Oaklands - Round 2 - 17th May

Oaklands

The entry level was twenty-four, the same as at the first round at Newcastle. However unlike Newcastle this time the entry of four for super production and twenty for Falcon fitted nicely into four man groups. In the first heat Matthew Siddall set the pace with 27.50 laps on Yellow Lane. Only Trevor Tennant bettered this in heat two with 29.17 on Blue lane. Heat three had three home members and Sandy Parker who has been doing very well on recent club nights set the new high score of 32.14 laps with her dad second on 31.92 laps. In heat 4 Martin Ellis who has been to a few Oakland’s club nights whilst working in the Midlands took advantage of his extra track knowledge to be the third person over 31laps. Chris Thomas using the heavier JK with a score of 33.12 laps on his favourite red lane won heat 5. Graham Thomas was second and Martin Jackson, using a Demon, took third with another score over 32 laps. Heat six had the 4 super production entrants. Paul Shepherd took the win by almost three laps to set a new overall top score of 33.37 laps.

 In the first heat of the second round both the Green brothers improved on their first round scores. In the second group all four improved, Trevor winning with 29.51laps. Sandy won the third heat of this round and moved to second in Falcon with 32.87 laps no one else in this heat improved their scores. Group four had no improvements but the top Falcon group all improved. Chris Thomas used the Demon that Martin Jackson had used to win the national’s and set a new top score of 33.49 some 12 feet more the Paul’s super production score. Graham consolidated third place in Falcon while Charlie moved to fourth pushing Martin down to fifth by just 1 foot. In the super production heat only Paul failed to improve. Steve Sargent equalled Martin Jackson’s score of 32.06 and David moved in front of Chas with 29.88 laps on Red lane. The comparison of scores between Falcon and Super production is only given as a matter of interest as there are separate finals for the two classes of cars. Onto the third round and again both the Green brothers improved and this time Matthew did enough to move above Steve Smith. Matthew Siddall set a very good 29.22 laps on Red lane, which would give him a place in the C final. In heat two Andrew Hogg set his best score and moved above Roddy Morrison into the D final. Sandy improved again in heat 3and Dave Homer also improved but his score of 28.58 laps was still only enough for a place in the D final. Ernest Danyi improved by nearly two laps to top qualify for the C final. In the last Falcon race Martin Jackson was the only person to improve. His improvement was by just 3 parts but it was very significant as it took him from 1 part behind Charlie and put him 2 parts ahead which put Martin in the A final and Charlie in the B Final. Both David and Chas improved but remained third and fourth in Super production.

 1/32nd Heat Results

Finals
Having been bottom qualifier Christopher Green drove a good race to win the E final with his brother taking second place by just 6 feet from Roddy. The D final was also won by that finals bottom qualifier. Another very good drive by John Gooding gave him victor over Dave Homer by 35 feet. In the C final Trevor took victory by 2 laps. Trevor did have the advantage of having raced on the new track format on a club night however he had not raced at all recently because the Leicester club have currently lost access to their clubroom. The B final was a good battle between regular visitor Martin Ellis and Charlie Gooding with Martin eventually taking victory by 34 parts. The A final was a bit special. Graham had an off on the first bend and Chris went into an early lead with Sandy in second. Martin was struggling with a few offs and Graham moved into second. At about half distance Sandy was closing the gap to Chris but an off for Sandy saw Chris restore his half lap lead. For the rest of the race Sandy slowly closed the gap. As the power went off she was still on the power and rolled the extra couple of feet that was required to bring her level with Chris. So it was a tie on 55.89 laps. Chris has won the Oakland’s round for the previous eight years and is still undefeated but Sandy probably had the race of her life to chase him down. Martin retired after 32 laps with  stripped gear to leave Graham third. The super production final was a four-lap victory for Paul with Steve just beating David for second place. Paul’s score was just short of the Falcon A final winners but he had no reason to try to go any faster.

1/32nd Finals