The first round of the 2006-2007 Carpet Wars Championship saw 158 drivers booked in for the new, even bigger event run by Maritime Racing Club and sponsored by LRP, Helger and TTech Racing at its annual venue, the Black Lion Leisure Centre in Gillingham, Kent. Among them were top class names of Craig Drescher, Ricky Copsey, Kevin Brunsden, Jimmy Maddison, and Adam Rogers as well as local stars Gavin Clinch, Stuart Rand and Nathan Parker. The doors opened at 7 am sharp when the drivers got their first look at the new, larger 32 m by 24 m primafelt track located in the main hall. There was ample room for the drivers to pit, with use of the secondary hall available also. A quick run up a flight of stairs saw you on the rostrum with a clear view of the whole track based loosely on the outdoor track at West London.
The control tyre for this year’s series was to be the LRP VTEC premounted 24R tyre.
Controlled practice got under way with 6 minutes track time allocated to each group of drivers and it was clear at that early stage that it was going to take a while before the clean, additive aided groove would stop the rear wheels loosing grip in the tight corners resulting in a spin but that the new tyres were going to be a huge improvement over the INGs used last year.
The other noticeable difference this year was the inclusion of a 19t super stock class which had encouraged some of last year’s top stock drivers to migrate to something a little more challenging.
So at 8.30 am all practice stopped for the short and sweet drivers briefing ready for the first heats on the line at 9.00 am for 3 rounds of qualifying followed by 2 leg finals. 		 
 


27 Turn Qualifying
Richmond Rogers kicked of his bid for this year’s stock title in fine style taking the first stock FTD of this year’s championship 1 second ahead of Brian Shardlow with Elliot Boots a further second behind. Nathan Morgan and Ian Taylor rounded out the top drivers who managed to hit the 18 lap mark in the first round. In round 2, Ian Taylor really got stuck in! He posted the only 19 lapper in stock, almost a full lap ahead of Richmond’s previous FTD! Neil Castle, Bryan Loynes, Phil Ravenshear, Mark Sadler, Tim Hancock and James Arkell joined the ranks of the 18 lappers.
In Round 3 Richmond’s best efforts to take pole for the finals just weren’t quite good enough. The only other person to stick in 19 laps, he just couldn’t get anywhere Ian’s second round time of 308.48. So Ian Taylor took a comfortable pole with Richmond Rogers in 2nd place and Brian Shardlow in 3rd who didn’t manage to make any improvement on his first qualifying time. The rest of the A Final line up was Nathan Morgan in 4th, Neil Castle in 5th, top junior Elliot Boots in 6th, Bryan Loynes in 7th, 8th Phil Ravenshear, 9th John Painter and 10th Tim Hancock

  
 
19 Turn Qualifying
Chris Kerswell stormed off to set FTD with 19 laps in 303.18 with Nathan Parker in hot pursuit finishing the first round of qualifying only 3 seconds behind Chris. Ian Taylor put his stock track time to good use allowing him to slip in to 3rd spot. The second round saw several drivers raise the standard to set the first 20 lap run of the meeting. Nathan Parker took FTD with a time of 305 dead, Chris Kerswell ran a good second just 6 seconds behind. Mark Stiles and Stuart Rand had their own battle going on for 3rd and 4th with mark just piping Stuart to the line. Rob Fox made a good improvement but was bettered in the previous heat by that man again Ian Taylor and another local Dave Reece. Round 3 saw little improvement at the top. Positions one to five remained the same with Rob improving making it up to 6th. Steve Lissamore, Fabien Simonini and Andy Robson rounded out the A finalists in 8th, 9th and 10th place respectively.		  
 
Modified Qualifying
In round 1 Adam Rogers and Glenn Doman were the first drivers to post 20 laps. Kevin Brunsden was in 3rd a full lap behind Adam who really was in a class of his own. It was these 3 drivers who showed the way in round 2 as well all three of them posting 21 laps with a slight change in order. Adam again posted FTD in 309.93 with Kevin taking 2nd and Glenn 3rd. Chris Grainger had yet to show his well known pace almost a full lap behind Adam. Craig Drescher had yet to make an impression with a first qualifying time of 18 laps in 269 being his best so far he was leaving late to show his hand. Adam couldn’t make an improvement on his 2nd round time but held on to his FTD and pole position. Craig Drescher finally got his act together and finished his last qualifying run only 1 second behind Adam. Chris Grainger also made a huge improvement but still only managed 20 laps. The line up for the A final looked like: 1st Adam Rogers, 2nd Craig Drescher, 3rd Kevin Brunsden, 4th Glenn Doman, 5th Chris Grainger, 6th Richard White, 7th Elliott Harper, 8th Andy Childs, 9th John Pape and 10th Mark Fuller