Carpet Wars 5

It’s that time of the year once again where we all venture indoors to race on carpet in order to escape that harsh British winter weather. Carpet Wars kicks off most peoples winter season being the first major indoor race of the season. The series is now in it’s fifth year and still going strong with thirteen heats of racers booked in to compete against one another for the first round.

The track remains a massive 32 by 24metres, providing racers with one of the largest indoor racetracks in the UK and allowing even the rapid 3.5 brushless motors to get up to speed. The chosen control tyre for the series this year is the slightly harder VTECH 27R tyre that provides good traction and lower rates of wear.

The usual top drivers were in attendance for the first round - Olly Jefferies, Elliott Harper, Chris Grainger, Sam Smith, Lee Woodhams and Glenn Doman were racing, but the likes of Chris Kerswell, Nathan Parker and Christopher Delves have swapped their 19turn motors for brushless this year, competing now against some of the top names in touring cars. Kevin Brunsden has made a change to 19-turn for the indoor season too. After spending the summer racing one-eighth off road he now finds himself up against likes of David Reece, Jon Painter and David Soul who have been competing in 19-turn throughout the year – some good competition to come there then. In stock the championship looks to be very much open. Dave Ringsell, Nathan Morgan, Bryan Loynes and Neil Castle have all booked into race and each of these drivers have the potential to take the win. Bryan Loynes is possibly starting out a favorite after his success at the KO GP back in August.

A slight change to the race format sees the day made up of four qualifying runs and a single final, so no second legs to pull back in any longer, the winners will be decided on their performance in one race. As per normal, 4 out of 6 of the meetings will count for the championship and this year there is a club championship running as well.


	The start practice saw low grip conditions, but as the day went on the track provided more and more traction as the cars laid the rubber down on the racing line. This meant that each round proved faster and faster with the final round of the day the fastest. Stock threw up a different TQ man each round, but it was be Bryan Loynes who took TQ and put in the extra lap in front of Nathan Morgan and Richard Clarke. The top three drivers were covered by just five seconds, with Dave Ringsell putting his PHI fourth on the grid with a solid drive in the final round of qualifying. Three seconds separated the other six drivers, showing how competitive the field is in this class. 19 turn was a very different story. Kevin Brunsden dominated the field and ended up six seconds in front of David Reece. Dave Soul managed to place himself third on the grid, improving in the final round and Mark Young and Iain Bone both had a good day putting themselves ninth and tenth in the final respectively. Modified was ruled by Olly Jefferies throughout the day. Chris Kerswell put up a good fight and at one point during the heats and took the lead and FTD from Olly, but small errors made for big incidents and Chris ended up fifth on the grid at the end of qualifying, but not without showing immense speed throughout the day. Chris Grainger had a few issues but still managed to place his Yokomo third behind Glenn Doman, who drove superbly in the final round to be the closest qualifier behind a flying Olly. Christopher Delves put himself seventh on the grid, narrowly missing out on the extra lap by just 0.01seconds. Like his teammate though he made a few mistakes throughout the day that kept him towards the back of the grid. Nathan Parker qualified tenth with a superb drive in the final round with Lee Woodhams really putting the pressure on his fellow teammate and National Champion Chris.

27turn Final
The start of the final saw Bryan Loynes capitalise on his pole position. With Nathan Morgan following in tow the two drivers broke away from the rest of the field leaving them to fight amongst themselves for the remaining podium position. Third, fourth and fifth changed three or four times during the course of the race before it was finally settled. Neil Castle starting tenth on the grid managed to work his way up through the field to third, but a small error off the end of the main straight a lap from the end gave Dave Ringsall third position. Steve Henry had a torrid final dropping from fifth on the grid to ninth after getting caught up in some incidents and unfortunately coming off worse. Whilst all this was going on Bryan and Nathan extended their lead, with Bryan pulling away from Nathan the whole time to end up five seconds in front. Bryan drove flawlessly in the final, not making a single mistake and showed he would be the man to beat this season. The closest race was between Richard Clarke and Wayne Palmer, who crossed the line 0.4 seconds apart, echoing the closeness that had been seen in qualifying.

19turn Final
Again, pole man Kevin Brunsden made the most of his position on the grid and led from start to finish making no mistakes and showing immense speed with his Corally PHI; a car which has proven throughout the year to be a superb stock car. David Reece did his best to keep up with Kevin, but despite driving a tidy race he ended up around 8 seconds (two-thirds of a lap) behind. This isn’t to say that David’s slow, his fastest lap was a mere 0.10 seconds behind Kevin’s, showing that he has the pace to compete with him if he can maintain it over the full five minutes. David Soul was sitting comfortably in third until around the halfway mark a mistake allowed Richard King through into third. David tried desperately hard to catch back up to regain his third place, but by the time the five minutes were up Richard was three seconds in front taking the last podium position. Mark Young managed to take eighth, almost making seventh with Jon Painter just a mere 0.4seconds in front of him. So Kevin has taken the first round victory along with a strong TQ. An authoritative performance in the first round, will anyone be able to stop him?

Modified Final
Off the line Olly led the pack followed by Chris Grainger then Glenn Doman. Christopher Delves had a sensor failure, which meant off the line his car stopped briefly just after it got going then rocketed off again which must have scared the living daylights out of ninth place man Stew Noble. Fortunately lightening reactions on his part avoided a collision just off of the start line. A big accident involving Elliot Harper, Chris Kerswell and Sam Smith in the complex of turns after the main straight allowed Christopher Delves into fourth. Sam Smith was the first to retire quickly followed by Elliott Harper, both drivers encountering problems in the final after that first lap incident - maybe! Olly and Chris battled hard for the full five minutes with Olly making it very hard for Chris to get past, but at least it finally looked like Chris had got his Yokomo working after a difficult day in qualifying. The fight for third, fourth and fifth was between the Corally team, but Chris Kerswell was suffering from grip roll which dropped him back allowing Christopher and Glenn to race on. With Lee Woodhams in fifth now slowly pulling them in Christopher traction rolled in front of the loop giving Glenn some breathing room and a chance to disappear off up the road! As the race progressed the fight for first continued, Olly went slightly soft on the last lap and Chris got through to take the victory only a second on front of him. Glenn came in third with a brilliant drive followed by the two Chris’ in fourth and fifth just one second apart.


	The Maritime team and Ian Knight ran a superb meeting, something that has become the norm at this club through the years. The next race is the 11th November and is sure to be as fast, close and exciting as this round.

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