Round 2 - 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.

FALCON	BEST HEAT	GAP TO 1st	BEHIND NEXT	RACE POSITION
Chris Thomas	33.49	0.00	0.00	1st
Sandy Parker	32.93	0.56	0.56	2nd
Graham Thomas	32.50	0.99	0.43	3rd
Martin Jackson	32.09	1.40	0.41	4th
Charlie Gooding	32.07	1.42	0.02	5th
Ralph Parker	31.92	1.57	0.15	6th
Martin Ellis	31.09	2.40	0.83	7th
Stephen Siddall	30.19	3.30	0.90	8th
Ernest Danyi	29.69	3.80	0.50	9th
Trevor Tennant	29.51	3.98	0.18	10th
Matthew Siddall	29.22	4.27	0.29	11th
Richard Wallace	28.91	4.58	0.31	12th
Dave Homer	28.58	4.91	0.33	13th
Andrew Hogg	27.90	5.59	0.68	14th
Paul Bucknall	27.87	5.62	0.03	15th
John Gooding	26.84	6.65	1.03	16th
Roddy Morrison	26.82	6.67	0.02	17th
Matthew Green	26.50	6.99	0.32	18th
Steve Smith	25.30	8.19	1.20	19th
Christopher Green	24.43	9.06	0.87	20th

SUPER PRODUCTION	BEST HEAT	GAP TO 1st	BEHIND NEXT	RACE POSITION
Paul Shepherd	33.37	0.00	0.00	1st
Steve Sargent	32.06	1.31	1.31	2nd
David Sargent	29.91	3.46	2.15	3rd
Chas Keeling	27.00	6.37	2.91	4th

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.

	A FINAL	FINAL LAPS	POSITIONS	OPEN	NOVICE
A FINAL	Chris Thomas	55.89	1st A.final	50
A FINAL	Sandy Parker	55.89	1st A.final	50
A FINAL	Graham Thomas	54.00	3rd	45
A FINAL	Martin Jackson	32.00	4th	43	50
	B FINAL	FINAL LAPS	POSITIONS	OPEN	NOVICE
B FINAL	Martin Ellis	53.51	1st B.final	41
B FINAL	Charlie Gooding	53.17	2nd	39
B FINAL	Ralph Parker	52.00	3rd	37
B FINAL	Stephen Siddall	49.00	4th	35
	C FINAL	FINAL LAPS	POSITIONS	OPEN	NOVICE
C FINAL	Trevor Tennant	49.00	1st C.final	33
C FINAL	Richard Wallace	47.00	2nd	31
C FINAL	Matthew Siddall	44.00	3rd	30	47
C FINAL	Ernest Danyi	36.00	4th	29
	D FINAL	FINAL LAPS	POSITIONS	OPEN	NOVICE
D FINAL	John Gooding	48.60	1st D.final	28	45
D FINAL	Dave Homer	48.25	2nd	27
D FINAL	Paul Bucknall	47.00	3rd	26
D FINAL	Andrew Hogg	44.00	4th	25	43
	E FINAL	FINAL LAPS	POSITIONS	OPEN	NOVICE
E FINAL	Christopher Green	46.00	1st E.final	24	41
E FINAL	Matthew Green	44.93	2nd	23	39
E FINAL	Roddy Morrison	44.87	3rd	22
E FINAL	Steve Smith	42.00	4th	21	37
	SUPER PROD FINAL	FINAL LAPS	POSITIONS	POINTS
A FINAL	Chas Keeling	55.00	1st A.final	50
A FINAL	David Sargent	52.00	2nd	47
A FINAL	Steve Sargent	51.00	3rd	45
A FINAL	Paul Shepherd	44.00	4th	43

Team Race.
With 12 teams it was again easy to split the entrants into groups of four. With the Centre closing at 5.30 we decided on 12 min segments which would give us a finish time of 5oclock. In heat 1 as expected Charlie Gooding set the pace with 137 laps on Yellow lane. Eleven laps behind in second where Mean and Green with Tango rats another two laps down. Martin Ellis again used his track knowledge in heat two and put Morecombe security into the overall lead by five laps with a score of 142.47 laps. The top seeds were in heat 3 and Chris Thomas put Baby and the Lad into the overall lead with 146.12 laps while his dad put Symbolics into second overall on 143.02.

In the second segments Charlie again put in a good score of 136.90 for CMG. In the second group Ernest could not match Martins scores and Morecombe security dropped to sixth overall. In heat 6 Martin Jackson increased Baby and the lads lead while Dave Homer did enough to keep Symbolics in second. Laurel and Hardy were still fourth behind CMG but had increased the gap to fifth to ten laps with the SDS team just 36 parts of a lap ahead of Morecombe security. In the third segments John Gooding took over from his dad and had a very good run of 125.12l laps on Red to win the heat. Heat 8 and Martin Ellis was back for Morecombe and his score of 141.91 would move them back up to fourth overall. Martin Jackson had the days best yellow lane score in the next heat to put Baby and the lad even further ahead. Dave Homer improved on his first score by 2 laps which was just enough to keep Symbolics in second place overall with Laurel and Hardy Third less than a lap behind. In the first heat of the fourth segments John Gooding had a few problems and was 11 laps down on his first score but he was still fast enough to secure sixth place overall for the CMG team. SDS easily moved up to fifth but could not do enough to catch Morecombe Security who fourth place would see them in the top group on the Sunday. Baby and the lad secured victory with Chris recording 143.59 laps to give them victory by nearly 22 laps. Graham had Symbolics best run of the day and this coupled to Laurel and Hardys worst run was enough to secure second place by over 13 laps. 5 o’clock and everyone except the Grumpy Old men made their way to Dudley concluded a good days racing. This is not a nasty comment as the Grumpy old men team was made up of Paul Bucknall and Trevor Tenant neither of whom was racing on the Sunday.

Pos	Team	Red	White	Blue	Yellow	Total	Points
1	Baby and the Lad	146.12	143.59	142.89	143.46	576.06	50
2	Symbolics	135.07	133.11	143.08	143.02	554.28	47
3	Laurel And Hardy	130.85	137.21	136.02	137.09	541.17	45
4	Morecombe Security	142.47	133.85	120.21	141.91	538.44	43
5	SDS	134.88	128.16	130.50	134.53	528.07	41
6	CMG Slots	125.12	136.90	114.94	137.03	513.99	39
7	SCD Roadhogs	115.25	134.89	136.29	122.25	508.68	37
8	Mean and Green	117.68	125.08	126.11	119.84	488.71	35
9	Grumpy Old Men	121.91	122.91	115.86	120.59	481.27	33
10	Dads Taxi	124.07	113.09	131.08	110.52	478.76	31
11	A9 Run	128.40	124.16	111.08	105.00	468.64	30
12	Tango Rats	124.07	124.48	110.19	106.51	465.25	29