The Scottish Off Road Series (SORS) visited the Dumfries Model Car Club for Rd 2 of the 2023 BRCA Scottish Regional Championship on June 18th.
Against some weather predictions it was a lovely summers day at Dumfries - warm and dry, and the drivers were presented with a track that at first sight may have looked big and flowing and fast, but which turned out to be quite tricky! We'd guessed at about 25sec for a fast lap and that is where some of the faster drivers got to quite quickly.
This is the last grass track in Scotland and, unfortunately it had been flooded most of the winter and then baked hard over several weeks leading up the the event. The result was a track that we knew would deteriorate quite quickly making for a challenging day.
Briefing was complete quickly and the practice heats commenced on time at 8.30. We had 8 full heats and the luxury of a full time race referee/commentator! All went smoothly through practice and racing got underway promptly at 10 am.
2WD - The track did indeed deteriorate during the day, mostly affecting the 2WD times. It became quite blown out in a few areas, but I think it remained fun to drive in an increasingly challenging way! At the end of the 4 rounds it was Daniel Pole who had TQ'd every round. He was kept on his toes though with Euan, Jimmy, David and Gary lurking not that far behind him. The top 10 for the 2WD A Final were: Daniel Pole, Euan McLeod, Jimmy Hamilton, Gary Dunn, David Scott, Paul Kerr, Martin Inglis, Colin McCaffery, Allan Bridgeman and Aaron Carberry.
4WD - After 4 rounds of qualifying it was the mighty Daniel Pole who was showing the rest a clean pair of heels again! TQ'ing every round and impressing everyone with his pace. He is genuinely a top 10 driver in the UK already and is still ridiculously young! The sky's the limit for Dan! The top 10 for the 4WD A Final were: Daniel Pole, Euan McLeod, David Scott, Allan Bridgeman, Gary Dunn, Martin Inglis, Fraser McLeod, Jimmy Hamilton and Aaron Carberry.
The track had a long elevated, bumpy, straight section that then dropped about 5ft, turned right then climbed back to another elevated straight section before plunging down to the right and a quick left/right wiggle and on round the lap. Getting that section right was an immense challenge which Dan got down to a fine art during the day, much to the entertainment of the other drivers!
The finals started around 3.30
2WD D: 1st - Ollie Carberry. 2nd - Winters Dunn. 3rd - Isla McClung.
2WD C: 1st - Stevie Sheridan. 2nd - Paul Auld. 3rd - Reigan Bissett.
2WD B: 1st - Fraser McLeod. 2nd - Steve Harley. 3rd - Raymond Kerr.
2WD A Final - Fairly straightforward win for Dan with a pretty lonely run for Euan in second. Jimmy had a really messy 3rd and 4th laps which dropped him from 2nd to 4th allowing Gary to take 3rd. However during the latter part of the race one of Garys tyres started to flap! On the second last corner, Dan lapped Jimmy and saw that Gary was slowing slightly. Because he was comfortably in the lead he decided to ride high in the last corner so as not to interfere with what turned out to be a close finish for third! Gary got over the line less than a second in front of Jimmy! Finishing order was Dan, Euan, Gary, Jimmy, Martin, Allan, Paul, Colin, David then Aaron.
2wd A Final Result
Pos Driver
1 Daniel Pole – Team Associated
2 Euan McLeod - Schumacher
3 Gary Dunn - Losi
4 James Hamilton - Sworkz
5 Martin Inglis - Kyosho
6 Allan Bridgeman - Team Associated
7 Paul Kerr - Xray
8 Colin McCaffery - Team Associated
9 David Scott - Schumacher
10 Aaron Carberry - Serpent
4WD D: 1st - Stephen McArthur. 2nd - Ollie Carberry. 3rd - Lucy McCaffery.
4WD C: 1st - Russell McClung. 2nd - Paul Auld. 3rd - Reigan Bissett.
4WD B: 1st - Nicky Lax. 2nd - Kevin McDowall. 3rd - Steve Harley.
4WD A Final - This actually turned out to be pretty close! Dan got a clean start and made off into the distance only to make a small mistake on lap 3 allowing David Scott and Euan McLeod a chance to close in. It remained pretty close then Dan started to ease away again. He them made another mistake on lap 7 which closed the whole race up again! Nevertheless he held on to win, but only by a few seconds with the gap between 2nd and 3rd being less than 2 seconds. Finishing order was Dan, David, Euan, Allan, Martin, Fraser, Aaron, Raymond, Jimmy, Gary.
4wd A Final Result
Pos Driver
1 Daniel Pole – Team Associated
2 David Scott - Schumacher
3 Euan McLeod - Schumacher
4 Allan Bridgeman – Team Associated
5 Martin Inglis - Kyosho
6 Fraser McLeod - Schumacher
7 Aaron Carberry - Serpent
8 Raymond Kerr - Xray
9 James Hamilton - Sworkz
10 Gary Dunn - Losi
At the end of it all we had a superb day! The track actually held up just about OK and remained fun to drive. Everything went smoothly, largely thanks to the efforts of Derek Ferguson in Race Control. He commentated and refereed all day! Kept the whole thing moving along at a grand pace. We were done by 5pm! Thanks Derek! Other mention should go to everybody who helped run the day and to all the drivers for coming to race!
Next race is Rd3 at Glasgow on the 2nd July.
Race report courtesy of Jimmy Hamilton
