TLR DARREN BLOOMFIELD 2011 RALLYCROSS NATIONAL CHAMPION

Round 6 of the 8th Rallycross National Championship was held at the Clanfield circuit that wasn't on the 2010 venue and was a pleasant return to the calendar. On arrival to the circuit the track looked in good condition, but the days forecast wasn't looking good and the rain hit hard! Due to the weather and deteriorating track conditions there was a vote that ended up with all the finals being cut short by 5-10 minutes. It was decided that the A final would be 20 minutes long rather than the usual half hour duration.
From the start of the final I knew a clean run was all that was need to clinch the 2011 title, but on Lap 2 I was leading the pack and despite pressure from Elliot Boots I managed to keep it clean and tidy throughout the duration of the final to take my 5th national win of the season and with it the 2011 BRCA Title.

Thanks to my Father and Gale Lewis for being my pit crew at the nationals and thanks to David Spashett for his support during the season.

Simon Reeves takes TQ and Win at Westmill 4WD Regional

The crew at Westmill club have put in a massive effort getting the facility up and running in the last 3 months and after the success of the previous 2wd regional they had made even more tweaks to the track/rostrum. There is one thing for sure and that is this venue will just keep on getting better over time as it all beds in. Qualifying got under way and it was young local hotshot Callum Niblett driving his Durango who kicked off with a TQ run of 12 laps in 17 seconds, second up as Karl Jackson 1.5 seconds back closely followed by Ashley Wiffen who rounded out the top 3 as the 3 only drivers to register a 12 lap run. Round two and Simon Reeves with a new receiver fitted following an issue in round 1  put in a clean run to take TQ in the round with a new fastest time shaving off 2 seconds off Callums round 1 time. Callum came in 2nd in round 2 showing he was a forced to be reckoned with and the top three was rounded out by Ashley Wiffen with his Schumacher cat. Round 3 proved to be the fastest round of the day, Simon Reeves powered his xx4 round to shave a further 5 seconds off the fastest time going seven seconds faster than the field, we now had 5 drivers on 12 laps with Alex Carter joining the 12 lap gang. Round 4 was a messy affair with all drivers have a few tumbles as we all pushed our cars beyond their limits, Karl Jackson piped Simon Reeves by 1 second to take TQ in the round and therefore secured 2nd over all, and Ashley Wiffen took third in the round with another consistent run.

Finals

Leg one and all got away cleanly until the large table top in front of the rostrum, Karl caught the back of Simon's XX4 relegating them both down the field, Callum took up the lead and drove his socks off to hold onto the lead from a charging Karl until a minute from the end, Having worked his way through the field Simon was hot on the heals of the leaders and as Karl made a mistake it allowed Simon through to pressure Callum, for two laps Callum held on but on the penultimum lap Callum took a bend to wide and Simon took the opportunity to get by and take the win.

Leg two was a much more straight forward affair with Simon leading from start to finish to take the overall victory, Karl came through to take 2nd with his Kyosho and Darren Boyle keeping it all together taking 3rd with his B44.

Leg three was a real close affair with Simon and Karl nose to tail for the first 4 minutes until Simon pushed his XX4 to hard at the main straight and grip rolled, this gave Karl the gap he needed to cruise home to take the leg win and secure 2nd over all. Darren Boyle managed to back his 3rd up in leg 2 with a 4th in leg three to round out the top 3 overall

Well done to the Westmill crew yet again another well run meeting!!       

Matt Varah wins SW 2WD Regionals

Tiverton rccc hosted round 6 of the s.w.o.r.d.s. The tiverton club always put on an excellent meeting with a fun and freindly atmosphere. A challenging track which consists of astro and grass greeted the drivers. Team Horizon Hobby driver Matt varah was present with his new Team Losi 22, this was Matts first 1/10 off road meeting so there was a lot to learn.
However Matt made good progress with his 22 and in the last round of qaulyfying took TQ by 1 second ahead of Chris Rowcliffe. A few setup changes to the car before the final however made the car a little easier to drive and Matt led the A final from start and remained unchallenged and went on to take the win with his 22 Followed by Chris Rowcliffe. A fantastic result for the first time out with the car.
 
West Cornwall rccc hosted round 7 of the s.w.o.r.d.s
The west cornwall crew have put in a lot of hard work which has paid off. A new rostrum and an exciting all grass track proved this. Matt Varah was present with his 22 and was turning some real quick lap times. Matt took TQ by 14 seconds and went on to win the a final followed by Paul Field.

Andy Carter and TLR 22 Takes 2011 BRCA Veteran Title

Andy Carter took an impressive TQ and win at the 2011 BRCA End of Season Finals in the 2WD Veteran class at the Silverstone RC Model Car Club on Saturday 3rd September.

Andy’s TLR22 took TQ honours ahead of the defending champion Alec Springer despite both drivers achieving a perfect zero score courtesy of a stunning last round run that saw the TLR driver claim the only 13 lapper in the veteran class and he went on from pole position to calmly claim the title with leg wins in the opening two finals despite some intense pressure from the chasing drivers.

Round 5 of the Modelcar Novamodel Challange 2011

Last round of this important and very popular Portuguese championship, in the new and very nice track of Vilela (Paredes), in the north of Portugal, near Oporto.
60 drivers attended to this race.
Ricardo Monteiro, already winner of this Championship, and former European Champion B 2010 and Portuguese sub-Champion 2011 was TQ, after win all heats, besides a nice fighting with Nuno Rebelo, all over the heats.
After the semi-finals, where all the top drivers passed without big problems, the final was a little bit surprising.
Ricardo Monteiro with the number 1 began leading, but in lap 3 entered into the pit lane to be there during 6 laps. A CVD broken after a long jump. He went back to the race, but was very delayed.
Then Nuno "Tapas" Rebelo went to the lead and went away. Neverthless, in minute 30, "Tapas" passed also to the pit lane, because a damaged glow. It was the time to João Lopes, the young tiger, until the end.
The podium was completed by the veteran and kin driver Carlos Cardoso. A special word to Pedro Sousa, when was fighting to the podium, was obliged to stop because a damaged servo.

Thanks to Luis Freitas for the report

HNMC Winter Series round 1

With heavy rain overnight the start was delayed till 10:30 to allow the track to dry out.

61 racers made the trip the club had kept the same layout since the national as this layout is proving very popular.

The track was tacky in round one but was dry buy round two the club was running four rounds with 20minute finals as this would be the last long race day for 2011.

Simon Reeves took all four runs in qualifying in the buggy class Losi Nitrotec and Mark Gregory taking TQ Truggy class with Losi RB.

Finals

E Buggy 1st Albert Donoghue 2nd Rebecca Stone 3rd Sean Collier

D Buggy 1st Ashley Roat 2nd Peter Bird 3rd Liam Dawney

C Buggy 1st Josh Johnson 2nd Oliver Currie 3rd Jamie Clancy

B Buggy 1st Jordan Howell 2nd Rob York 3rd Gary Brace

A Buggy 1st Simon Reeves 2nd Richard Barton 3rd Keith Newton All Losi Nitrotec and Losi Blockhead tyres Green

A Truggy 1st Simon Miller 2nd Rob Gray 3rd Phil Sagger

Round 2 23-10-2011 Bookin

Thanks to Jim Thompson for the report

HNMC Winter Series round 1

With a rapid change in weather from the week before dropping some 10 degrees saw 60 drivers turn up for round one of the winter series which did feel like the first day of winter, we where greeted with a wet start to the day
which delayed the start of the meeting but the club did a great job in getting the track good to go. Round one and with a clean run Simon Reeves driving his Nitrotec powered TLR 8ight took a commanding lead and with it TQ
for the round, fellow team mate Richard Barton came home second locking out the top 2 positions.
Round two and with a clearing track the pace was picked up, Simon's car fitted with losi green Blockhead tyres was working really well and again putting in a clean run secured TQ for the round, Steve Bisco came home 2nd
and Richard Barton took 3rd Round three turned out to be a scrappy round with the majority of drivers
have a mistake or two. Again the Nitrotec powered TLR 2.0 8ight of Simon Reeves came out on top securing pole position for the round and with it pole position for the Final, Steve Bisco put in a solid run to come home 2nd
again followed by Richard Barton's TLR 8ight in 3rd Due to the slightly lower number of drivers the club decided to run 4 rounds of qualifying and having secured TQ for the meeting Simon Reeves made some changes to his Losi tyre set up looking for more speed, Richard Barton also made a change moving to his favoured XBT/xclipse set up for the last round. This round proved to be the closest of the day with Simon taking TQ by the
slimmest of margins coming out 0.3seconds in front of a charging Richard Barton. Richard was also closely followed by Jon Hazlewood coming in 3rd with his best run of the day just 2 seconds behind Richard

The 20 mins A final started well for Simon & Richard both getting away from the field over the first 2 laps opening up a good lead, Richard took the lead as Simon had a bobble and Richard started to pull a small gap on Simon,
as the first round of pit stops came through it became clear with Richard on a two stop strategy and
Simon on a one stop strategy it was going to be tight with Richard having opened a gap, after Simons first fuel stop the gap between the two was around 4 seconds but a couple of bobbles from Simon as he tried to push to
hard saw the gap grow and after Richard came on for his second stop he was able to get back out on the track just in front of Simon, as the race came to a close whilst side by side as Richard and Simon battle for position
Richard's car got hooked up giving Simon the gap he needed to bring home his Nitrotec powered TLR 8ight for the win being the only driver to make it onto 28 laps, Richard secured 2nd position with Keith Newton taking 3rd position on the last lap bringing home his Nitro Tech powered TLR 8ight in 3rd position making a great day for the Horizon team as we locked out the podium.

Thanks to Simon Reeves for the report

David Spashett Reports from Round 1 of the 1/12th National Series - Ardent Raceway

Round 1 of the 2011/12 BRCA 1/12th scale nationals took place at Ardent Raceway last weekend. Saturdays event was 10.5 motors in ‘blinky’ ESC zero-timing mode with Sunday Open no limit racing. 1/12 scale has gone through a variety of changes in recent times with Lipo, brushless and chassis design changes so it was good to get back on the carpet and notice a few of these changes for myself. The power delivery from the systems is amazing in its consistency and power level alongside the reduced weight of the cars the corner speeds are superb and so much fun to drive.

As with all types of racing product is very important and when things are cut back to such a minimal level as with 1/12 racing preparation is Key. Along with Mark Stiles we both used the Losi Xcelorin 1s lipo LOSB9879 batteries in both 10.5 Blinky and Open mod with great results, finding no issues with run time but good strong power delivery for every 8 minute run, rotating just two packs each all weekend. Maybe stuck in a slight time warp compared to others I stuck with the Parma Zytec body, this offered a great and well balanced car to drive all weekend without seemingly any disadvantages to the newer style bodies on the market today, I intend to try the Parma EE1 body at the next event. Mark Stiles, Mathew Varah and I all used Parma Blackhawk Magenta compound tyres which gave superb traction all weekend with very good consistency in compound helping make the chassis tuning just that little bit easier.

I have read about allot of issues surrounding electronic packages in 1/12 racing so I have been very careful with my installation not to cause myself any problems. I have chosen to use the Spektrum SR3520 RX and the Spektrum 5010 Servo and so far I have not found any need to run an extra receiver pack nor a booster capacitor in the RX to compensate for any issues.

With Ardent being a permanent track the level of competition was very high indeed and very close. Olly Jefferies was very quick both days and really owned qualification, On Saturday some bad luck and some incredibly close racing made for a superb final where I managed to steel the win right at the end with Mark Stiles in second place. In open Mod Olly made sure luck didn't become a part of his race and he cruised on to the win followed again by Mark Stiles. Horizon Hobby UK picked up the team prize both days showing a good solid performance from us all.

Next 1/12 national is on the 19th and 20th of November.