BRCA 1/8th National - Rnd 6

In the 2 years since the last national at this venue the track is now almost entirely dirt, and pretty fast with it. There are still some of the Pendle bumps, but they are consistent and there are no big rocks coming out of the surface to make the racing a lottery. Club Chairman, and former national champion David Crompton was always going to be tough to beat here and he got underway with a TQ in round 1 with his RB/Savox equipped car, just 1 second in front of current champion Neil Cragg's Reedy powered RC8B. Elliott Boots with his RB/Savox car was also very quick taking 3rd in round, and these three were the only guys making it through to 8 laps in round 1. Elliott confirmed his pace by taking a win in round 2 from David Crompton and Darren Bloomfield (Savox). Darren was very quick in this round, but his time was scuppered by a terrible take out by a slower driver. To be honest it was so poor it almost looked deliberate, which nobody would like to believe is true. I wont mention any names as this is not the correct forum to do so, but I would hope the driver in question is suitably embarrassed.

Round 3 and Neil Cragg put a great run together to take the round win from Elliott and David. This gave all three drivers with a 1st & 2nd in a round so the grid would be taken on count back times giving Crompton TQ with Elliott 2nd and Neil 3rd. Dave Bailey placed his RB powered RC8B in 7th after a couple of steady late runs after a disaster in round 1, and unlucky man was John Howells whose RB/Savox equipped Hyper 9 Pro Uk ended up 11th and pole in a very competitive B final. Into the finals and this track as usual sees some top drivers lower down than they would expect as most don't practice here. Notable bumpers who made the final were Reece Sawyer (Proline/Savox/Byron) who bumped all the way up from the D final, and Paddy Piston winner Richard Cree (RB/Byron) who made it up from the C. The B final itself was pretty close all the way with 5 drivers making the escape, Richard Cree and Simon Willetts had a small gap at the front with Tony Truman (AE/Reedy/Byron/Proline), Reece Sawyer and Jon Hazelwood (Proline/Savox/Byron) fighting over the last 2 bump up positions. Unlucky man was Tony Truman, who drove unbelievably well considering both his front tyres were coming unglued from about 5 minutes in. Tony did everything he could in keeping the revs down on the straights to minimise the force acting on the tyre, but eventually his reduced pace left him unable to challenge the other 2 guys who made the step up.

The main final was actually one of the best we have seen for a very long time. The first 4 David, Elliott, Neil and Darren made a break early on with Elliott jumping in front of David and Darren getting by Neil on lap 1. Elliott from there really drove well, after settling down a few laps in he spent the next 10 minutes consistently pulling away from the pack. David was a few seconds in front of Darren and Neil who were battling over 3rd. Neil seemed to take a while to get going, but after about 5 minutes he put Darren under pressure, eventually getting by and then he put a sensational series of laps together to bring himself up to, and past Crompton and set about catching Elliott. In this phase of the race Neil was undoubtedly the fastest, and he got to within 2 seconds of Elliott before disaster struck. The one section that had caught the top guys out all day was the back triple with a right turn immediately afterwards. When the crashes came the car usually landed on the outside steering wheel, and we can only assume that this caused the broken servo gear that put Neil out, a great shame after a fantastic drive. This left Crompton challenging Elliott after his 10 minute fuel strategy had brought him into contention late in the race. These two went at it for the last 5 minutes wheel to wheel until on the final lap Dave ran out of fuel, leaving Elliott to cruise to the line for a well deserved win. This is definitely the best I have seen Elliott drive, as he managed to combine his raw pace without making the mistakes that have always blunted his edge. If he keeps this form up he will be tough to beat. EDIT: Due to an unexplained error the result were actually Elliot Boots in first, David Crompton in 2nd, Simon Willets in 3rd ∓ Darren Bloomfield in 4th. Onto Slough in a few weeks and another great track to see if Darren can wrap up the title...