Monday 18 February 2013

NEAM racing at Seaham 17th Feb 2013

For more info about racing at this venue, please see:
www.neamrc.co.uk
Sunday nights racing in the North East 6 til 10 pm


Following on from last weeks 3 rolls of carpet and 2 table tops, we had to go one better, 3 rolls of carpet and 3 table tops.

Carpet carpet carpet......
Most people only wanted 2 rolls of carpet, and I think it wouldve been more fun with only the 2 rolls, but we have a lot of newer drivers attedning the club at the moment, which is great .... and it makes it a lot easier with more carpet down.

Table Top Table Top Table Top ....
Thanks to Ian Dalziel, we had a fantastic new table top support to make our corner table top. This was very solid and was a big success. This freed up equipment to build another two table tops one after another. When building, it was anticipated you could hop onto the 2nd table top, but the track didnt allow cufficient corner speed to be carried, and the quickest way over these was to use both down ramps effectively.

A busy practice session ensued, with a few new drivers on the track, getting their first fix of RC racing, great to see.
Racing kicked off at around 19:30, slightly behind schedule while setting up the new laptop. But once setup, the laptop worked great with 33 drivers booked in, and ready to hit the track. We had a full range of drivers, from first time drivers (Declan with his Ansmann X4TE)



to someone who once posted times in the worlds top ten.....Mr Snee using brushless technology for the second time only in an old B4.

From the Worlds 2003:





The track drove really well. Head of team Williams commented that it looked fast at first, but when driven, it didn't carry the speed that it first look like it could have. Great to drive your lines on, and a nightmare to get past a car.

Personally Speaking, my SV2 was going really well, as it has done since I got a setup together on it. I tried minipins in practice, but they were too worn, so I went to yellow minispikes on for this week.



It's really stable on power, and has plenty of steering ...... but it's interesting to note how a car can suit some people, and not others.
I gave a few people a shot of the car .....
Chris Green "I dont like it"
Jeff Steele "Your throttle profile has no power, and it lacks steering"
David Snee "It's ... weird.... really different to the B4"

And so..... after 4 rounds of qualifying, it was a pity we didnt have time to sort into proper A and B finals, because we wouldve seen that storming performances from Mike Pemberton, Ryan Mould, Paul 'Gold Tub Corky' Johnson:

 



...........and .............. the flying  Davey Liddle:



 would've seen them in a 10 car A final! Some super fast laps going in from these guys.





The unsorted A final was kindly captured by David Liddle .....



I had a good race, with a couple of little errors.  I think Snee got tagged early on, and was fighting back from last position.
Mustve been a good race though, as Rob, Nat and Snee finished within 4 seconds of each other.
Click the results to make them readable:




I unfortunately missed vdeoing the next final, as I was marshalling, which was unfortunate, as Mike Pemberton is really getting back on form follwing his break from racing, now that his B4 is becoming less seized up. Scott Tinkler was also flying, and seemed happy with his B4 on the carpet track. Both Scott and Mike finished on 18 laps, 2 laps ahead of the others, with Mike pipping Scott to the line in the B final by 7/10ths of a second, and both drivers getting into the low 16s lap times.

Click the results to make them readable:




C final:



Here are a few laps from the C final:



Again, without sorting the finals, it's obvious Richard Harrison was too fast for the heat.



His qualifying time wouldve put him at the sharp end of a 10 car B final.

At the same time, Dean's super fast form from last week was interuppted a little as he had some issues with his yellow and red B4. With a loaner car (Greg Williams Cougar),



Dean went well, but the minipin tyres and  the limited speed held him back from the previous week's confident form. Next was Declan in a respectable 3rd place with his improving (slowed down) Ansmann, and improved driving.......





 followed by Tyler who put in some really consistent laps for the second half of the race, to get 4th place. ....................



Nathan was looking much happier with his now sorted SX3, but had an unlucky final....




Result:



The next heat .... heat 4, and Davey Liddle would've ended up 6th in the top heat with his storming final time. The consistency of David's laps was incredible, just watching the car, it looked easy to drive, and was hitting the right lines around the track .... if you ignore the first lap, all of his laps were within 1.6 seconds of each other.



Second was Steven Forster, who was fastest in the heat, with some mid 16s hero laps with his X6sqd, but the odd 22s lap spoiling his run.



And Marks car looked great:




Results .... tilt your head:


And finally.... at the end of an unusually late night.........

Heat 5:





With Ryan and Graham both hitting 18 laps on top 10 pace, it was a great race.
Ryan eventually winning by 4 seconds.

The race looked really clean, with all drivers getting into the sub 18 second laps.







Results:


Monday 11 February 2013

NEAM racing at Seaham

For more info about racing at this venue, please see:
www.neamrc.co.uk
Sunday nights racing in the North East 6 til 10 pm

So ... we had the new timing equipment.
Some teething problems meant that despite a 5 oclock start for some of us, we didnt hit the track until 7:45, so there was plenty of open practice, and as a gesture of goodwill by the club, a free nights racing due to the delay.
For a change, it was decided to run 3 rolls of carpet (as opposed to the usual 2), and so  the grip was up quite a bit. This change was welcomed by a a lot of the drivers.



The track was really good, with a really good flowing line, a ripple section, small tricky jumps, and a corner table top into regular tabletop.

Qualifying went really well, with great driving throughout the field.
After qualifying, these were the positions:


Finals followed, videos shown here (apologies, I didnt catch the C final).

Results:

B Final winner David Pack
Runner up Natalie Williams.





Natalie got really close to David at around the 4 minute mark, as David ran wide passing Jason, Nat hit Jason's car and a tumble saw her chances for a win disappear..... shown below:





A final:
1st Chris Clarke
2nd Chris Pattinson
3rd Andy P.

This video mainly follows Jeff leading with Chris Clarke following, and me trying to catch them. Jeff then makes a mistake meaning I had to try and hunt down Chris' Durango for the win, but unfortunately, I was pushing too hard on minipins, clipping a corner and rolled after the sweeper at the end of the straight.

Video also features Paul "Corky" Johnson pushing his Vega B4.1 into the A final mix.



More pictures of the evening:




Keith's Cougar, transparent styleee.....



Paul AfroP hops onto the corner table top, turns, and then down, this is how most were driving this corner, including myself.....



.... but Dexter shows how to jump the tabletop altogether, commited driving as always! .... not many were able to do this .....







shown above ...B Final WInner David Pack .. flat and neat.

and below, runner up Natalie Williams showing more style for the camera....