The fourth Round of the BRCA National Championship was held at NWN, with the track crew working hard throughout the year to create a new technical layout, and a great venue. Saturday qualifying saw domination in the first four rounds from XRAY’s Jonathan Skidmore and cinching overall TQ before all five rounds had concluded. Rain overnight saw a tricky last round of qualifying but in the end Elliott Boots TQ’d round five which gave him a top three overall and a valuable Championship point.
Top three after qualifying were:
1 st Jonathan Skidmore (Xray)
2 nd Neil Cragg (AE)
3 rd Elliott Boots (Sworkz)
Lower Finals
1/64B
1st Will Turlin (Sworkz)
2nd Carson Guppy (Sworkz)
3rd Brynn Hall (Agama)
4th Tom Gilroy (Mugen)
1/64A
1st Nick Simmerson (Agama)
2nd William Paul (XRAY)
3rd Andy Pierce (Agama)
4th Lewis Trafford (Agama)
1/32B
1st Andrew Rennick (Mayako)
2nd Adam Buckholt (Sworkz)
3rd Gareth Davies
4th Connor Hamblett (HB)
1/32A
1st Peter Van Tonder (AE)
2nd Andy Beaumont (Tekno)
3rd Ben Kennett (Agama)
4th Craig Russell (XRAY)
1/16 B
1st Allan Ward (Mugen)
2nd Andrew Rennick (Mayako)
3rd Kev Jones (Agama)
4th Kieran Wayman (HB)
1/16 A
1st Mike Daniels (Agama)
2nd Steve Guppy (Sworkz)
3rd Mark Milward (HB)
4th Craig Russell (XRAY)
1/8B
1st Ashley Pattison (Sworkz)
2nd Holger Lykke (Agama)
3rd Oilver Nattress (Kyosho)
4th Mick Butler (Schumacher)
1/8A
1st Daniel Thorne (Sworkz)
2nd Ashlee Owen (Agama)
3rd Cayden Stenhouse (Mugen)
4th Josh Bougourd (Sworkz)
1/4B
1st Simon Willetts (Mugen)
2nd Kevin Brunsden (Agama)
3rd Joe Chew (WIRC)
4th Jon Hazelwood (Agama)
1/4A
1st Luke Holdsworth (XRAY)
2nd Max O’Donnell (AE)
3rd Taro Cradock (Kyosho)
4th Daniel Thorne (Sworkz)
Semi-Finals
Semi-final B was led by Neil Cragg throughout, quickly pulling away from 2 nd place of Mayako’s Mike Lewis. However, around the five-minute mark, Mike Lewis had a runaway, which removed him from the top seven and forced early retirement. HB’s Graham Alsop then took 2nd place. There were intense battles for the remaining five transfer spots into the main throughout the final. The top seven were 1 st Neil Cragg (AE), 2 nd Graham Alsop (HB), 3rd Bradley Baird (Mugen), 4 th Ben Simpson (AE), 5 th Maxim Cooke, 6 th James Le Pavoux (Sworks), and 7 th Simon Willetts.
Semi A saw our two national championship title contenders, Jonathan Skidmore and Elliott Boots, race together. Throughout the entire 20 minutes, it was a close battle for first and
second! Alike to the first semi final, Semi A saw us lose two more drivers in direct transfer spots with Josh Holdsworth (XRAY) and William Skidmore (XRAY) both exiting the race early
on. This left for another close battle for the remaining drivers for their place in the main final, with only 23 seconds separating from 3 rd to 8 th place! The top seven from semi A were 1 st Jonathan Skidmore (XRAY), 2 nd Elliott Boots (Sworkz), 3 rd Paul Crompton (XRAY), 4 th Lee Martin (Agama), 5 th Erik Lykke (Agama), 6 th Jack Willetts (WIRC) and 7 th Luke Holdsworth (XRAY).
Main Final
The main final kicked off with the top 3 of Skidmore, Boots and Cragg pulling away from the main pack, with Jonathan Skidmore (XRAY) beginning to extend a decent lead over the two in the first five minutes. As the final progressed, the rain clouds that loomed around the track at the start of the main gave way to a big rain downpour. With parts of the track with oil becoming slippery this bunched up the pack of 15 cars and mixed up the pack! Notably from Bradley Baird (Mugen), who used the rain to his advantage to climb up to 3 rd place and attempt a battle for 2 nd place. As the track proceeded to dry out, Elliott Boots (SWORKZ) began to climb his way back up the pack to begin his chase to catch up with Skidmore and Cragg, after a few costly errors in the middle of the race.
As Skidmore sat a comfortable 7 seconds ahead of Cragg and Boots the second rain downpour hit with ten minutes of the race left to go. This again bunched up the pack with Elliott Boots catching Jonathan Skidmore with five minutes to go, an intense battle for the lead occurred with the additional lack of grip with both drivers swapping places. Boots managed to pass Skidmore and make it stick with four corners to go and take the win in a fantastic race! Neil Cragg and Ben Simpson (both Associated) also had a strong end to the race to finish 3 rd and 4 th and all of the top four ended within 9 seconds after 45 minutes of racing!!
A big thank you to the NWN crew for a great track, to all the drivers in attendance, and to the BRCA team.
The next and final round of the BRCA championship is at Nemo Raceway on September 21st and 22nd, with the overall National Championship still to be decided!
National:
1st Place Finish - Elliott Boots (SWORKZ)
2nd Place Finish - Joni Skidmore (XRAY)
3rd Place Finish - Neil Cragg (AE)
40+:
1st Place Finish - Neil Cragg (AE)
2nd Place Finish - Graham Alsop (HB)
3rd Place Finish - Simon Willetts (MUGEN)
Junior:
1st Place Finish - Ben Simpson (AE)
2nd Place Finish - Maxim Cook (WIRC)
3rd Place Finish - Erik Lykke (AGAMA)
Clubman
1st Place Finish - Luke Holdsworth (XRAY)
2nd Place Finish - Joe Chew (WIRC)
3rd Place Finish - Josh Holdsworth (XRAY)
