[Mark Witham]

Yesterday (Mon 16th Jul) was the first club night of 2012 for Netley now that the track and building work is finished.
8 competitors for F1, with Murray qualifying easily quickest, and going straight through to the A final with Ant.
Paul Haywood won the C final comfortably and moved up to the B with Dave, who was almost caught at the end by Mac and Ted who had strong drives in the second half of the race.

Paul then won the B final after a race long battle with Mark, while Clive and Dave tangled early on and never got back up with the leaders.

The first half of the A final saw Mark and Murray side by side for the whole 3 minutes, with Ant and Paul still in touch on the same lap. After the change, Murray had some problems with the braid, and a few offs damaged his gears. Ant moved past Mark and held him off to the end winning by about 20 bits, with Paul third - still on the same lap.

Next week (23rd) it's Sports (gp12 motors with a sports bodyshell).
See you all then.

Mark

 

[Mark Witham]

It was handicap F1 last night at Netley - handicaps being applied to everyones single best run to determine places in the finals. Richard set the early pace in heat 1 with around 23 laps in 3 minutes, with Mac and Clive quite close for second. Murray did a big 22 in heat 2, but then hit a parked car under the bridge in heat 6 and struggled for the rest of the evening to straighten a bent chassis. Mick had a clean run to win heat 5, and Dave had a good run on yellow in heat 8, chasing Murray all the way. Ant did 2 22's to qualify for A final on handicap, while Ted had his best run of the day in the last heat on the unfavoured black lane, and Dan made the best use of yellow to post his best time and book a place in the A final.

The D final was dominated by Murray and Richard, doing mid 23's in both segments to take the 2 'step up' places into the C. Mark added a lap and half in the C final to his best heat time to edge out Richard and Dave, and join Murray in moving up to the B. Mark still had almost 2 laps of his handicap lead after the first B segment, but hit a car under the bridge, and lost a front wheel. Mac unluckily stripped a gear, and Murray edged out Clive to take the 1 remaining place in the A final. Paul had qualified over a lap clear on handicap, and dominated the A final from start to finish with 2 clear runs. Ant almost got back on the lead lap and finished second, Murray set a new F1 lap record of 7.0 to finish 3rd, while Dan had his rear axle tighten after an off, and lost a few laps sorting the problem out.

Several racers are at the 1/24th Nats this weekend - good luck to them, and next Monday is Bank Holiday, so our next race night is Wednesday 29th (sports) - see you there.

Mark

 

[Mark Witham]

Monday Oct 15th - GT1
Murray and Richard set the early pace with a series of 23's and 24's from Mark, Ant and Chris. Dan had 'blown' his brake resistor in practice and was racing with a borrowed controller. He did 21's in heats 2 and 5 which placed him 4th, but he slipped down the field as others got better 'dialled in'. Dave was running smoothly with a car that was down on power, but keeping ahead of Jamie who was putting in successively faster times as the evening progressed - from a first run of 17.72, he finished the first half of the evening with a 19. In the second half, Mark set a new lap record for GT1 with a 6.8 sec lap, but spent too much time in the barriers to challenge the leaders. Ant improved in the second half by 5 laps and Chris by 4, to secure 4th and 5th at the finish. The best race of the evening was heat 14, with Mac, Chris and Ted running close together for the whole 3 mins behind Murray, Mac just holding off the other 2 for second place. Final runs, saw Mac post an excellent 23, and Jamie get into the 20's for the first time. The penultimate heat was the decider for overall 1st place, with Richard needing to post a 24.41 on yellow to win - a distance he'd achieved on each of his previous 4 runs. A tangle under the bridge on lap 1 however, resulted in 'ruffled' braids, the end of his challenge, and left Murray a worthy winner.

On Saturday week, Ant will be taking his 6 lane portable track and cars, to the annual railway exhibition in Chichester. Any help anyone can give him will be much appreciated, and would give us the opportunity to show some pictures of our track, and hand out some contact detail flyers.

Good luck to Murray and Ant at the Luton S32 this weekend, and see you all on Monday for Saloon : Production / Super Production with saloon bodies. 4 runs x 3min, fastest to count for ladder 2x3min finals.

Mark

 

[Mark Witham]

Racing at Netley yesterday was F1, and a lower turn out than usual.
In heat 2 Dave had a great run, chasing Murray all the way. Murray's 23 put him top of the open qualifying, but Dave's 22.36 was a pb, and was the quickest of the night on handicap. Mac and Ted both had good runs in heat 3 chasing Richard, with Mac's 20.70 run being good enough for second overall on handicap. Mark was having trouble keeping teeth on his gears, and didn't feature all evening. Richard had a clean run in heat 6, but Ted's 19.95 on yellow gave him 3rd spot on handicap. Heat 7 saw Murray post the fastest run of the night on Blue. Ant and Mac had a great battle in heat 8, Ant's yellow run of 22.39 put him 3rd overall and top spot for the B final, with Mac finishing just over a lap down on red.

Mac led the C final all the way, and was 'flagged off' before the finish as Mark and Ted had terminal car problems. Ted's problem was later traced to a motor spring having come off, and when replaced, the car ran as well as usual - bad luck. Dave was unable to reproduce his earlier heat times in the B final, and Ant had 2 good runs to win comfortably from Dave and Mac, and take the last A final spot. In the A final, Richard had a great first run on red, holding Murray (on black) all the way, and Ant finishing on the same lap. Murray moved to yellow for the second run, and was unstoppable. He built up a comfortable lead after Richard de-slotted on the return straight necessitating a track call, though an off near the end meant he only finished about 30 bits ahead of Richard, with Ant just over a lap down on Richard - quick runs by all 3 ! Handicap finishing positions were : 1st Dave, 2nd Mac, 3rd Ted, 4th Murray, 5th Ant, 6th Richard, 7th Mark.

Sports next week (10th)

Mark