The 2017 season opener for the 10th Off-Road Nationals took the section just off the M54 to Telford Model Car Club with a full entry on both days of racing with reserve drivers waiting ‘in the wings’ in the hope that places became available.
The track layout had an excellent balance of complexity to challenge all the entrants to the event whilst still having enough space to provide some forgiveness if minor mistakes were made. The pit, rostrum and camping area surrounding the track were all well maintained providing adequate space for their intended purposes, it was obvious to see from the overall standard of the venue that the months of hard work had paid off, a true testament to the club.
2 Wheel Drive Event
Saturday saw the usual protagonists claiming the top spots throughout the 4 rounds, with Neil Cragg taking the eventual TQ spot with 2 round wins, bettering Lee Martins win and second, Tom Yardy came out of the qualifying stages in 3rd place. The rest of the ‘A’ Final was headed up by Paul Crompton making the cut to partake in his first national ‘A’, an additional congratulations should go out to Danny McGee who qualified 8th to make his 100th ‘A’ Final appearance.
The first leg of the ‘A’ Final saw Neil holding his pole position initially but a mistake in the early stages allowed Lee through and forced him to play catch up for the majority of the race, a mistake from Lee in the later stages of the race allowed Neil back into the lead and left Lee leading the offensive. Following several laps of close racing, passing and re-passing between the 2 main contenders it was Neil who emerged the victor.
Leg 2 saw a similar start as leg one with Neil leading the way from Lee and Tom in the initial stages of the race, then a minor error allowing Lee to get through into the lead and leave Neil chasing once again. Tom Yardy was sat within touch of the leaders should they make the slightest mistake, it was only through a combination of great driving from the leaders and the ultimate respect for each other that there was only one touch between the two of them, for which Neil gracefully gave the place back. Lee managed to hold off further advances from Neil and even forcing a mistake allowing the breathing room to take the eventual win.
So onto Leg 3 and the showdown race, once again Neil took the initial lead but this time it was Lee’s turn to make a couple of costly mistakes in the early stages demoting him to third and allowing Neil to set a steady rhythm of 23 second laps to take the victory. Simon Moss came alive during the final leg of the ‘A’ with consistent driving to take 2nd place from Lee. The 2nd place from Simon meant he took the third step on the podium from Tom on the points count back.
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Pos
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Car
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Name
|
Result
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1
|
1
|
Neil Cragg
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2 [ 1 2 1 - 13/ 302.98 ]
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2
|
2
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Lee Martin
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3 [ 2 1 3 - 14/ 323.06 ]
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3
|
6
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Simon Moss
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6 [ 8 4 2 - 13/ 307.36 ]
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4
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3
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Tom Yardy
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6 [ 3 3 6 - 13/ 305.95 ]
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5
|
7
|
Craig Collinson
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8 [ 4 5 4 - 13/ 312.27 ]
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6
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8
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Danny Mcgee
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10 [ 5 9 5 - 13/ 313.78 ]
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7
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5
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Ellis Stafford
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13 [ 9 6 7 - 13/ 311.78 ]
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|
8
|
10
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Kevin Lee
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14 [ 6 8 9 - 13/ 316.45 ]
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|
9
|
9
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Tom Cockerill
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14 [ 7 7 10 - 13/ 312.33 ]
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10
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4
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Paul Crompton
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18 [ 10 10 8 - 13/ 318.15 ]
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2WD Junior and Licence Grade trophy winners:
U13 - Tommy Hall (1st.) Josh Holdsworth (2nd.) Ben Smith (3rd.)
U16 - Luke Holdsworth
Top F2 - Dominic Nunn
Top F3 - Charlie Ware
Top F4 - Ross Nicholson
Top F5 - None in event
4 Wheel Drive Event
Sunday morning, and Tom Yardy was showing the pace of his Schumacher car taking the top spot in rounds 1 and 2 of qualifying leaving Lee Martin and Neil Cragg taking the 2nd and 3rd spots respectively. The third round was taken by Lee Martin, but with a faster time than Tom’s best scoring time, who came in third behind Neil. It left Lee needing a win in the final round of qualifying to take the top spot. With the threat of rain throughout the fourth round Tom set a pace to put him on provisional pole leaving the pressure on Lee to take the win. An early error from Lee left him playing catch up for the remainder of the heat with the eventual result being about a second down on Tom’s time. So a fourth round win securing the top spot for Tom from Lee and Neil. Congratulations also to Dominic Nunn who achieved his first National ‘A’ Final.
With the weather changing between qualifying and the first of the ‘A’ Finals, there were as many eyes on the clouds as there were on the track. The lightly dampened surface meant that all 10 of the finalists were taking it cautiously. For the first 3 minutes it was virtually qualifying order before Lee began mounting an attack on Tom ,only to clip a corner which left Neil to mount his own attack. Time was not on Neil’s side as he crossed the line to be the first finisher leaving Lee one lap to battle for the win. Lee couldn’t close the gap to Tom, eventually finishing a second behind Tom.
Leg 2 brought more rain and the top 3 drivers followed qualifying order for the entire race without any major attempts on position gain being made. The real interest in the race was with the rest of the field where mistakes were being capitalised upon allowing Simon Moss and Danny McGee to come home 4th and 5th behind Tom, Lee and Neil.
With the win secured you might think that Tom would take it easy in the final leg, you’d be wrong... Tom led the race from start to finish forcing Lee to make errors when mounting attacks causing him to fall into the clutches of Neil who made his own errors, allowing the qualifying order to be maintained with Tom taking the win from Lee and Neil.
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Pos
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Car
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Name
|
Result
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1
|
1
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Tom Yardy
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2 [ 1 1 1 - 13/ 312.47 ]
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|
2
|
2
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Lee Martin
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4 [ 2 2 2 - 13/ 313.26 ]
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|
3
|
3
|
Neil Cragg
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6 [ 3 3 3 - 13/ 314.88 ]
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4
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5
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Paul Crompton
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9 [ 5 7 4 - 13/ 322.35 ]
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5
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6
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Kevin Lee
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10 [ 4 6 6 - 12/ 305.80 ]
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6
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7
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Simon Moss
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10 [ 6 4 9 - 12/ 317.33 ]
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|
7
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4
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Dominic Nunn
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13 [ 8 10 5 - 13/ 323.13 ]
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|
8
|
8
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Danny Mcgee
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13 [ 9 5 8 - 12/ 318.80 ]
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|
9
|
9
|
Richard Lowe
|
14 [ 7 8 7 - 13/ 324.10 ]
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|
10
|
10
|
Eugene Galley
|
19 [ 10 9 10 - 11/ 300.02 ]
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4WD Junior and Licence Grade trophy winners:
U13 - Ben Smith (1st.) Josh Holdsworth (2nd.) Tommy Hall (3rd.)
U16 - Lewis Jones
Top F2 - Dominic Nunn
Top F3 – Nick Gurnell
Top F4 - Ross Nicholson
Top F5 - Joseph Cockill
Full meeting results can be found at https://www.brca.org/results
BRCA
- British Radio Car Association