The Scottish Off-Road Series (SORS) visited the Ayrshire Model Car Club for Rd 4 of the 2023 BRCA 10th Offroad Scottish Regional Championship on July 23rd, with the round being run at the excellent facilities kindly loaned by Glasgow RC.
The weather outlook on the run up to the event was looking decidedly well…… Scottish! Heavy rain was the forecast but thankfully on the days running up to the event itself the forecast changed rapidly. We were treated to a damp start but the weather improved as the day went on making the ever changing track a challenge for all drivers from the youngest junior racers through to the most experienced veteran.
Speaking of juniors, the Scottish Regionals is proving popular with our younger racers with quite a healthy junior contingent participating in the series!
Briefing was completed by the race director Mr Mitchell and BRCA 10th Offroad regional rep Mr Sheridan before heading into the practice heats for the day ahead. We had 8 full heats and the luxury of a full-time race referee/commentator! All went smoothly through practice and racing got underway on schedule.
The track was laid out with a mix of fast and slow bends making use of the elevations, dips and hollows of the Glasgow RC Raceways super bumpy off road astroturf surface.
As heat 1 commenced everyone could see that wet tyres were still the order of the day with slips and slides a plenty through all the heats. However some of the more experienced drivers made it look easy with the top 5 drivers in 2wd being Allan O’Brien, Euan McLeod, Martin Wallace, Jimmy Hamilton and Allan Bridgeman,
In 4WD Euan McLeod took the top honours from Allan O’Brien and David Scott in round 1.
Qualifying remained a mixed bag with the track gently drying all day intermixed with the occasional showers which would catch out some heats.
In round 4 the sun got his hat on and it was mainly onto dry tyres for most of the drivers with only a few patches holding the water to catch out unwary drivers.
With qualifying over we headed to finals.
2WD D: 1st - Ollie Carberry. 2nd – Scott Fraser. 3rd – Alex Fraser
2WD C: 1st – Chris Mitchell. 2nd – Aaron Carberry. 3rd – Eric Brawley.
2WD B: 1st – Paul Kerr. 2nd – Jamie Bisset. 3rd – Colin McCaffrey.
2WD A Final – On the buzzer the pack all rushed into turn 1 and with no major carnage basically ran in grid order. After a minute or so it appeared all wasn’t well with the No’1 man on the grid with Allan’s car looking increasingly erratic
Turns out a failing Transmitter pack will stop you winning a regional A final with Allan pulling off mid race allowing Euan to go to the front. Despite David throwing some amazing hero laps Euan drove smoothly to come home with the win, Top marks to Martin Wallace who finished in a strong 3rd place with a consistent performance all day.
2wd A Final Result
Pos Driver
1 Euan McLeod - Schumacher
2 David Scott - Schumacher
3 Martin Wallace - Schumacher
4 Allan Bridgeman - Team Associated
5 Martin Inglis - Kyosho
6 Andrew Edwards - Schumacher
7 Jimmy Hamilton - Sworks
8 Fraser McLeod - Schumacher
9 Raymond Kerr - Xray
10 Allan O’Brien - Schumacher
4WD
4WD D: 1st – David Armstrong. 2nd - Ollie Carberry. 3rd – Maurice Carberry.
4WD C: 1st – John Wilson. 2nd - Blake Auld. 3rd – Stephen Sheridan.
4WD B: 1st – Steve Harley. 2nd – Gary Dunn. 3rd – Martin Inglis.
4WD A Final -With a fully charged transmitter pack Allan sat on pole confident he was in with a good shout of another win.
As the Buzzer went the drivers all drove a clean first few laps with Allan controlling a fantastic charge from both Euan and David.
With both Euan and David in close proximity Allan had to be defensive holding his line and credit to all the drivers as standards were high and racing was clean
Going into the last minute the top 3 were all separated by only a few metres as they were scything through the lapped traffic.
Unfortunately, due to a crashed car on the straight and a late call of “car on the straight” meant that Allan was super unlucky to get caught up and this let David take the win and Euan in second with veteran racer Andrew Edwards taking 3rd.
4wd A Final Result
Pos Driver
1 David Scott- Schumacher
2 Euan McLeod - Schumacher
3 Andrew Edwards - Schumacher
4 Allan Bridgeman – Team Associated
5 Allan Obrien - Schumacher
6 Nick Lax - Associated
7 Jimmy Hamilton - Sworks
8 Paul Kerr - Xray
9 Raymond Kerr - Xray
10 James Bisset - Schumacher
Big thanks to Glasgow RC Club for loaning the facilities, Derek Ferguson for the commentary and Amy Avis for the super-efficient operation of the Race Control
All the Ayr Crew put on a great race meeting with enthusiasm and a smile.
Roll on round 5 we hope to see you all there.
Race report courtesy of Chris Mitchell