Sunday the 18th was Round 5 of the UK National series, the venue being Clanfield which is now a regular in the national calander. With the very dry weather the UK has experienced over these last few months has led to bone dry tracks which are hard to prep, this led to a slighlty bumpy surface to what we normally expect from Clanfield but still a great track. The usual suspect would represent XRAY UK in Ralls, Sawyer, Hazelwood & Williams, a slight twist to normal with a bit of arranging our recent Euro's finalist Jerome Sartel & team mate Davy Bales made the trip from France to sample what the UK had to offer.
Unlike most other national series which is a 2 day event here in the UK its all pushed into 1 day which means little to no practice & a very busy day, its very regimental & runs like clock work but leaves no time.
Davy was plagued with radio trouble for practice & the first round so his event did not start to Rnd 2 when he could then learn the track so was up against it all day.
Bren had solid runs in Rnd 1,2 although the bumby track caused a marshall for each run costing a top ten finish each time & dissapointing as it would relegate him to 21 & pole in the C.
Jerome & speaking with him found it hard to adapt to this rapid learning of a track which is the norm in the UK to go 20 overal. Many where shocked with this but shows our system can be very tough.
Reece topped the Pile with some solid runs to go 6th overall, Jon solved an interferance problem being a broken PT wire to take 8th overal & our Welsh Wizard Ben Williams took the 10 place making it 3 XRAYs straight into the Main..
Bren battled through the C with some big names to take 3rd & a bumb into the B to join Jerome.
For the B Jerome tried a setup experiment for the now rough track which worked for him & from 10th on the grid worked his way slowly through the field to the 2nd spot & a well earned bump up spot. Bren had a good run to work his way to the 8 spot & some good points for his championship compain.
Jerome used to now a delay in the French system was forced to rush a 30 minute relax period into 7 minutes hive of activity just making the start. From the tone the race saw some poor driving with Reece taking the brunt of it & was bashed to last. Jon also took some of this but found some holes to run 6th for a long period till the bump track caused a steering bolt to fail. Jerome the wildy Pink Panther was now upto speed with the track & plugged away to take 4th overall. Reece after the bad start collected his composure to battle back to 8th & good point for his campaign. Ben had a good race to finish where he started.
For XRAY a good result for the weekend & 4 cars in the main, Jerome commented on how hard he found it as an event with the depth of competition & the speed you have to learn the track in such a short time. With plans for a return later on in the series it will be good to meet up with old friends again.
(click to enlarge)
1. Darren Bloomfield
2. Simon Willetts
3. Elliott Boots 4. Jerome Sartel XRAY XB808
5. Richard Taylor
6. Tony Truman
7. Chris Doughty 8. Reece Sawyer XRAY XB808
9. Graham Alsop 10. Ben Williams XRAY XB808
11. Richard Barton
12. Kevin Brunsden
13. Neil Cragg 14. Jon Hazlewood XRAY XB808
Thanks to XRAY, HUDY, RC DisCo, Proline, Byron, Ko
