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Once again we returned to the Wodson Park Leisure Centre for another round of the Rug Racers series. Another demanding track was laid out by the Hertfordshire club, with its fast entries into tight corners, the track would (yet again) see plenty of punishment throughout the day, but the Hertford club managed to keep on top of it and repair the track when needed. At the start of the day the track had very low traction, which meant the drivers had to keep on top of their cars. A single lapse in concentration had dire consequences. As the day progressed, the traction came up and the times tumbled, naturally seeing some close racing between drivers in their respective classes. Half way through the series now, the championships are beginning to take shape with Adam Rogers, Rob Fox and Adam Smith leading modified, 19 and 27turn respectively. However, there is still time for the championship to change shape and the leader board to change. All at the meeting closely watched Adam Rogers as he gave his Schumacher Mi3 its debut run which showed the pace of the new car, which featured some interesting new design features. |
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27 Turn Qualifying
At the start of the day Dave Ledger took the pole spot by three seconds from Dave Ringsall; but with the track conditions changing every round the final round proved to be the fastest of all. Dave Ringsall took TQ in the second round from Mr. Ledger by 0.2 seconds, showing just how close the field is, but Dave Ledger went on to regain his pole position by moving onto the 23rd lap, which put him safely in the final, but not necessarily safe in pole position. In the final round Brian Shardlow pushed his Schumacher hard showing a lot of potential to snatch the pole position from Dave! In the end Dave kept his pole position by 0.2 seconds from Brian, with Dave Ringsall taking the third grid position. |
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th |
Dave Ledger
Brian Shardlow
Dave Ringsall
John Painter
Philip Randal
Matthew Worton
Damian Giddins
Tim Handle
Andrew Simpson
Paul Pinkney |
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Matthew Worton hard at work on his Corally RDX |
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19 Turn Qualifying
Qualifying had no surprises with the usual contenders at the front of the grid. Christopher Delves took the initial pole position five seconds in front of his team mate, Steve Lissamore, with the likes of Rob Fox having to retire after an incident on a corner which cost him a wishbone. Nathan Parker was placed in a low heat, which resulted in a lot of problems with slower cars. During the next two rounds both Christopher and Rob experienced problems and although Christopher stayed in the top three in the third round both Dave Soul and Nathan Parker went faster and threatened to break into the usual two front runners in this class; but Rob had yet to post a time to put him in the final. The final round was the most important with Nathan improving his TQ time, and it looked like that the grid was going to be a little different from normal. For the first four and a half minutes of the run it looked like Christopher Delves would move onto the 24th lap and take the pole position, but a small mistake cost him big time, and he consequently handed the lead to Rob Fox, who was pushing hard to make the 24th lap. At the end of the five minutes Rob had just missed out on the 24th lap by a little over half a second, with Christopher two seconds behind and Dave Soul two seconds behind him. The final round really was the rocket round with a lot of the top heat drivers putting in their best runs right at the end of the day.
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1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th |
Rob Fox
Christopher Delves
Dave Saul
Steve Lissamore
Nathan Parker
Malcolm Hall
Richard Bettaney
Mark Bounaiuto
Dion Phillips
Lee Hedges |
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Richard Thorpe had a disapointing day after qualifying well at Carpet Wars the week before. |
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Modified Qualifying
From the outset it was obvious who would dominate this meeting. Adam Rogers is the man to beat in the major southern touring car race meetings at the moment. Adam was running the new Mi3 Schumacher car for the first time, and with everyone watching intently he had not a little pressure on him to give the car a good first showing in front of this crowd. Which is exactly what Adam did, putting himself a lap in front of Elliott Harper in second by the end of the day. Local driver Kit Jones placed his car third on the grid after a solid run in the third round of qualifying which at the time had him sitting second behind Adam. Rich White followed up behind Kit in fourth, not quite managing to break the 24 lap barrier and qualified on his first round time after having trouble in the other rounds! |
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th |
Adam Rogers
Elliott Harper
Kit Jones
Rich White
Brian Eldridge
Jason Gibbs
Mark Wilson
Keith Helmke
Dax Jean Baptiste
Lee Hedges |
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Mick working on Adams Schumacher prototype. |
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