Sunday 19th February 2006, Round 4 of the North East regional at Batley Buggy Club, held at the indoor track of Batley Sports Centre, venue for the recent Supercup and soon to be holding the Indoor Finals.

This is the final round of the Northeast series, the series consisting of 4 rounds with 3 rounds counting.  Many drivers now need to improve on there previous worst to improve positions in the series.  Chris Long needing to beat Tom by 4 points today to win the 4wd series.

The venue is a large sports hall which is part of the Batley Sports centre, the hall is used usually for badminton, basketball, 5 –a-side, and sometime dog shows and fairs, the sports centre also has other facilities, including a pool, it has been known that for some of the girlfriends of racers have disappeared for a swim during the racing. The track is not permanent and relies on the good nature of the local club members to set it up and put it away.  So the track for the regional was set out on Saturday afternoon ready for Sunday.  It consisted of a few areas of slippery floor and a few areas of carpet, with a couple of well place jumps and a couple of rippled sections made from gym mats.

The track direction is clockwise, the start line is towards the end of the straight just as the carpet end.  Sweeping around a right hander on the slippery sporthall floor and over the transponder loop, onto carpet for a fast right hairpin into left hairpin with a dogleg exiting to the left sweeping right infront of the rostrum and over a hump landing onto crash mats into an immediate tight sharp right on carpet flowing into a left hairpin on the slippery floor, which then leads into the second hump landing on carpet bending slightly to the right then into a hairpin right and over the rippled crashmats for 6 yard, these are difficult to take fast and difficult to change direction on.  Coming off the crashmats into an immediate hairpin left on the slippery floor and back onto more crashmats with more sever ripples, these can be taken slightly faster, these crashmats end with an immediate hairpin right and back onto the carpet straight.  This is a very flowing track with well placed bumps and humps.

Practice was like the supercup, with drivers being handed a ticket to race to allow them one timed session.  This works very well, avoiding crystal clashes and stopping high level of traffic. Setup here is usually similar to what would be used outdoors, with many bumps, and jumps and various levels of grip.  Drivers briefing followed practice, it was announced that qualifying was by Round-by-round, which makes sense here as the level of grip on the slippery surface can start off very low and will improve each round.

Round 1

Was won by the B4 of Paul Bradby with a clean run to beat the Orange B4 of Ben Riley, followed by the Peak powered BK2 of Stephen Lawson. Neil Cragg making a couple of mistake to take 5th but setting some fast laps.

Round 2

Was taken by Neil Cragg followed by David Bailey both on 15 laps and Paul Bradby in 3rd.

Round 3

Was won again by Neil Cragg, followed by Ben Riley and David Bailey 3rd.  Neil now has two 1’s to take the overall lead.  Paul Bradby could be the only challenger by taking a 1 in round 4 and improving on Neils fastest time.

Round 4

Was won by Neil Cragg again – securing pole for the final from Ben Riley in 2nd and David Bailey in 3rd.  The final order finishing as Neil on pole, from Paul, Ben, David, Stephen, Danny McGee, Richard Lowe, Stuart Mahon.

2wd A Final

A final 2wd starts, and an early lead and large gap is pulled by Neil Cragg with the B4 and being chased by Paul Bradby with the B4 leaving the first corner in 2nd position followed by the B4 of David Bailey, Bens car failing to leave the line resulting in a couple of collisions.  Positions are gained by Danny McGee and Richard Lowe, while Neil suffers a problem and drops out, leaving the battle for the lead between Stephen and Paul.  Paul unable to get by Stephen, but some exchanges of paint allows Danny McGee through into the lead who sits comfortably on 1st defending his line from Stephen and Paul.  Danny manages to win from Paul and Richard Lowe 3rd, Stephen unfortunate to loose 2nd and finishes 4th.

Finishing position for the North East Winter Regional series is:

2wd
1          Richard Lowe             295
2          Ben Riley                    294
3          Stuart Mahon              292
4          Craig Collinson           291
5          Richard Coates           280
6          Tim Wood                   278
7          Steven Pierce              277
8          Peter Watt                   277
9          Peter Byrom                270
10        Chris Cuthbertson       259

It has been an excellent series through the winter and the 4 clubs deserve a large thank you.  They are York Radio Control Car Club, North East RC Racing Club, Teesside Radio Car Club and Batley Buggy Club.

Chris Long