Last weekend saw the 2nd running of the awesome â™Race of Championsâ™ event taking place at the NNRC track near Blackpool in the North of the country.
The event is the end-of-year â Race-Offâ™ between the Top 20 qualifying drivers from each of the 8th Scale Off Road Regions run throughout the year in the UK - it is the brain child of Glyn Morgan (8-11 series organiser) and is organised to challenge the best drivers from the 8-11 Series, NRS, SRS Series and the Scottish Region. It is a one-off race and is a great way of pitting each region against each other in a fun, but competative end of season raceâ¦
The NNRC Astro-turf/multi-surface Track
(click to enlarge)
The weather for the practice day was amazing warm sunshine, however for raceday it decided it was winter time⦠A very wet day lay ahead for the competitors!!
Round 1 got underway regardless of the weather, Colin Brennan (NRS Champion) took his AMMO powered XRAY XB808-2011 to the TQ spot with a conservative but clean run. Round 2 went to Associatedâ™s Craig Drescher (8-11 Champion) after a minor mistake on the last lap by XRAYâ™s Stuart Mahon (2010 NRS Champion). Colin followed up his 1st Round performance by taking 2nd place with Stuart taking the 3 spot. Round 3 was a scrappy round, but with âśRound by Roundâť qualifying Stuart was on hand to take the fastest time with his now dialed XRAY XB808-2011.
TQ ended up an AMMO Fuel/XRAY 1-2 with Colin Brennan followed by Stuart Mahon and the young up-and-coming driver Oli Evans taking 3rd. Old skool RC legend Drescher only managing 6th after a strong start in quali and his Team-mate David Bailey struggling in the B Final with a few other top level drivers.
The B Main saw a very hard fought race by some of the XRAY drivers, Lee Bunker ending up taking the 2nd place bump up spot while Carl Richards was running a solid 4th until an unfortunate engine cut while leaving the pits put pain to his battle for the final bump up spot. Dave cruised through to the A Final and looked like he just wanted some more track time to compete with âśthe localsâťâ¦
Just before the start of the A Finals the sun finally made an appearance but it wasnâ™t going to effect the track enough to change tyres, but a nice break all the same!!
Race of Champions 2011â¦. âśDrivers are you Readyâť
The first corner went down in regulation order but a bobble on the second from Colin gave team-mate Stuart the lead. With another bobble which went unseen by the marshall saw Colin drop to a lowly last place. At five minutes in Stuart had taken full advantage of the clear track powering the XRAY 808-2011 to a commanding lead over the hard chasing now free of traffic Drescher. By the halfway point Stuarts lead was up to 12 seconds infront of Craig, were it stayed for the rest of the final. In the closing couple of laps Colin had battled his way back to 6th chasing hard toward 4th and 5th place â“ with less than a minute on the race clock Colin took the 4th spot away from Dave Bailey and got within 5 seconds of local lad Oli Evans.
(click to enlarge)
Stuart Mahon took the convincing win after driving a near perfect race. Stuart said after the race that âśthe car and engine were just perfect in the tricky conditionsâť
A great result for the Team XRAY â“ TQ & the Win, well done guys!!
2011 Race of Champions â“ Final Standings
1st Stuart Mahon XRAY XB808'11
2nd Craig Dresher
3rd Oliver Evans 4th Colin Brennan XRAY XB808'11
