The weekend of the 4/5th of October was the 3rd Novarossi GP which was held at the Raceway Near Southend. This year because of entries the racing was split so Truggy's would run on the dirt track & Buggy's on the astro turf track. This would be a bold decision & not popular or what the racers wanted, it would also cause problems for drivers racing both classes as the races were out of sink very quickly. The event attracted alot of drivers this year & again some from Sweden & Ireland so an opportunity to meet up with old friends.
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The track was opened Friday for practice where Kevin & Bruce took this opportunity to gain a setup for some of the other team members unable to get the time from work. The format of the weekend was Saturday 1 round of practice & 4 qualifying heats. Sunday for the 5th round of qualifying & then finals.
On the Saturday the track started off damp but would soon dry to give amazing grip allowing for some fast lap times. Those that had done the Friday's practice showed & were consistent & fast. With so many of the XRAY team here & also the XRAY Mirage drivers its impossible to report on them all, but Kevin would set the pace for the team with also Bruce, Mark, Reece & Bren all qualifying straight into the semi's. The open policy we have helps greatly & many XRAY owners as normal came across for tips, setups & suggestions with all of them improving.
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On the Sunday was the final round of qualifying & not much would change other than it was now very wet. The Truggy class was cancelled for safety reason meaning young Bradley Baird from Ireland would be awarded 5th overall but more impressive was the top junior position & well rewarded for his impressive driving in this class. The finals were shortened in buggys because of conditions & many drivers bumped up ie Lee Bunker & Barkley from Ireland both getting into the semi's.
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With conditions now awful every thing was sealed in the cars to stop the ingress of water, but some would still become victims to the weather. From the start Bruce would drop out early & Mark would stop due to an engine failure, Barkley was very unlucky & after being bashed to last at the beginning fought back to just miss out of the bump up. From Semi A Bren, Reece, & Lee all made the Main & from Semi B Kevin would also bump up.
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The Main was still to be a 30 minute final but a race of attrition & would take many victims, the only way to last the distance would be missing the puddles as best as you could & so in avoiding these making new racing lines. From the start Kevin got a good start & into 2nd chasing down the leader, a servo problem would put him out of contention, Both Reece & Bren had a good final to come home 4th & 5th with Lee finishing 7th.
Congratulation to all the Team in these testing conditions.
Rallycross
1. Darren Bloomfield
2. Richard Taylor
3. Viktor Wilck 4. Reece Sawyer XRAY XB808
5. Brennan Ralls XRAY XB808
6. Michael Todd 7. Lee Bunker XRAY XB808
8. Steven Johnson 9. Kevin Brunsden XRAY XB808
10.Richard Barton
