Notts & Derby Off-Road Winter Series Round 5
Chris Kilroy reports back from trackside for the 5th round of the 1/8th scale racing series.
Based on the weather forecast leading up to the 1st round of the British E-buggy and Truggy championship at the popular Notts and Derby off-road (Ndor) track in Nottingham, the BRCA committee took an early decision to cancel the race meeting. Fortunately, as race day approached, the change in weather forecast meant the odds swung in favour of a dry meeting. With the help and support of the committed team at Ndor, the rescheduling of the prior cancelled event was hastily arranged and communicated to all via social media.
The day consisted of 4 rounds of qualifying for Ebuggy, Truggy and Nitro 1/8th buggy.
Team CML/Associated were represented in all three classes. Dave Bailey, Martin Bates and Rob White in 1/8th Nitro Buggy, Robson White in E-buggy with Jon Howells and Lloyd Pitt in the Truggy class.
With current and former European champions Boots and Bloomfield in attendance the racing was certain to be fast and furious. Following 4 dry round of qualifying the finals were set...
1/8th Nitro
Dave, Robson and Martin all made the main with their Associated RC8B3. In the final Dave suffered an a bent front shock shaft leading to early retirement. It was left to Robson to bring home a solid 6th place, with Martin placing 9th following an incident on the 6th lap.
E-buggy
Robson, running the Associated RCB3e complete with HobbyWing speed controller, lined up on the grid a solid 8th, but during the main final a damaged sensor cable would sadly end his charge on the 12th lap.
Truggy
Both Lloyd and Jon were looking to get on the podium with their new Rex.25 Legend powered Associated RC8T3 after qualifying 2nd and 4th respectively. At the start of the main the racing pace was insane! During the first lap Jon made a mistake, which dropped him to the back of the field while Lloyd ran a solid 4th up to the first round of fuel stops. The leading pack came in around the 7.30min mark except Jon and Lloyd whose Rex Engines were allowing a 10min fuel stop strategy. After the final round of stops Jon had claimed 2nd position and held it until the end of the race, with Lloyd coming home in 4th not far behind him.
Congratulations to both Jon Hazelwood on the win and Matt Bridge for placing 3rd.
A BIG thank you to the Ndor team for putting together a well-run meeting at such short notice.
