The 2018 BRCA 1/10th Off-Road National series made a welcome return to Kidderminster Model Car Club over the weekend of July 14-15. The multi-surface Kidderminster track has been hosting National events for over 2 decades, but in that time, it has rarely looked better than this year. A beautifully presented track greeted the 120 strong field of drivers each day and as has been the case for the majority of the rounds this year, the weather forecast promised high temperatures and blue skies.
Saturday – 2WD
Yokomo’s Lee Martin has been on something of a roll in 2WD this year and after winning the last three 2WD Rounds in a row, anything but a Cragg TQ and win this weekend would see Martin wrap up the 2WD Championship with a round to spare. Although over the years, we have learnt that there is nothing the defending champion likes more than a challenge!!! Cragg meant business and set about securing the crucial TQ position by winning the first 3 Rounds of Qualifying with his Associated B6.1. The times were close throughout, with Martin only losing out by 0.06 sec. in one of the rounds! In Round 4 of Qualifying however, it was Schumacher’s Tom Yardy who would take the fastest time and secure 2nd on the grid, leaving Martin in 3rd and therefore ‘with it all to do’ to prevent the title race going down to the wire. Schumacher’s Ben Pugh, one of the organising team, who along with his family had worked so hard on the Kidderminster track prior to the event, would put himself 4th on the grid, his joint best qualifying result of a very impressive season.
Qual. Top 10: 1. Neil Cragg
2. Tom yardy
3. Lee Martin
4. Ben Pugh
5. Elliot Boots
6. Simon Moss
7. Danny McGee
8. Craig Collinson
9. Tom Cockerill
10. Ben Jemison
‘A’ Final Leg 1 saw Cragg make an impressive start, pulling around two seconds clear of the pack in the opening three laps. Yardy remained 2nd with Martin hot on his tail until the Yokomo man made an error on lap four that would see him drop down the order and out of contention. Pugh moved into 3rd, around 2 seconds behind Yardy who was maintaining the 3 second distance between himself and Cragg. That’s how the order stayed until the end, with Cragg half way to a crucial win. Leg 2 would start in a similar way until half way into lap two, where Cragg would get out of shape on the bricked paving section and collect the chasing Yardy. This gave Martin the chance to get to the front which he gratefully took and would go on to win the leg – a significantly better result than his 6th in Leg 1. Cragg would recover to 2nd and Yardy 3rd meaning any of these drivers could win the event with a win in Leg 3. These three left the chasing pack behind in Leg 3 and the battle was on. Cragg lead with Yardy and Martin in close attendance until around lap five where Yardy, who was pushing hard to stay with Cragg, would get out of shape and let Martin through for 2nd. Martin and Yardy would do all they could to close the gap, but Cragg had the edge and would take the Leg 3 win and a maximum points haul to take the title race on to Round 6. Martin would finish the leg in 2nd and secure 2nd overall, while Yardy would take the last step of the podium.
Final Top 10: 1. Neil Cragg
2. Lee Martin
3. Tom Yardy
4. Ben Pugh
5. Elliot Boots
6. Simon Moss
7. Danny McGee
8. Tom Cockerill
9. Craig Collinson
10. Ben Jemison
Sunday – 4wd
The layout was changed significantly over night, and a technical and challenging track would greet the racers for 4WD. No title could be decided this weekend, but either Cragg or Martin could take a big step towards the title with a win. Cragg has a very impressive record when it comes to 4WD National events at Kidderminster, and it showed – he immediately looked at home on the technical layout and would go on to dominate all 4 Rounds of Qualifying with his Associated B64. No one was able to get within three seconds of his pace. Martin would take 2nd in three of the rounds and would line up 2nd ahead of his Yokomo team-mate Tom Cockerill, who is enjoying a very solid 4WD campaign. Schumacher’s Tom Yardy would put his CAT L1 in 4th place, ahead of team-mate Ben Pugh.
Qual. Top 10: 1. Neil Cragg
2. Lee Martin
3. Tom Cockerill
4. Tom Yardy
5. Ben Pugh
6. Craig Collinson
7. Simon Moss
8. Richard Barton
9. Jack Neal
10. Elliot Boots
Cragg would lead the way in Leg 1, but unlike in qualifying, Martin now looked to have found more pace and was putting him under pressure. Despite throwing all he could at the AE star, Martin couldn’t find a way past and Cragg would take the Leg 1 win. Martin in 2nd and Cockerill in 3rd. In Leg 2 it was a similar story – Martin giving it everything, but not able to break Cragg who would wrap up the meeting with a leg to spare and complete an impressive weekend double. Martin and Cockerill would again complete the top three. Though he started the final leg, Cragg would make a big error on lap two and drop way down the order. This left Martin to take a dominant leg win while Cockerill, Yardy and Pugh battled it out over the 2nd place in the leg, which would give one of them the final podium spot overall. Cockerill held on and would claim 2nd in the leg and 3rd overall, while Yardy and Pugh had to settle for 4th and 5th respectively.
Final Top 10: 1. Neil Cragg
2. Lee Martin
3. Tom cockerill
4. Tom Yardy
5. Ben Pugh
6. Craig Collinson
7. Simon Moss
8. Richard Barton
9. Elliot Boots
10. Jack Neal
Next stop for many of our UK racers is the 1/10 Off-Road European Championships in Reims, France, from 23-28 July. Good luck to all of our UK racers who are attending, and we look forward to a title deciding weekend at Boughton on August 18-19.
Recognition for report & pictures to:- Tom Yardy & Zoom RC Photography.
