The last weekend of July saw an improved Wrexham track as the venue for the ninth and tenth rounds of the 19 turn National Championship. Last year the track was relatively bumpy and low in traction but since then the track has been re-surfaced. As a result the now smoother track surface provides increased traction and the addition of a banked corner at the end of the back straight has vastly enhanced the circuit over what was already a superb layout. The curbs are formed from the same tarmac as the track allowing cars to ride most of them heavily, but it was of course down to the drivers to sort the good ones from the bad to find the quickest way to get around the all new Wrexham track. A hearty ‘well done’ has to be said to the Wrexham club on all of their hard work to implement the recent improvements.

Saturday Practice
On Saturday it was quickly evident there would be two guys battling for the top spot on the grid as well as the win on the Sunday. Both Chris Kerswell and local driver Dewi Jones were very fast with Christopher Delves the fastest of the rest, a tenth behind on the fastest individual lap. The atmosphere at the track was relaxed and with the dry weather prevailing the drivers in attendance managed to get a lot of practice around the technical Wrexham circuit. Steve Lissamore, who had been having troubles at previous nationals seemed to have found good form and was on the pace this weekend. Come the evening though the weather had closed in and showers would be the order, leaving the prospect of another national of wet weather racing for the drivers.

Sunday - Race Day
Sunday morning arrived and although the track was damp due to over night rain, a little wind and sun saw the track dried out by the first round. This did mean however that the track would be damp in patches for most of the practice session. The two Chris’ went out on the LRP intermediate wet tyres but didn’t seem to have any major advantage over those like Dewi Jones and Mark Musgrove who chose to run slicks.

Qualifying
Chris Kerswell set off first in the top heat, his first lap sub seventeen seconds showing that both he and the car had the pace, but on the second lap disaster struck and a mechanical fault caused him to pull hard left as he entered onto the back straight. This allowed Christopher Delves to take up the lead, which he held for a short while until Dewi Jones started to show his true speed and put on some pressure. As the five minute buzzer went Christopher and Dewi were the only ones to make the eighteenth lap; a small mistake going into the banked section at the end of the back straight dropping Christopher back and allowing Dewi to take TQ in round one.
In the second round Chris Kerswell was out to prove that he could continue the pace he had set in the first round - just before he pulled off. Starting from the back of the pack he worked his way through the field taking the lead in front of team mate Christopher who was also improving on second run tyres. By the finish though Chris Would overtake everyone with the exception of his teammate and take TQ by a substantial six seconds in front of Dewi, Christopher and Mark Musgrove who were all within a second of each other!
Going into the third and final round of qualifying Chris decided to conserve his tyres for the first final and decided to run on two run old rubber. Fellow teammates Christopher and Steve opted for new rubber as did local man Dewi in a bid to snatch TQ on home soil. Dewi and Christopher were on for improvements on new tyres, but a small mistake on the banking caused Dewi to lose the lead handing it over to Christopher. The rest of the race was very close with Dewi being slightly quicker on the infield than Christopher but at the end of the five minutes he managed to once again get in front securing second place on the grid, 0.03 seconds in front of Christopher! The A final was set. Three Schumachers, one Yokomo, one X-Ray and five Corallys.

Leg 1
Leg one saw the obligatory coming together in the first corner, this time involving Dewi and Christopher, which allowed Chris Kerswell to take the lead and start to put some space between himself and the rest of the pack. Thanks to the incident Christopher found himself in last place with a long fight through the field to get back to the front. A lot of the time to be spent racing fellow team mates Richard Thorpe and Steve Lissamore. Chris Kerswell meanwhile continued to maintain his lead with Dewi hot on his heels, but as time ran out so did Dewi’s chance of taking the lead. As the five minutes ended Chris took the win from Dewi with Daniel Fallows making up good ground in all the carnage to end up third. The race to the line was between teammates Christopher Delves and Steve Lissamore. All down to the last corner Steve managed to get his car down the inside of Christopher’s and after being side by side on the exit of the banking pushed in front to take the lead position by a little over a tenth of a second!

Leg 2
After the adrenalin rush of the first leg the second final was a lot cleaner, for the first few laps all the cars were just holding position. Christopher managed to keep with Dewi and Chris for a bit but just couldn’t hold on to the pair, his attention being focused on the ever closing Daniel Fallows who was on the move up from sixth place on the grid. Daniel’s pressure paid off and saw him past Christopher and off to chase the lead pair.
Dewi was on a mission in this final and drove extremely well, calling on all his home circuit experience. A small coming together would drop the pair back closer to Daniel, but Dewi allowed Chris to regain the lead showing good sportsmanship only to come back once more, this time passing Chris and never looking back. There were lots of battles going on throughout the field, but once again teammates Christopher Delves and Steve Lissamore was probably the closest, this time Christopher maintaining position to take fourth in this leg. The man on the move in this final was Christopher Clark, taking 6th position at the end of the race from 10th on the grid.