The fifth and penultimate round of the 2023 season was held on the 9th & 10th
September at the technical Cotswold circuit near Cirencester.
Saturday was sunny and very hot allowing plenty of time for practice and set up. Both the nitro and electric drivers were taking care to preserve their engines and motor/ECS combos due the extreme heat.
On Sunday morning the drivers were greeted with a damp track after overnight rain and then drizzle just before the qualifying heats. Damp tyres were in order so posting a good time was challenging.
Craig Nutting, having already secured the championship, opted out of GTE to have a go in the 220 GT Nitro class. Matthew Cook was hoping to clinch the 220 GT championship. There were more entries than usual in the 200mm Touring with some drivers trialling a wide bodied Touring shell with the wider tyres as used in 220mm GT. There were no entries for the 1/8th GT8 Nitro.
After four rounds of qualifying the positions were as follows :
GT8 Electric
TQ Andy Travis
2nd Martin Thorpe
3rd Paul Dewsnap
1/10 IC 220mm GT
TQ Matthew Cook
2nd Mark Boothman
3rd Ian McLarney
1/10 200mm Touring
TQ Ollie Williams
2nd Nigel Philpott
3rd Ian Coates
Finals
A Final GT8 Electric
Andy Travis dominated all three legs . There was a close tussle between Martin and Paul during the last two legs with Paul taking second just 1 second in front of Martin in the final leg. The times improved leg by leg as the track started to dry .
1st Andy Travis(Harm)
2nd Paul Dewsnap(X-Ray)
3rd Martin Thorpe
A Final 200mm Touring
TQ Ollie Williams set off well .The track was wet initially and Nigel Philpott on damp tyres was close in second. Most of the other drivers went out on dry tyres and struggled initially. Unfortunately for Nigel his challenge ended as his damp tyres wore down to rims as the track dried. Jon Withington was driving well ,as was Ady Garrick who had the added advantage of running the wide body and wider tyres. As these kicked in Ady managed to overtake everyone and come home first . Jon was top in the 200mm classification, followed by Ollie and Dev.The podium classification was as follows:
1st Jon Withington (X-Ray)
2nd Ollie Williams (Capricorn)
3rd Dev Mahatme (Capricorn)
A Final GT8 Nitro
An incident packed race with a delayed start due two drivers suffering issues in the warm up. Once the race started Matt Cook set a blistering pace leaving everyone behind. Several drivers retired during the race with the consistent Daniel Chilvers taking over second. Jim Beesley was close behind with Jerome Evans in pursuit. Matt had to retire with engine problems but had built up a sufficient lead to take the win. Jim briefly took over second from Daniel with Daniel reclaiming it back in the last 3 minutes. Jim had a small collision allowing the charging Jerome to overtake in the last minute to take 3rd. A very entertaining watch !
Another enjoyable weekend’s racing .As usual Muriel Russell faultlessly ran race control . The final round takes place at the Halifax circuit on the 30th September/ 1st October weekend.