final. Representatives from France (2), the Netherlands (2), Finland, Sweden, Italy and Great Britain (3) and Mugen, Serpent and Kyosho Cars with a variety of Engines and Tyres gave the Final a nice mixture, although the Kyosho cars and Ellegi tyres looked a good two way bet!.

The pre race suspicion was that it was probably going to be a case of how much would Tironi win by, right up until the warmup, when Tironi's pit crew were seen practicing tyre changes. Was this for real or a double bluff? You cannot use power tools in the race pits so tyre changes are not going to be quick. There were rumours that most of the runners would not be changing tyres. Interesting!

On the grid we see Spashett's car in its traditional livery. He has been racing a temporary (Green) bodyshell all weekend. Could this be an omen?

So after the traditional driver introductions, warm up, timeouts etc the race starts and Tironi is off like a rocket with Green on his tail and Spashett holding on for dear life. Lots of incidents in the first few minutes, cars go off, drivers drop down and climb up again. The lead is held by Tironi (L1-6, 35, 40-77), Green (L7-16, 18-34, 36-40) and Vrielijnck for just L17. You could say that Green was dominant for the first quarter of the race, up to the 12 minute mark, but with lots of action behind him. Tironi drops as low as 7th during this period, Green as low as 5th and Spashett briefly to 6th, but of course a lot of this is fuel stops, as the cars are pretty much all on the same lap during the first 10 minutes or so. The Detailed Results have lap/position tables so you can plot the fortunes of all the drivers if you wish. This is a 45 minute race so as long as you are in touch after the first third, you are definitely in with a shout.

After about 20 minutes Tironi, who has held the lead for the last 8 minutes, is coming up behind David to lap him. Going a lap down on Tironi would be a big problem if the tyre change is a bluff, but with Green on his tail we start to see signs of Tironi's tyres giving up and after a big "moment" on lap 78 (20 minutes in) when Green gets ahead, Tironi pits to change tyres on lap 86, loosing about 50 seconds and dropping to 8th. This turns out to be the end of his race. He fights on until lap 100 when he retires from 7th position. From the Rostrum he has a fantastic view of the Race, along with Ben Kelsall who retired earlier. From the point Tironi changed tyres we were pretty certain it would be Green for the win, baring accidents. But accidents happen, particularly in motorsport. At this point Spashett started the long haul in. For the next 15 minutes he chips away at the gap. On lap 141, 40 minutes in and 5 to go, they both pitt for their last tank of fuel, 2 seconds apart. The fuel stop adds 4 seconds to the lap so they are both in the pit lane together! That's when accidents happen! Green's car comes in, gets picked up and is refuelled and Spashett's goes underneath (some think his antenna touches Green's car) to his pit man a little further up the pit lane. Spashet's car gets picked up, Green exits the pits and 2 seconds later so does Spashett. This is it, the final dash to the line. Can it get any more dramatic? Oh YES IT CAN! Green's car was judged to have been refuelled in the pit lane, the punishment for which is a stop go that happens on lap 144. Green comes out of the pit lane level with Spashett and for the next 13 laps we witness a race the like of which I have never seen and I've seen a few RC races! . Race order is changing several times on some laps! At one point I am convinced Spashett overtakes on the back straight on the grass! There are comings together and they just kept going. The crowd are seeing a display of skill plus hearing a Kris Kennedy commentary at fever pitch! Something has to give and it's the Commentary PA! The last couple of laps don't need any explanation, it is a frantic race to the line. At the start of the very last lap Spashett crosses the line with Green on his tail, Green takes the lead in Turn 3, Spashett won't let go and retakes the lead on the last corner before the line Green's car seems to pause and Spashett is through and takes the win. It ends just 4 hundredths of a second over 45 minutes so it is possible they don't know the race is run! .Just after turn 1 there is contact and Green is on the grass, but its all over! As timekeeper I mutter a quite thank you to Mr & Mrs Bervoets and Mr & Mrs Hin.........

For those of you with broadband or a lot of patience, the last 5 minutes are available on video on www.3Hobby.net.

All that was needed was confirmation from Technical inspection, the results to be posted for the protest period and then it was time to hand out the silverware............

It was a final that could have gone either way, with the margin of 1 tenth of a second in 45 minutes it could be said to be down to the line taken in a single corner, never mind a fumbled fuel stop. There are of course three drivers on the Podium. Stephane Deroch drove a superb race. From 6th on the grid he was never lower than 5th and was only 1 lap down at the end. Had David and Mark had a big coming together, 30 seconds and he could easily have been on the top rung. He drove the final with an average lap time of 17.40, bear in mind his car had previously run in a 20 minute Semi with an average of 17.36 . Shades of Prost I think.

So its all over for another year. Will there ever be another EFRA 200mm Final like it? Of course there will and I'll bet there will be one K Branson in there with a shout!

See you all on track some where in the World!

Rob Nelson, bbk Timing Systems.

bbk Timing Systems Team