The UK "Triple Crown Winter Series" wraps up Rd.2

  

The second Round of the Faversham Off Road Car Club's Triple Crown Winter series was held at the Queen Elizabeth School on December 9th. Once again, the day would turn out to be an epic contest as drivers pitted their wits and reflexes against each other in their bid to be crowned as the series winner.

Some 82 competitors turned up for round two; a modest increase from the round one numbers and bolstered this time by some very welcome overseas visitors. TLR's Wesley Van Helmond along with his brother Dominique and their parents travelled over from Holland to see what all the fuss has been about whilst Belgian drivers Bart and Kristof Van Echelpoel also made the journey to give the event a touch of International class.

 
 

With Faversham's army of helpers, the club quickly turned the hall from being an empty school gym into a fast and flowing, high grip circuit with several well designed features that would challenge the driver's mettle to the limit. The club had made further investment since the first meeting in the form of more rolls of green carpet to cover the school flooring and which gave the circuit a high grip look and feel but a series of hardboard sheets fanning the hook turn end of the straight would provide a challenging slippery chicane for the drivers to contend with.

 

Although not a hugely technical track, it had a great flowing feel to it that rewarded the racers and enabled close wheel-to-wheel action that both the racers and the spectators enjoyed. Four rounds of FTD qualifying would determine the finals with everyone getting 2-legged finals except the A-Finalists who would enjoy three-legged ones.
 

In 4WD, round one kicked off with the usual suspects vying for top honours with Ralls Racing's Nathan Ralls and his Associated B44.2 machine just edging out Extreme RC's Ed Kerry with his Durango 410 to take top spot with both drivers comfortably ahead of James Clifford and Belgian ace Bart Van Echelpoel who were both only separated by 0.05 second whilst in 2WD, Ellis Stafford took the round easily ahead of Stu Rand with a rather surprised Andy Carter in 3rd fractionally ahead of Dutch starlet Welsey van Helmond and Grant Williams. In SCT, Team No Idea's Captain Martin Hayes set out his stall with a storming run almost a whole lap up on his nearest rival Steven Fairhall.

With the drivers constantly learning the track and making small changes to their setups, it was no surprise to see the laptimes begin to tumble in round 2. Ed Kerry pushed himself to the top of the 4WD pile with an improved time and whilst there were no changes to the top order in 2WD, the top 4 drivers all improved posting lap times that would have firmly placed them in the 4WD A final. Young Kyle Moon eased himself up the leaderboard and into 5th overall with a steady run with his Associated B44.1
 


Young Guns go for it.
The Faversham club has a long history in catering for younger drivers and helping them to develop. Over the years they've helped produce a string of fast drivers and so they're well placed to acknowledge young talent when they see it. As the day progressed, TLR driver Wesley van Helmond from Holland continued to impress everyone with his TLR 22 with consistent front-running pace that was starting to match the established old guard of Ellis Stafford and Grant Williams. In Round 3, Wesley improved again to slot into 3rd overall behind his older peers and ahead of Stu Rand and Andy Carter. Horizon Hobby UK's Chris Delves pushed himself safely into the middle of the 2WD A final with a19 lap run that usurped Racer's Matt Benfield and dropped him to 7th overall whilst Faversham's recent crop of young drivers were all duking it out between themselves for the lower order of the A final. Michael Vincent, Tom Bate and Will Johnson were clinging on just ahead of Horizon UK's Chris Brooke who was looking like the unlucky B-Q man. Fortunately for him, and the others who had not yet conquered the track, the FTD qualifying format would give them one last chance in round four to make that all important main. In SCT, Andy Johnson was moving omninously up the leader board and closer the gap to current TQ man Martin Hayes. Although still a lap down on the TQ man's pace, securing that front row grid position could prove decisive for the Faversham driver come finals time whilst the second row was looking like a Fairhall lockout with both Peter and Steven dicing for 3rd and 4th respectively.

Last Chance Saloon
Although pretty secure in 2nd overall in 4WD, Nathan Ralls had failed to improve upon his opening TQ run in round 1 whilst his championship rival Ed Kerry had consistently improved to sit almost a whole lap up on the Ralls Racing man. In Round 4, Nathan would put his racing head back on to take the round win with an improved time but crucially, not faster than his Extreme RC rival's previous round 3 time leaving Ed sitting on pole for the finals. Kyle Moon pushed himself into 3rd spot overall with a cracking drive to finish ahead of James Clifford whislt the Van Echelpoels locked out the 3rd row of the grid ahead of George Tollman, Lewis Dickinson and Elliott Hogben who were all separated by less than 0.3 second. Neil Gavin proved that he still has the pace as the once Faversham youngster wheeled his machine into 10th spot overall just ahead of Paul Fendt who would line up on pole for the B Final. Dominic van Helmond had completely dominated his qualifying heat all day and the Dutch youngster would steer his Losi XXX-4 machine into the C-final.

 

In 2WD none of the top five drivers would improve upon their earlier round times but Will Johnson, Tom Bate and Chris Brooke all took their chances in the last-gasp saloon to stake their claims in the A final. Michael Vincent was the unlucky loser in all of the last round position juggling as he found himself dropping three positions to wind up pole in the B final ahead of Horizon UK drivers Ollie Crew and Richard Thorpe. Further improvements for Martin Hayes and Andy Johnson secured their front row starting positions in the SCT class with Peter Fairhall just ahead of Steven in 3rd and 4th respectively. Logan Stafford put in an immensely impressive run in the 4th round to improve on his own personal best time by a whopping 5 laps.
 

 
Final Time
SCT A final Wrap Up
Having dominated all four rounds of qualifying to line up on pole position, it would have been a brave man to bet against Martin Hayes but Andy Johnson is obviously such a man. An error right at the end of leg one would cost Martin a victory and hand the leg win to rival Andy and in leg 2, Andy recorded a second win to take the overall win regardless of the third leg result. Another 2nd place for Martin ahead of Steven Fairhall would mimic the leg one results but come the 3rd leg, meeting winner Andy was unable to match his earlier pace and it was Steven Fairhall who stole 2nd place overall courtesy of a storming leg win ahead of Martin. Martin had been Mr Consistent all day long – taking every qualifying round win but only managing 2nd place in every final leg. Whether Steven had been sand-bagging at all to catch Martin unawares or whether it was nerves or the thought of having to write about the finals that resulted in Martin's mind being elsewhere we can only postulate but the end result meant that the pole man would wind up 3rd overall as Steven would take 2nd overall on countback courtesy of his leg win.

Moving onto the 4WD class and the results and history books will record it as a clean sweep for Extreme RC's Ed Kerry, taking each leg win from pole position. In reality, Ed had to work for his result, especially in the 2nd leg when an early mistake dropped him down the order. At all times throughout the day, his Durango 410 had looked settled and quick, enabling the Lydden Hill based driver to be in control at all times. In contrast, 2nd placed man Nathan Ralls had a real fight on his hands to keep his young protégé Kyle Moon at bay with the Faversham youngster putting in some truly impressive drives and narrowly losing out to his senior team leader in their fight for 2nd overall. Neil Gavin rolled back the years and used all of his experience and race craft to carve out a decent 5th place finish overall from tenth place on the grid and separating the visiting two Van Echelpoels on the way. Special mention and congratulations must be given to Xtreme RC's Ed Kerry as in securing the meeting win to backup his win from the earlier first round, his result also meant that he secured the series title. Well Done Ed!

The 2WD A finals would mimic the SCT finals with pole man Ellis Stafford, unbeaten throughout qualifying, being unable to convert his pole advantage in any of the 3 legs. Leg one would turn out to be a tight affair between Spektrum's Grant Williams and TLR's Wesley Van Helmond with both drivers getting through for the extra lap ahead of Ellis. In leg two early mistakes dropped young Wesley out of contention but Grant's consistency was relentless with the Essex driver recording a second leg win to secure the overall meeting win just ahead of Ellis. Horizon UK's Andy Carter surprised himself with a third place in the leg after having a dice and close race with Will Johnson, the pair of them being separated by less than 0.2s as they crossed the line. In the 3rd leg, again Grant would take up the race lead ahead of Wesley and a recovering Ellis and the three drivers put on a virtuoso performance of 2WD open wheel close racing to finish comfortably ahead of fourth place-man Stu Rand. Grant would take the meeting win with his flawless A final performance but all of the applause seemed directed at the young Dutch driver, Wesley Van Helmond with the club members appreciating and recognizing the talent of the youngster.

If smiles are anything to go by then a great day had been had by all and new friendships had been formed. Horizon UK would like to thank the club and all of its helpers for organizing such a great day's racing and to congratulate all of the winners in all the classes.
 

With the series being the best two from three meetings, round three means that there's a whole lot to play for – especially in the 2WD and SCT classes where the overall championships have yet to be decided. The third and last round of the championship will be held on 10th February 2013 when all of the titles will be decided.

 

 

 

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