Bedworth RCCC Summer Series Round 6

12 September 2004

Race Report 

The 2004 Summer Series came to the final rounds with both classes (27- and19-turn) remaining extremely tight. In 27-turn, Paul Streather looked most likely to carry off the main prize, but no less than 4 other drivers – Andrew Gower, Adam Barker, Michael Polson and James Parker – could nab the big silverware. With the only other competitor able to catch them in the series – Steve Dye – electing to run in the 19-turn class, these drivers were guaranteed a top-5 position, but in which order?

 In the 19-turn class, Stew Noble and Shane Dye would do battle for the main prize, with Stew having the slight advantage going into the final round. Meanwhile, any of the top 7 in the championship could find themselves having to clear space on the mantelpiece for a top-5 trophy come Sunday teatime.

 Race Day itself dawned dry, but the track surface was still considerably damp, with standing water in places, for the morning’s practice session. The constantly-changing surface conditions played havoc with preparation – a setup that worked wonders at 9am could be completely useless at 9:30. Thankfully, the track was completely dry by the start of Qualifying at 9:45. 

Qualifying would be run to a round-by-round format, with the best 2 of 3 round positions to count. This meant that a ‘one-round wonder’ performance would be no good, whilst still retaining the flexibility to have a bad run during the qualifying rounds.

Qualifying – Round 1

 27 Turn
The 25 drivers booked in to this class found that although the track surface was dry, it was also very cold, and thus times in this round were not up to what we’ve seen so far in the Summer Series. However, In Round-by-Round times don’t really matter, and thus Michael Polson’s Round 1 TQ of 16/302.09 would pay dividends at the end of qualifying, despite not quite getting to the 17-lap mark. James Parker followed just over half-a-second behind, with Adam Barker taking third spot for the round with 16/308.44.

 19 Turn
Of the 12 drivers who lined up to compete in this class, Mark Traversoni got off to a flying start despite the conditions, with the first 18-lapper of the day and, more importantly, TQ for the round. Shane Dye also got off to a good start with a quick 17-lapper taking 2^nd place for the round, with Howard Harrison just edging Bob Burr out of 3^rd. Title challenger Stew Noble did not record a lap in this round, putting pressure on himself for rounds 2 and 3.

Round 2

 27 Turn
With the track getting quicker, the first 17-lapper of the day in Stock was made by TQ man for the round, Adam Barker, with 17 laps in 322.23 seconds. Craig Daffron and James Parker followed in 2^nd and 3^rd places respectively with quick 16-lappers, whilst round 1 TQ driver Michael Polson followed up with a consolidating 4^th place. 

19 Turn
Shane Dye took TQ for the round with an 18/310.08, with Mark Traversoni and a resurgent Nick Bruty also scoring 18-lappers to secure themselves 2^nd and 3^rd places for the round respectively. Stew Noble was 6^th, behind Howard Harrison and Bob Burr, but needed another solid round to secure the ‘A’ final spot that would possibly help him towards the title.

Round 3 

27 Turn
Paul Streather badly needed a good run in this final round to secure an ‘A’ final berth, and he did it with style, putting in a 17/310.66 to take TQ for the round by over 4 seconds from an in-form Michael Polson. Current 27-turn Lap Record holder Phil Chambers took 3^rd place for the round with 17/316.63, but alas this was Phil’s only good run for the day, and so he would find himself starting in the ‘B’ final.

 Once the round positions and dropped scores had been calculated, the 27-turn top 10 looked like this:- 

Congratulations to Michael for his first TQ, and to Mark Handford Jnr, Simon Collier, and James Browning who were all making their ‘A’ final debuts. 

19 Turn
Just as in the Stock class, TQ for this round was taken by a man under pressure to deliver a good run. This time it was Stew Noble who booked his sharp-end qualifying place with an 18/305.85 to top the round 3 timesheets. Following Stew were Shane Dye, Nick Bruty and Bob Burr, with Round 1 TQ driver Mark Traversoni in 5^th place.

With the maths all done, the 19-turn top 10 looked like this:-

Well done to Shane for making the overall TQ, and to Steve and James who were appearing in a 19-turn ‘A’ final for the first time in this series. 

The Finals 

Stock Touring ‘C’ Final 

Leg 1 – Of the 5 cars that lined up for this race, the top positions were taken by the two cars from the back of the grid, Scott Walker taking the race by a long chalk from Jon King. Following them were Paul Gorle and Daniel Smith, both of whom kept in touch with Jon, and finally Danny Jacques who suffered car trouble early in the race and had to retire.

Leg 2 – Scott again took charge of the race from 4^th spot on the grid and won by over 3 laps from Daniel, Paul and Danny, with Jon being the sufferer of bad luck in this leg, only completing a single lap.

The final positions for this race were:-

Congratulations to Scott for taking the win. 

Stock Touring ‘B’ Final 

Leg 1 – A full grid of 10 cars lined up for this race, and unsurprisingly it was Phil Chambers who took the 1^st leg from 5^th on the grid by over a lap from Mark Handford Snr. 3rd place went to Steve Whitehorn, 3 seconds behind Mark. 

Leg 2  - Phil suffered a bad start in this leg, as did quite a few drivers, and it was Mark Handford Snr who kept his nerve to take both the leg and overall wins, finishing 3.5 seconds clear of Phil with Dean Coupland a further 6 seconds back in third. Steve Whitehorn also finished on the lead lap in this tight encounter in 4^th place, with pole man Paul Dickens recovering to 5^th place.

The overall positions looked like this-: 

Congratulations to Mark for taking victory in a tight-fought encounter.

Stock Touring ‘A’ Final
With all 5 Title protagonists involved, the ‘A’ promised a Battle Royal, with nothing being certain until the last lap of the last leg. The final lined up like this:

Pole
Michael Polson

                                                            2^nd
                                                            Adam Barker

3^rd
James Parker

                                                            4^th
                                                            Paul Streather

5^th
Craig Daffron

                                                            6^th
                                                            Mark Handford Jnr

7^th
Andrew Gower

                                                            8^th
                                                            Simon Collier

9^th
Ashley Coupland

                                                            10^th
                                                            James Browning

  Leg 1 – Everyone got around the first couple of turns successfully, but the horseshoe caught a couple of drivers out, with a further 2 or 3 tangling at turn 6 onto the short back straight. It all settled down after the first lap, though, and there were some good tight battles up and down the field, particularly between Paul and Adam for 1^st (eventually separated by 0.4 of a second!) and James P and Ashley for 6^th and 7^th. However, these latter two were beaten by Mark Jnr, driving with an incredibly cool head in his first ‘A’ final to take 5^th for the leg, and could be one to watch in the forthcoming Winter Series. The leg finished with Paul taking the win from Adam, Michael and Craig driving solidly to take 3^rd and 4^th, followed by Mark Jnr, James P, Ashley, Simon and James B, with Andrew Taking 10^th after suffering car maladies.

Leg 2 – Another clean getaway, which continued all the way round the 1^st lap, although the 1^st 3 off the grid managed to break away a little after a couple of cars behind them got sideways into turn 3 (the old Bus Stop). Adam got by Michael into 1^st, then the pole man had a small incident letting James P up into 2^nd. James then returned the favour by taking too much kerb going onto the back straight and rolling, letting Michael and Craig by. Ashley also joined the fray, but then broke down, spoiling a very promising drive. Adam, by this time, had ran away and hid, but was being drawn in by Craig and Michael, who were battling away for 2^nd hard – so hard, in fact, that they almost let James P back in, who in turn was nearly caught by Paul, the top 5 all scoring 17 laps and finishing within 5.01 seconds of each other – reflecting the closeness of the series as a whole! They were followed by Simon and James B, with Ashley and Andrew placed 8^th and 9^th, and Mark Jnr suffering transponder trouble meaning that his laps were not recorded. 

The final reckoning of the A final in Stock was as follows:-

Congratulations to Adam for taking the win in an incredibly tight contest.

19 Turn ‘B’ Final

Only 2 cars came to the grid in this race, and in both legs Gary Smith took the win from Neville Bavin in 2^nd. Gary showed some good driving in both legs that might have got him into the ‘A’ during qualifying – commiserations Gary, hopefully the trophy will make up for it. 

Final Positions for this race were:- 

19 Turn ‘A’ Final 

Once again, all manner of trophy issues would be settled over the two legs of this race. The grid formed up like this:- 

Pole
Shane Dye

                                                            2^nd
                                                            Mark Traversoni

3^rd
Nick Bruty

                                                            4^th
                                                            Stew Noble

5^th
Howard Harrison

                                                            6^th
                                                            Bob Burr

7^th
Dave Irving

                                                            8^th
                                                            Ben Smith

9^th
Steve Dye

                                                            10^th
                                                            James Middleton

  Leg 1 – All the cars got away well, with only a couple of small incidents on the first lap. Again, there were battles up and down the field, with the two title rivals Shane and Stew fighting with Nick for the win, and behind them a further 3-way scrap involving Bob, Mark and Ben, with Dave Irving also ready to capitalise on and errors. After 5 minutes, the finishing order was Shane, Stew, Nick, Bob, Mark, Ben, Dave, Howard and James, with Steve unfortunately not recording a lap.

Leg 2 – A good start for the front of the field, but a small incident in mid-grid about halfway through lap 1 eventually involved 4 cars, as midfield incidents always seem to collect cars, and in this case it unfortunately led to the retirement of Steve on the first lap. Shane was away in 1^st, but was being slowly reeled in by Stew, with Nick and Mark also in attendance, having a battle of their own. Stew eventually got right on Shane’s tail and even alongside on occasions, with the two cars maybe even coming into contact once or twice. Shane just won out in the end from Stew, followed by Mark, Nick, Ben, Howard, Bob, Dave and James.

The overall final result was:- 

Congratulations to Shane, Stew and Nick for their performances in a hotly-contested final.

Overall Series Standings 

The title races were so tight that no-one quite knew what the table would look like until the final print-outs emerged. 

27 Turn
The championship in this class was incredibly tight:- 

Paul managed to hold on to his points advantage and take the title, while an unbelievably tight contest for 2^nd was resolved in Michael’s favour, with Adam edging out James for 3^rd on countback. Despite his slightly below-par day, Andrew managed to take 5^th in the series.

19 Turn

Again, the battle for the title went down to the wire in this class. 

Shane’s efforts in this meeting couldn’t quite get him up to the top spot in the series, and it was Stew who took the title by 1 point. Nick took a well-deserved 3^rd place, with Mark and Ben also showing impressive consistency through the series to take 4^th and 5^th. 

The Summer series 2004 has seen some excellent racing, with well over 110 drivers competing at some point, and championship battles going down to the last lap of the last race. The champions truly deserve their titles, plus there has been an emergence of new talent in both classes that bodes well for the future. Roll on the Winter Series! 

Race Report by James Parker