Doors opened at 8.00 am for the second round of the Area 5 championship 2007 held at Oakland's. Thirteen racers competed for the 3 Falcon powered classes.
Saloon
With best 3 from 4 to count Chris Thomas top qualified with consistent 33’s with his dad second just over a lap adrift. Martin showed improvement qualifying 3rd overall. Chris Aldridge qualified unlucky 13th and missed out on a final on his first visit to a club outside Leicester. Dave retired from the C Final after only 5 laps, leaving Ben, Bob and Christopher to fight it out. After 3 minutes Ben won from Bob to take 9th and 10th respectfully. Youngest Racer of the Day Christopher Aldridge finished 11th. The B Final was a clear win for Ralph after a destruction derby between the other 3. Sandy recovered after a slow start and her home track advantage showed as she passed Kevin during the last 20 seconds. Trevor rounded off the B final. The A final saw Chris Thomas shoot off into the lead which he held for the whole 3 minutes. After 2 minutes Graham held second place closely followed by Martin. Woody had a few offs which put him a lap down. With 30 seconds to go, Graham came up to lap Woody and lost his rhythm resulting in an off which let Martin through into second place.
Formula 1
With best two from four to count Chris Thomas again top qualified with 67.52. Ralph joining him in the A Final with 65.11. Martin (64.82) and Graham (63.97) made the B final. With two divers moving up each time, we started with the F Final, which saw Dave retire after 24 laps to give Chris and Christopher promotion the E Final to meet Trevor and Kevin. In the E final Trevor and Kevin showed their experience and eased into the D Final. Sandy came out winner of a closely fought final with all drivers on the same lap with 30 seconds to go. Kevin again progressed beating Bob and Trevor who was getting low on tyres. After winning the D Final Sandy struggled to match Woody and Ben who held second for most of the race. However a very intermittent brake problem on his controller allowed Kevin to sneak through with Woody into the B Final. The B Final was a fast and frantic start with Graham leading after 30 seconds from Martin and Woody. Kevin had an off, which left him half a lap down. Graham had a few off’s caused by low tyres and had to retire on 28 laps. This left Martin in the lead. Woody followed Martin home in second to make the A Final. Kevin’s run had come to an end, but with 4 finals he definitely had his value for money!
The A final saw Chris and Ralph fly off into an early lead with Martin and Woody tangling on lap 2. Chris led by about 10 foot from Ralph with 30 seconds to go but Ralph settled for second and dropped back by 40 foot. Martin ran out of time finishing half a lap down on Ralph. Woody struggled with new tyres on his car and stopped on 24 laps but was happy with 4th overall.
With the best single score from two run to count Chris Thomas 34.43 and Martin 34.19 looked to have secured two of the places in the top group and had to wait to see who would be best of the rest to join them. Graham and Woody joined them with 33’s. Dave was bottom qualifier but decided to drop out of the finals, so there were 3 groups of 4. Group 1 was won by Ben with 124.90 which would prove to be good enough for 7th overall. Group 2 saw Sandy lead for eleven and half minutes only to be passed by Ralph with a 34 and 33 in his last two runs which was good enough to take 3rd overall. Bob and Kevin finished within 3 laps of each other to take 8th and 9th behind Ben first group score. Group 3 was all about Martin. With a total of 136.17 he averaged just over 34 for the 4 runs. Second after a few offs and problems with too much grip was Chris Thomas with 131 and Graham had a few problems in his last run with low tyres to record 130, not enough to beat Ralph’s B group score. Woody struggled to match his 33 from the heats to end up 6th behind Sandy.
All in all a good day. I would like to thank Dave who collected the money and helped on Race control, Ralph/Sandy for Tea & Coffee and a special thanks to Kevin for supplying the food. Congratulations to Martin on his first Area 5 win, hopefully the first of many.
Report by Chris Thomas