BRCA LSOR National 2024 Round 3 Race Report

For those that remember last season's abandoned visit to Nene Valley Raceway due to the weather, it was great to be back at this exceptional venue with the sun shining and the track and facilities looking in fantastic condition. Well done team Nene!

Open Practice

Onto the racing. With the weather dry all weekend, drivers were surprising struggling for grip on the newly laid track surface due to the volume of sand on the racing line. While this improved a little over the weekend, mechanical grip was hard to come by for all classes and practice on Saturday saw lots of setup and tyre choices as racers looked to seek out every advantage they could ahead of qualifying.

Qualifying

As is now the norm with increased numbers attending Large Scale Nationals, 2 rounds of qualifying were held on Saturday. The racing was extremely close across all classes but with best 2 from 3 rounds to count, pole position was decided on Saturday in both the 2WD and 4WD classes, with Oliver Whittleston and large scale newcomer Charlie Ware both taking TQ in each class respectively. Short Course however was still all to play for between Ian Oddie and Taylor Letchford.

Sunday morning arrived and the weather remained fair. With the final round of qualifying to decide overall TQ in Short Course and some interesting lower position battles. In the end Ian Oddie took overall TQ in Short Course, with Taylor Letchford 2^nd and Dave Parish 3^rd. 2WD saw Andy Blackburn sneak into 2^nd position ahead of Karl Norris with an exceptional final qualifying round and 4WD top 3 was rounded off with Tommy Chung and Dave Ashton in 2^ndand 3^rd respectively. 

Finals

4WD Buggy 

4WD 1/8 Final started proceedings, with Darren Watson on pole. However, this 10 minute dash was dominated by Jason Mander who after a shocking qualifying where he qualified dead last, managed to lap the whole field to line up 8^th in 1/4 Final. This final however was much more closely contested for the top 3 bump up places with just 18 seconds splitting the top 4. Stephen Hunt took the win, Jason Mander secured another bump up and Les Darby pipped Josey Schifano to the final bump spot in the final few laps.

Onto the semi final! 20 minutes of racing….could Jason Mander make it from dead last to the Main Final? John Bell started on pole and drove a faultless lights to flag race to take the win. Behind him the battle was on for the final 2 spots in the main final. With P2, Andy Knight retiring on Lap 2 and mistakes from others, Paul Land who started P4 and Stephen Hunt who started P7 took the final 2 bump ups.

30 minutes of racing now lay ahead of the top 10 cars. Newcomer Charlie Ware on pole with last season’s National Champion, Tommy Chung lining up P2. Charlie just had too much for the rest of the grid, just like in qualifying and drove a faultless race to win by 1 lap in the end to Tommy Chung. Neil Young took the final podium spot in P3 after starting P4 on the grid.

2WD Buggy

With just a semi final and main final to be contested, all eyes were on the semi final to see who would secure the final 3 spaces in the Main Final. After a bit if a chaotic start, pole sitter Kayleigh Knight and P9 man Darren Smith both retired within the first few laps, opening the door for the mid-field pack to seize their opportunity. In the end Mindaugas Klenauskas took P1, Neil Griffin P2 and Dean Coulson, from 6^th on the grid took the final bump up position.

With grip still hard to find for the 2WD buggys, tyre choice was split across the top 3 in the Main Final. 30 minutes will determine who made the right choice! After a timing malfunction, the race had to be abandoned after 2 minutes and restarted. This restart didn’t affect the concentration of any of the grid with an exceptionally clean restart. Oliver was slowly extending his lead in the first half of the race and looked to have the race under control before a collision with a lapped car meaning he needed marshalling gave Andy Blackburn in P2 all the encouragement he needed when he found himself leading the race. Oliver chased him down hard and a small mistake by Andy over the triple gave Oliver the opportunity to retake the lead. Andy wasn’t done yet and was catching Oliver in the final phases of the race. 2 Elcon cars, going wheel to wheel on different tyres for the last 5 minutes was a great spectacle for all those watching. Oliver managed to hang on to the lead and take the win by just over 1 second from Andy. Karl Norris completed the podium in P3.

Short Course

With a few drivers in this class just racing on the Sunday this left them down in lower finals after qualifying. Neil Sivins and Luke Milne were 2 of these drivers, who showed their class in the 1/4 final finishing P1 and P2 respectively and securing bump ups to the semi final. Wally Oates, who started on pole took the final bump up position in P3 at the chequered flag.

Could Neil and Luke complete the comeback and make the A final? They lined up P8 and P9 with Luke Gower the full length of the grid in front of them on pole. After a chaotic start, Luke settled into his rhythm and took the win, 1 lap ahead of the field. Junior racer Jake Faulkner drove a measured race to come home in P2 to qualify for his first National Main Final. The final bump up position was contested by, yes you guessed it, Neil and Luke. In the end Luke Milne took P3 completing the rise for bottom final to top final.

Main Final time……..3 juniors (Zach, Alfie and Jake) on the grid, 4 Losi Trucks, 3 MCDs, 2 Elcons and a 30 Degree North. The cars got off the line in formation and the top 6 drivers were folllwing nose to tail for the first few laps building a gap to the rest of the field. Taylor Letchford and Dave Parish were keeping Ian Oddie on his toes for the lead while Zach Whittleston and Jack Keatley battled it out for 4^th place with Alfie-Jack Shilcock waiting in the wings to benefit from any mistakes from the top runners. An unfortunate coming together between 3 cars on the triple ended Dave Parish’s weekend with a damaged rear shock and at the half way point, the positions had started to settle and with an unplanned pit stop for engine issues for Alfie and a couple of additional retirements, the top 4 looked certain to finish ahead of the rest. At the chequered flag Ian Oddie crossed in P1, Jack Keatley P2, Taylor Letchford P3 and Zach Whittleston P4. However, this wasn’t the final classified order. P2 and P3 were deemed to have failed technical inspection and were demoted to P8 and P9 respectively. In the end Ian Oddie took the win, Zach Whittleston claimed his first every National podium in 2^nd and Luke Gower finished in P3.

As we enter the summer months and the hope of more drier race weekends the National and Clubman titles are still all to play for. The links and leaders of each championship after 2 rounds are as follows:

• 4WD National – Tommy Chung
• 4WD Clubman – Josey Schifano
• 2WD National – Oliver Whittleston
• 2WD Clubman – Neil Clark
• Short Course National – Zach Whittleston
• Short Course Clubman – Jake Faulkner

We look forward to seeing you all at North Ings Raceway for Round 4 on 15^th and 16^th June. Booking in is available at https://www.brca.org/events/lsor-nationals.