Well what can I say about this years first round apart from good fun and a little bit shall we say... moist!
As the title said we started the series at Herts Nitro Club. Its always a popular venue on the calendar and this was no exception. Although the numbers wasn't as big as we had hoped. The weather must have put some people off! But nevertheless we had a good meeting.
The day started off with a round of timed practice. Which was receeded at the end because of the mixed ability of the new drivers to the series at this round.
(Please note Wez Jolly at the far end of the rostrum as he noticed me taking the photo and the really serious face of Russell Brown holding the Truggy in the pit lane second from the right of course we can't miss Jon Hazlewood)
After a short break while people found out what racers they were now in and getting their new race numbers we cracked on with the four rounds of qualifying.
We managed to get through the first round of qualifying unscathed but the rest of the meeting we wasn't so lucky. The rain started to fall, however it wasn't too heavy to stop us so we just cracked on. We are hard core people us 8th off road drivers!
Continuing through qualifying the lap times weren't as fast as the first rounds because of the rain but it made for some interesting racing, It was good to see the drivers power sliding their cars across the block paved corner where the tracks timing loop is before nailing it down the straight. I'm pretty sure Jeremy Clarkson was in their heads screaming "POWER" as they went down the straight.
It was also my partner Sophie's first time at Herts and the first time on a surface other than astro. She enjoyed the challenge on the track with her Tenno E-buggy. Sophie said during the weekend how much she appreciated the help from fellow drivers at the track. The sportsmanship of everyone was just fantastic! Its these simple things that makes the sport what it is. Simple things like helping with setup, lending of tyres, Help fixing cars as so on.
Once qualifying had finished we had a 30 minute break for lunch and for people to relax.
The top 3 qualifiers from the Truggy class were
TQ - Jon Hazlewood
2nd - Max Mcdonal
3rd - Daniel Thorne
Top 3 E-Buggy were
TQ - Graham Alsop
2nd - Jonathan Skidmore
3rd - Dylan Saunders
The first final on the line was the C E-Buggy Final.
This race lasted for 15 minutes with the top 4 bumping up.
This race was a good laugh with some cracking racing. In the end we saw Zak Edwards take the win with Miklos Szabados second place. Chris James came third place and David Gibson taking forth place and the final bump up spot.
The next final on the line was the B final E-Buggy. This race was also 15 minutes long with the top 4 also bumping up to the A Final. This race was a busy race with many many battles for position going on throughout the race. But in the end we saw Darren Hayden-Ball take the win in this final with Holger Lykke take second place. Ben Billing third place and Darren Wilby four place. As mentioned before these drivers were all promoted to the A Final.
The second to last final on the line was the Truggy A Final. This race was 30 minutes in length. This race was also a good race to watch. Many battles going on throughout the entire race with so welcome commentary from Lewis Jones who had popped by to see what was going on. The driving standard was good all round. Some iffy moments here and there but mostly really good. However in the end we saw Jon Hazlewood take the win with Daniel Thorne second place. Matt Bridge from team Tekno and RPRC coming in third place with another Tekno driver Wes Jolly finishing in fourth place. Well done to all drivers during this cracking race.
The last race was the day was the E-Buggy A Final and what a race this was. The top 5 drivers raced really well with the gap between them throughout the race being very close. Plenty of 'oooo' and 'intake of breath' moments from the audience watching as first and second battled it out for the top spot in this race. This was also another fantastic race where the driving standards was spot on which is always good to see. This also makes the racing more enjoyable. But after a nail biting 15 minutes we saw Jonathan Skidmore take the win with Dylan Saunders second place with less than a second between as they crossed the line for the final time. A young driver by the name of Ben Simpson took third place and finally Graham Alsop taking forth place. Only 0.01 seconds between Ben and Graham at the end which was also fantastic racing to watch. The top 7 drivers in this race all finished on the same lap with no more than 25 seconds apart. Again fantastic racing!
I would like to note how well the track held up with the moisture that we had throughout the day. Bit shout out goes to Pete who spent most of the week leading up to the weekend rolling the track. Big thank you to Jim who assisted with a few bits and bobs during the meeting and we can't forget the gent in the catering van who kept us all fed and watered throughout the meeting. Lovely food as well. I recommend the Oreo cakes, they were lovely and i'm not a cake fan either.
I would also like to thank all the drivers that attended the meeting and i hope you all had a good day. Thank you again for braving the weather. Shame it wasn't nicer to us but we are in the UK after all.
The photos from the meeting are on the Truggy section facebook page, The results from the meeting are also on the BRCA website, Click Here to go to that.
We shall see you all next time.
