Fastrax Summer Series – Round 2
CML’s Iain McCallum reports back from the Fastrax Summer Series held at the UK’s most fun focused racing club, the SNRC.
Round two, held at the excellent Stoke Nitro Club and run by Jared, Mick and the crew, was upon us once again. The weather man had predicted heavy rain at intervals so I didn’t hold out much hope of a dry day! My suspicions were confirmed as I poked my head out of the window on very murky Saturday morning with the sky covered in thick black cloud. Slightly downcast I set off for the track with full rain gear in tow.
When I arrived however there were traces of blue sky and by ten in the morning the sky was clear with the sun burning everything and everyone in sight. Fully clothed I was now in for a warm one. Thank you Mr Weather man.
Buggy
Lots of good drivers in this class today so I was anticipating a close race and was not disappointed. Round one went to Dennis Holding with an impressive first round time of eight in 318 followed by Mark Redmond, just three seconds behind Dennis, and Steve Webbs and Adrian Dean a further second behind Mark. The top five in round one separated by just ten seconds.
Round two saw a change to the order with national ‘A’ final winner Simon Willets taking top spot and beating Dennis’s time by one second. Dennis stayed in 2nd and Mark 3rd, both with no improvement. Adrian did improve his time but not his position with Scott Francis taking fifth spot from Shaun Reeve’s impressive HoBao Hyper9.
Round three again saw Simon improve, stretching his lead to three seconds from Dennis who was still holding 2nd place with his round one time. This round saw all but Dennis in the top five improve but with no movement in position.
Qualifying finished with the top six split by just fifteen seconds. After a restarted ‘A’ main due to cars jumping the all off, Simon was the first over the line with Jason Fowler coming over next from 6th on the grid, Mark was 3rd with Dennis in 4th. An impressive second lap saw Mark up to 2nd, Dennis 3rd, and Scott down to 4th. This remained the order of things until two laps after the first eight minute fuel stop where a coming together on the back straight between Dennis and Mark saw the unfortunate Mr Redmond’s car upturned and Dennis nick 2nd spot. Mark seemed to loose his head for a couple of laps allowing Dennis to open a gap but by the second stop in the twenty minute final he had calmed down and set about catching Dennis. Meanwhile, Simon was driving a very constant and fast final showing us all how it should be done; very tight lines, lots of corner speed, and most importantly NO mistakes! Simon won the final having never really been threatened, victorious by one clear lap. The race for 2nd went down to the last lap with Dennis taking the spot with just eight seconds to spare. Scott Francis drove an awesome race to come in 4th from sixth on the grid.
A special mention goes out to Ashley Haynes who had a nightmare qualifying but managed to win both the ‘D’ and ‘C’ finals with ‘A’ qualifying times before car trouble stopped his progress. Bump up finals are the way to go in all classes of car racing me thinks, look listen and action BRCA.
Truggy
This class was sadly depleted as the national truggy event was on the same weekend leaving only nine to race in the class.
Round one went to Kev Mac just four seconds off an eight lapper with Stuart McKellar in 2nd and Karl Lucas in 3rd. Round two saw Stewart Quinn take top spot with eight laps, Graham Grice moving up to 2nd with Kev’s first round time holding 3rd spot. The third and final round saw some movement from Carl Dixon who finally got his act together to take the 2nd spot from Graham and missing Stewart’s TQ time by just four hundredths of a second. A close final in prospect there then.
The Final started cleanly with all cars getting away well and 2nd spot man Carl the first to show from Stewart Quinn and Graham taking 3rd. The top three fought it out for twenty three laps with some of the closest racing I have ever seen. Carl and Stewart swopping the lead several times with just point nine of a second between them for most of the twenty three laps until disaster stuck and Stewart had ‘radio interference’ on his 2.4ghz and his car just stopped! He managed to reset the receiver and get back out there but the damage was done and he could only manage 4th place. Carl won with ease by a clear three laps with Graham a good steady 2nd and another Karl, Lucas this time, in 3rd.
Well done to all concerned and a big thanks again to Jared and the crew for another well run efficient meeting. Next round on the 8th August. You can book in on the CML web site or the Stoke Nitro home page. Lots of fun and good clean racing for the most part is experienced give it a go. Go on you know you want to…
Source: CML Distribution
