DMS Model Car Club Winter Series Rd2 – Report

This past weekend was held the second round of this years DMS Model Car Club Winter Series at normal venue of Aldenham School Sports Centre. Typically a technical track requiring lots of concentration and precision over the jump combinations to ensure fast lap times consistently was what greeted the racers…

Round 1 saw TQ taken by William Venables (Team Associated) with a comfortable margin of 6 seconds from Kev Hunt (Team Associated) taking second and joining Will on 23 laps. Round 2 saw the same top two improve their times with TQ improving by just over 3 seconds, they were joined by Dan Smith (Schumacher Racing) in 3rd with the quickest of the 22 lappers. Round 3 and William eaked a little more out of his car and improved TQ by just under 1 sec, but both Shaun Garratt (Team Associated) and Rich Miller (Schumacher Racing) leapfrogged Dan’s round 2 time to place 3rd and 4th respectively. The fourth and final round saw no further improvement on the TQ but William did complete the clean sweep of taking all four rounds. Kevin remained second but with stunning last round drive, Lee Hedges (Team Associated) put it 3rd on the grid and Les Izzard (Schumacher Racing) 4th, demoting Shaun and Richard down to 5th and 6th and Dan Smith would be BQ.

The Vintage class was TQ’d by Luke O’Neill (Schumacher Cougar Classic) from Paul Anderson (Schumacher Procat), Fraser Hodgson (Schumacher Bosscat) and Keith McDonald (Kyosho Optima Mid) taking the top four qualifying spots. On to finals and the Vintage class was first to run. Luke O’Neill would convert his TQ into a comfortable win. Paul Anderson took 2nd and Anna Greenwood 3rd. Just missing out on the podium was Fraser Hodgson (Schumacher Racing) in 4th.

The first 2WD buggy final was the E which was taken « relatively » comfortably by poleman Freddy Morgan-Smith (Schumacher Racing) with Jasper Greenwood (Team Associated) final snatching the last bump up spot in 2nd with Alzbeta Turcanyiova (Team Associated) missing out in 3rd.

The D final 2WD buggy was a nervy affair for much of the race between the first 3 or 4 racers but eventually Robin Kearney (Team Associated) from P2 with Ini Eno-Ammooquaye (Team Associated) taking the all valuable 2nd bump up with poleman Luke O’Neill (Schumacher Racing) missing out in third.

The C Final was next, which saw a great scrap right across the whole field, with the lead two spots changing on every lap. It was taken at tone by Dave Macaulay (Schumacher Racing) from P2 and with a stunning drive all the way from P6, Ian Watson (TLR) would take the second bump up with both Keith MacDonald (Team Associated) and poleman Bob Course (Team Associated) just missing out in 3rd and 4th.

The B final was a tense affair, but in the end it was Dan Smith (Schumacher Racing) who held his nerve from P1 to take an extremely close win after having been in the A all day until the last few qualifiers. Joining him from P2 was Thomas Lau (Team Associated), who was quite content to sit in second for a safe passage through to the A. Missing out in 3rd and 4th was our P5 and P6 qualifiers Darren Boyle (Team Associated) and Kirk Redford (X-Factory).

The main event, the A final, was almost a race spilt into two, the front three and then the rest, from the off it was regulation order right through the field for the early stages but as the front 3 broke clear, first to fall was P2 man Kevin Hunt with an error which allowed the Hobbywing/Elceram powered Associated B6.4 of Lee Hedges through into second, but try as he may Kevin Hunt with his ORCA powered Associated B6.4 could not get back ahead of and settled for third a couple of seconds behind Lee, whilst all the while TQ man William Venables with his Reedy powered Associated B6.4 was the run away winner by over 13 seconds completing a podium 1-2-3 for the Associated cars.

The rest of the A was completed by Les Izzard (Schumacher Racing) in 4th, Shaun Garratt (Team Associated) in 5th, Richard Miller (Schumacher Racing) in 6th, Thomas Lau (Team Associated) in 7th and Dan Smith (Schumacher Racing) in 8th.

So with first two rounds now in the books, the championship standing is as follows (top ten) from 34 competitors thus far.

1. Kevin Hunt (Team Associated) – 196 pts
2. Richard Miller (Schumacher Racing) – 194 pts
3. Shaun Garratt (Team Associated) – 193 pts
4. Dave Macauley (Schumacher Racing) – 179 pts
5. Ian Watson (TLR) – 179 pts
6. Julian Priestley (Team Associated) – 174 pts
7. Paul Anderson (Schumacher Racing) – 174 pts
8. Bob Course (Team Associated) – 173 pts
9. Luke O’Neill (Schumacher Racing) – 169 pts
10. Robert Carpmael (Team Associated) – 157 pts

Round 3 is on December 16th, booking in open now, just search for DMS Model Car Club on bookitbee or follow the link here.

Thanks to Darren Boyle (DMS Model Car Club) for the report.