18th November 2007 Don Valley

Following up from the last meeting at Don Valley we were very pleased to have feedback from the racers about the last round. We monitored this feedback and as a result changed a few minor things throughout the day. We had a raffle, trophies for the top 3 in each final, concourse competition and a flowing smooth track layout which all added to a much better atmosphere. Again we had a full entry of 120 drivers battling out for the win in 27 turn, 19 turn and modified classes.



Practice started at 8 am and ran till 9.15am. Drivers were given two raffle tickets when they booked in which allowed them to have two practice slots. Practice runs as open practice and most of the drivers drive very sensibly to avoid any accidents although the grip in practice does mean that the speeds are similar through the infield.

With the track more open and flowing the racing was very close and fast. On the large track lap times were in the mid 10 seconds unlike the 12 seconds the round before. Roger Cosgrove joined John Freeman in race control to provide some help for the drivers throughout the race. This proved to add some atmosphere and make all the drivers aware of what was happening on the track. Plus the marshals under the rostrum were race referees so that in each heat somebody covered the standards.



We ran a couple of buggies around to check grip and tyres and found that there was a lot of grip on the surface and most tyres worked well, the Off Road challenge will be an awesome event!



The 27 Turn class was well supported with 50 drivers entered and it was the XRAY 007 driver of Thomas Daley that took the pole position followed by Dave Allen and then Nigel Shaw in third with another XRAY 007. These three drivers were covered by 2 seconds.



The 19 turn class had 40 drivers entered and eventually Liam Brookes took the pole position from Matthew Cook and Leon Morrell. Liam made it for 26 laps and was the only driver in his class to do it.



The modified class had 30 drivers entered and once again attracted the biggest names. Ben Cosgrove took pole with the new XRAY T2 008 prototype from Sam Smith running the XRAY T2 007 with Elliott Harper running HB Cyclone in third. There was 2 seconds covering the top 5 cars on the grid, very close racing! Mirage had a 1-8 position lock out at the end of qualifying!



The 27 turn finals were close as always with Nigel Shaw winning leg one and Dave Allen winning leg 2. This gave the win to Dave Allen as his second score was a second place and Nigel had a very bad second leg which meant that Ben Mather could sneak in to second overall with two 3rd places.

27 Turn Results
1. Dave Allen 3 [2,1]
2. Ben Mather 6 [3,3]
3. Nigel Shaw 10 [1,9] XRAY T2 007
4. Paul Sleight 10 [5,5]
5. Darius Walker 11 [9,2] XRAY T2 007
6. Jeremy Clarke 12 [8,4]
7. Steve Dyche 13 [6,7]
8. Matthew Tuplin 14 [4,10]
9. Adam Howe 15 [7,8] XRAY T2 007
10. Thomas Daley 16 [10,6] XRAY T2 007



The 19 turn finals showed some good racing with Leon Morrell winning the first leg from Luke Humphrey having an excellent drive from 9th on the grid with his XRAY 007 and Matt Dunning finished third with the HB Cyclone. Liam Brookes recovered well to take the second final with Leon in second and Luke Thorley in third. This gave Leon the win from Liam and Luke Humphrey in third.

19 Turn results
1. Leon Morrell 3[1,2]
2. Liam Brookes 6 [5,1]
3. Luke Humphrey 8 [2,6] XRAY T2 007
4. Matt Dunning 8 [3,5] HB Cyclone
5. Luke Thorley 9 [6,3]
6. Matthew Cook 11 [4,7]
7. Mark Jordan 13 [9,4]
8. Michael Ball 16 [7,9]
9. David Allen 16 [8,8]
10. Adam Richardson 20 [10,10] HB Cyclone



The modified A final was some of the best racing that has been witnessed at Don Valley with the battle for the win between Ben Cosgrove an Elliott Harper. Ben took the win in leg one from Elliott with Phil Chambers finishing third. Leg two was a carbon copy of the first final but Stewart Noble finished third. Overall it was Ben who took the win from Elliott with Phil Chambers finishing third.

Modified results
1. Ben Cosgrove 2 [1,1] XRAY T2 008/NOSRAM
2. Elliott Harper 4 [2,2] HB CYCLONE/NOSRAM
3. Phil Chambers 8 [3,5] HB CYCLONE/NOSRAM
4. Alistair Graham 10 [6,4] XRAY T2 007/NOSRAM
5. Guy Thornton 12 [5,7] XRAY T2 007/NOSRAM/ORION
6. Stewart Noble 13 [10,3] HB CYCLONE/NOSRAM/ORION
7. Sam Smith 13 [4,9] XRAY T2 007/NOSRAM/ORION
8. Dan Fallows 13 [7,6]
9. Adam Skelding 17 [9,8] HB CYCLONE/NOSRAM/EDIT
10. Nick Simpson 18 [8,10]

Thanks must go to Terry Atkinson of telshells for the images, John Freeman and the crew for another awesome day and Roger Cosgrove and help for the commentary during the day. Also a big thanks to Mrs MacDonald for her hard efforts selling the raffle tickets.



The next round will take place on the 20th January after the festive holidays. We do have the HB Juniors Championships running on the 9th December for drivers 16 and younger. We also have the HB Off Road Challenge on the same day which should prove to be an awesome event with some big air!

Entry forms for both meetings can be downloaded here for the Juniors/Off Road and here for the BIWS series

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Full results can be found here for rd2