BRCA 8th Circuit Round 1 Halifax 2026

Halifax played host to the opening round of the championship, British weather played a big part, with a near wash out to Saturday practice, Sunday forecast was better but still produced a mix of showers and slightly drier weather.

So tyre choice and timing was the key, we had a good entry of drivers across both electric and nitro classes with a few newcomers trying 8th circuit for the first time and someswapping to different powered cars i.e. nitro/electric.

Cars

In electric the Serpent 990e remains the most popular chassis with a few also running the new Shepherd released. Nitro is very much a mix between Serpent, Mugen, Shepherd and Infinity.

Qualifying

This was very much potluck and weather dependent as if your run was on a drier track you were clearly going to get a better time and with FTD qualifying used it meant it was important to get a run without any issues.

In the electric class Glyn Beal managed to take TQ from Mark Green which was impressive considering Mark’s recent dominance, ahead of Mark Boothman now running Serpent and Michael Walton. Debut’s for Hayley Baker, Ralph Crampton and Cameron Felton who were all having their first 8th electric class outings in the tricky wet conditions.

In nitro Alex Thurston remained dominant with his Nova powered Mugen taking a fine TQ from Michael Lee, Richard Boult, Daniel Bancroft, one David Spashett (Shepherd), Ashley Gouveia, Sam Snell, Andy Hastings, Jon Withington and Mark Gilliland all lining up for the 30 minute A-final. Craig Hook just missed out getting BQ and Tim Wood wasn’t able to get a clean dry run meaning he would lineup in the B-final this time out.

Finals

With a number of runners opting to not do the finals due to the weather conditions we were down to one electric final with 3 legs to be run.

Race 1 saw Glyn win on a wet track from Mark G and Alfie Wadsworth taking a fine third, in race 2 the track improved and Glyn won again giving him the overall win from Lee Chapman with Mark G not finishing after a car issue. Thomas Jefferson would hang on to third from Alfie.

Into the final leg with a much drier track and all to be decided behind Glyn, Lee Chapman would completely pull away from Mark Boothman and Thomas Jefferson. Meaning the overall positions would be 1st Glyn Beal, 2nd Lee Chapman and third place Mark Green.

Nitro finals

First up was the C-final which was a close race with tyre choice being very important as it got drier as the race went on, with lap times improving in the 2nd half of the race, it was a close battle between Vincent Meron and Rob Mckenna with Vincent taking the win from Rob and Dean Miles taking third place.

As the B final blasted off it was the reverse to the previous nitro final starting off as a relatively dry track but soon more rain fell and lap times got slower, Craig Hook and Tim Wood ran some quick times but Tim was to retire, George Briggs would eventually take the win as Craig had an issue late on leaving him second and Lee Holland a few laps back would take third.

The A final was an eventful finish to the weekend, the weather that had made all previous track time unpredictable had finally begun to clear up. Throughout the race, track conditions improved and lap times dropped, drivers swapped to dry tyres which provided a significant improvement in pace. Alex Thurston (Mugen Nova) took the win, followed by David Spashett (Shepherd) and Andrew Hastings (Shepherd Nova) to round off the podium. Daniel Bancroft also showed impressive pace, putting in the fastest lap of the race.

The next rounds are at Brookland for a double header taking place 2-4th May.

[Photo credit to Donna Boothman]