With the British summer finally starting to make an appearance, it was the sections annual pilgrimage to the south coast of the UK and Sussex RC Car Club. Based just outside of Brighton and only 265 miles northeast of the venue for the recent European Championships, the recently refurbished track looked in excellent condition for Round 6 of the national series. The weather forecast was excellent, the racers started arriving as early as Thursday and despite a small misunderstanding with the food van that resulted in a last-minute change, everything was set for a fantastic weekend of racing on this tight, twisty and fast track.
With several drivers not in attendance due to European hangovers and summer vacations, good points were available, and it was clear that racers wanted to find the perfect set up through practice with drivers completing many many laps.
Onto qualifying, 2 rounds Saturday and 1 Sunday morning to determine TQ in each class. 2WD drive started proceedings and it was Oliver Whittleston with his Elcon Traxx 2.0 setting the early pace but after a collision with a back marker in Q2 resulting in the a DNF, it was Karl Norris and his Elcon Traxx who had the overnight P1 qualifying position just in front for Craig Chilvers, also driving an Elcon Traxx. Sunday morning again saw Oliver set the pace and secure overall TQ with Karl P2 and Craig P3 for the main final later in the afternoon.
4WD and Short Course qualifying was decided on Saturday with both Tommy Chung and his Elcon Fourtex and Ian Oddie with his Losi 5ive-T taking TQ respectively. That left the rest of the fields to fight it out for the lower positions. In 4WD, Dave Ashton pipped Neil Young to P2 and Alfie-Jack Shilcock with a 1st in round Sunday morning secured 2nd place in SC just in front of Zach Whittleston, who are both still only 12 and 13 years old respectively.
After a short lunch break it was time for the finals. Each class had a semi-final and a main final, with the top 3 from the semi-final bumping up to join the top 7 in the main final.
2WD again was up first and pole sitter Kayleigh Knight made a mistake at the first corner getting stuck on the tyres and dropping all the way to the back. This opened the door for John Darby who, despite a couple of small errors mid race was able to take the win by nearly 25 seconds from Kayleigh who managed to battle her way back up to P2 and secure a bump up to the main final. Barry Mander managed to hold off Paul Diver by just 4 seconds at the flag to take the final bump up position.
In the main final, TQ man and pole sitter Oliver Whittleston got away well and was in a class of his own for the whole race. With just one mistake all race, he managed to lap the field at least twice to complete a dominant weekend. Elcon filled the podium with Karl Norris and Craig Chilvers coming home in P2 and P3. Special mention to Jason Mander in his first outing in 2WD buggy. He managed to qualify 7th straight into the main final but it was his dad Barry Mander who reminded him experience is often critical over a 30 minute final beating Jason by 9 seconds in the end!
4WD semi final was perhaps the race of the weekend. With pole sitter Evan Sexton losing the lead on the first lap to P2 man Graham King before retiring after 7 minutes the race was wide open. Piotr Misztal who started P4 also retired after 7 minutes and it was Ian Gardiner from 7th on the grid who took the win after 20 minutes from Les Darby and Simon Vowles who raced to the line to finish P3, just 0.5 seconds in front of 4th placed Graham King.
The main final followed a similar pattern to 2WD, with TQ man and pole sitter Tommy Chung driving a faultless horn to flag race to win by 10 seconds from Dave Ashton. The battle for 3rd changed often throughout the 30 minutes but it was Dave Parish, aka Minion who crossed the line in 3rd with Craig Orman 4th and Neil Young 5th.
The Short Course Semi Final was, as expected, frantic and packed full of overtakes and when Heidi Shilcock’s trucked stopped while running P2 with just 5 minutes to go, all was to play for. Andy Spence was already well ahead of the chasing pack and just had to finish, which he did but the battle for the last 2 bump up positions was on. Jake Faulkner held his nerve to cross the line in P2, with Luke Gower in P3 completing the top 3.
Ian Oddie lined up on pole in the main final with 2 upcoming stars behind him in Alfie-Jack Shilcock and Zach Whittleston. The 3 of them got away well and with Matt Stokes in P4 pushing Zach it was a close battle for the first 20 laps between the 4 of them. Alfie-Jack led the race for a few laps before a mistake gave the lead back to Ian who then never looked back and secured the win with Alfie-Jack taking an amazing 2nd with a great drive. Unfortunately, both Zach and Matt retired from the race with drive and fuel issues respectively. This gave Neil Sivins a great opportunity for a national podium, and he drove a great last 5 mins to cross the line in P3v and take his first podium of the 2024 season.
Our next national is the rearranged round 2 at North West Large Scale on 7th and 8th September 2024. Booking in is now open online www.brca.org/events/lsor-nationals.
Can’t wait that long and fancy racing on a track that hasn’t seen a large-scale event for nearly 10 years? Notts and Derby Raceway (NDOR) are having a large-scale fun event over the weekend of 30th August to 1stSeptember. Find out more and sign up online www.ndor.co.uk