NE Regionals - 2024 - 4WD Rd1 - NEAM @ Nissan
Track Prep
Ok, we need to get this mentioned first. 1 week ago, speaking to James Chappell, we were reflecting on the efforts we went to hosting regionals. Hiring vans, hiring mowers, getting scaffolding firms in, hunting around town for 30 pallets at 8pm to make stairs ...... another story ....
and now we turn up, plug in and race. Did this happen for the NEAM regional? No.
Some of the lads and lasses, put in tens of hours of hard work, to clean the track surface, the surrounding area and cabin, which tbh, made the meeting the success it was, with most travelling to Nissan, saying it was the best they'd seen the track.... Many thanks to Team Carrahar, Scott R, Andy Kindon, Marko and the Headlams (and others if I missed them), fantastic effort.
Not only did they clean it all up, sludge gone, but they laid a mega track that everyone enjoyed, saying it was the best track they'd ever seen here (it's also the only track I'd never designed and laid :/ )
Race Day.........
2x3min practice, 4x5min qualifiers, 1 x 5 minute final. 67 competitors (66 in 2023), and the sun came out.
Tyres.........
In 4wd, the rear tyres are controlled, and must be Mezzos for NEAM. The front tyre, I still feel people are hunting around for the ideal front tyre. Usual suspects being Mezzo fronts, Fusion v1, or Darts, with some trying cutstaggers... The A final ended up being a mix of darts, fusion and mezzos, the choice coming down to preference and feel rather than one tyre being much faster than the other.
The cleaned track was offering just the right amount of grip, high, but not enough for grip roll, it would be yellows all day from practice to finals.
Qualifying ....
Q1
Suprisingly clean runs from everyone, with the Xrays, Schumachers and AE cars looking smooth and sharp ....... while the Tekno's were a little more wild, left me picking the sand out of my teeth as I marshalled.
.... Ryan and JC get onto the straight
Archie was mega fast, continuing the pace he's had for a few years now. The big change though, is we used to catch him due to his mistakes, and those errors just didn't come. He's adding consistency to his pace, and it's going to be difficult to catch him this season on astro.
Archie took the round with 5 manufacturers in the top 10, Schumacher, Xray, Tekno, AE, Yokomo
Also a notable great start to qualifying by Blake Auld, with a 48 in round, good achievement for a young lad who isn't used to the track in Rd1.
Cake
Not a new Schumacher car celebration, but a well timed cake break. John Richardson's contribution fueled the meeting, literally, as we tucked into the insane cakes and pastries he'd brought with him, along with new numbers for the starting grid and marshall points, and providing the trophies, mega work.
... some say the reason I made zero setup changes was due to eating cakes, and they'd be right.
John was in the unfortunate position of being in a lower heat, as ranking was based on 2023 F-ratings and championship. Despite this, throughout the day John put strong scores in of 24 and 23 ......for the next round at Batley (15th and 16th June) , heats for 4wd will be sorted on the results from NEAM today, and the 2024 championship for subsequent rounds.
Q2
Again, I couldn't believe it, clean runs from most of the field. Speaking to John B, he did comment to say though the track was tough to get fast times, it was also easy to drive clean laps.
Team improvement of the round goes to the Prestons, with moving from a mid 60s score, to 56, and Ryan from a 67 to a 41 in round, some 31 places combined improvement. This beats Team Proctor improvement (Chris and Matty combined improvement of 11), and Team Bowman improvement where JB improved by 20 places to get a stunning 19 in round, but was let down by Archie who failed to improve on his Rd1 TQ.
Dylan Richardson found his true pace, posting a 5 in round, and he's starting to move in the same direction as Archie, from fast and crash, to fast and consistent.
... and me.... well I peaked in this round, and the home track advantage started to disappear after this, but I was over the moon with my 3 in round
Also in this round, top grafter Andy Kindon banking a 36 to go with his 38, top stuff at regional level, and Neal Lewis, Mark Christopher and Craig Lomax, all improving by ~10 positions in this round, - comeback kid Richard Coates going 12th in round (hasn't lost it) as the local knowledge started to wear off, and the visitors got into the track.
Q3
Archie scores a 0. Ryan scores a 2...... blah blah , dull as dishwater them two. Anyway, in the mixer, Dylan Richardson putting in a 4 in round, Paul Mitchell putting in a 3, clearly picking up on tips from Ryan, and PK's newly found confidence that he was actually faster then me in our heat, if only he committed a bit more....
By this time, the sun was blazing, and the sand was coming up, and the track was slowing. Scott Carrahar was finally getting round to 4 tyres on the car of equal wear, instead of axe murderer strategy of new fronts only, but his head is in AE land at the moment, this being his last meeting with the Schumacher car for now, he maintained a steady mid 50s scores, but wasn't really reflecting his potential.
Ben Stephenson got into the top 10 in Rd3 as did Seth Shilto (7), putting the pressure on their Q4 run. Speaking of pressure for the Q4 run, Snee was now sitting with an 8 and a 14 despite having some of the fastest laps on the track due to unfortunate breakdowns and wrapping half of the catch fencing around his car.
Q4
Man Untd in the 90s, 2003 Arsenal team, Man City in the present, Michael Schumacher at Ferrari, The FW18 Williams, Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, Archie and Ryan at NEAM, Yawn. We couldn't get near them.
Liam Robinson woke up in Rd3, he'd been revising Shakespeare in the cabin most of the day, (GCSE week), but stirred from his studies to put a 3 in round .... though with nothing to go with it, he'd be starting BQ.
Ian Headlam heading for his best score of 18 in round 4.
Overall qualifying:
Well done Archie on the TQ, flawless driving at pace. However, you can't enjoy the spoils of victory, so the bottle of fizz is going to the pitman:
Finals
G Final, Flag to flag victory, controlled win by Mark Camsell.
Marko putting in a lot of graft at the track, and a lot more graft with his racing, has come on massively in 18 months. He races both classes a lot and supports all of the local clubs. Well done mate, you thoroughly deserved your final win in everyway..... last year you would've blown that lead :)
F Final - Another flag to flag win, this time from Matt Gill ..... with the chasing cars swapping places, and finding the sand and spinning (Sean Lawton, Jia Huang), , driving Ainscow's loaner car like he stole it.
Well done Neal, and thanks for your help in setting up / running the meeting.
...............but what could possibly have gone wrong with Ryan's car? No idea, but John Wilson is such a likeable chap, I'm sure there was no distractions on the rostrum .... it's all good banter :/
D Final - John Richardson making too many errors, and getting tagged a few times from pole, but who could argue with Dave Dunn's drive from 7th on the grid, to take the win. Looked like Dave was getting more and more used to the car as the day went on, with a 30 in Rd 4, and then taking the final win.
C Final - Andrew Brown gapped the whole field, Martin Heward was out on his pretty much most of the time, and the real race was on between a flying Hudson Knight, Kev Suggit and Gary Wright . Gary had the position most of the race, his Tekno looking easy to drive, but Hudson and Kev's cars looked a little sharper, and though trickier to drive, they ultimately had the pace to get past, with Kev taking the 3rd place. Of course this was Stephen Adams final, and it wouldn't be Stephen's final without him taking fastest lap of the final, and he didn't diappoint. Well done Andrew Brown for the win.
B Final - Liam Robinson, who came to life with a 3 in Rd 4, continued the blistering pace with 21.2sec best lap and took the win, but washed pushed close by Chris Foster who was only 2 seconds further back. Liam took the win with a 13/302, which was good enough for 6th in the A final. Back to the Shakespeare, and good luck Liam.
A final -
Being in the final, I wasn't really aware of much going on around me. One of the funniest parts of the final was coming nose to nose with James Chappell's car at the end of the straight, As the cars sat there, we both applied more and more power, with neither car moving, simply trying to dig a whole in the track / rip the transmission apart. At this point, I realised I was playing sumo with a Tekno, and caved in, at which point we resumed the race for 6th / 7th, something like that.
That being the funny part of the A final, we come to the ...... less funny part of the A final. Archie and Ryan. Ryan taking the in by 2 thousandths of a second according to the lap timing equipment. However, I've heard Archie made a move, and passed Ryan close to the end of the lap, and Archie's car physically was ahead over the line. A lot of discussion was had, and it was decided to stick with the timing equipment result. We didn't really have the mechanisms in place to do anything otherwise, and maybe should be something to consider for a rule going forward.
Despite this, Ryan, Archie, mega driving today, and the rest of the field couldn't get consistently near. Ryan, nice to see all of the hard work get you a BRCA win. Archie, well done, fastest on track today, hope your dad enjoys the TQ fizz.
Archie and Ryan were the stars of the show, but I'm going to finish off with my favourite end to the day .............. Leo Chappell winning top U13, mature and quick driving from Leo, and he was so chuffed to get the trophy. Well done.
Thanks to all that attended, we've got a special region to race in, and I'm looking forward to a mega summer season.
Thanks to David Snee, Matt Hargreaves, Mark Camsell, Simon Hudspeth, John Richardson for the photos.
If the winners want to share setups please add in the comments below.
