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2005 European 4WD Championships
Stafford's the man |
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| Richard Cree and Ellis Stafford |
4WD started on Friday, and as with the 2WD it was very close, the driver who made the least mistakes was going to set the pace. At the end of Friday's two rounds of qualifying three of Helger Distributions Team Losi drivers were in the top ten, Richard Cree in 5th , Darren Bloom field in 6th and Ellis Stafford in 7th .
By the three rounds on Saturday and Ellis really stamped his authority on the meeting to grab the TQ spot by being fastest in rounds 4, 5 and 6. He looked to be set to repeat his previous European Championship success.
Richard Cree and Darren Bloomfield also continued their outstanding showing at this meeting by making the A final so that all three of them had done the double by qualifying for both the 2WD and 4WD A finals. |
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| A Final line up |
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| Ellis's Car |
| TQ Results |
| Postion |
Name |
Sponsors |
| TQ, |
Ellis Stafford |
Team Losi, Peak, LRP, KO |
| 2nd |
Neil Cragg |
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| 3rd |
Marc Reinnard (D) |
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| 4th |
Richard Cree |
Team Losi, Peak, LRP, KO |
| 5th |
Jukka Steenari (SF) |
Team Losi |
| 6th |
Darren Bloomfield |
Team Losi, Peak, LRP, KO |
| 7th |
Jorn Neumann (D) |
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| 8th |
Hubert Honigl (A) |
Team Losi, LRP |
| 9th |
Peter Pinisch (A) |
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| 10th |
Lee Martin |
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A Final action |
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The first leg of the A final started with Ellis converting his pole position into a comfortable lead, unfortunately lady luck did not smile and on the third lap this car rolled to a halt with a mysterious electrical fault that could not be found, even afterwards in the pits.
Richard Cree then took over the reins and battled his way to the front of the race and finally won it by a small margin.
Leg two had Ellis start strong again but this time came under pressure from both Richard Cree and Neil Cragg, which resulted in some very exciting and close racing during the whole five minutes. At the end it came down to two drivers, team mates Ellis and Richard who were the only drivers to get onto the extra lap, with Richard leading Ellis by about two metres onto the last lap and with Ellis applying more and more pressure, the 2nd leg was decided on the very last jump three metres from the finish when Richard's car bobbled on the top and tipped over. Ellis ever the opportunist kept his throttle wide open and powered to a one metre win.
This set up the third leg of the A final as a nail biting finale to the whole meeting between the two LOSI/PEAK/LRP/KO team mates, Richard with a first and second in the bag and Ellis with a first and nothing.
The third leg did not disappoint; Ellis again leads initially from Neil and Richard. With a number of very good clean overtaking moves from all three drivers battling for supremacy, about three and a half minutes into the race and Richard had a bad corner and dropped back slightly, leaving Ellis and Neil to carry on the fight, Neil got through and Ellis realising that because his was the fastest win decided that caution was better than heroics and followed Neil to the line to claim his second 4WD European Championships. |
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| Richard Cree, Ellis Stafford, Neil Cragg |
| A Final Results |
| Postion |
Name |
Sponsors |
| 1st |
Ellis Stafford |
Team Losi, Peak, LRP, KO |
| 2nd |
Richard Cree |
Team Losi, Peak, LRP, KO |
| 3rd |
Neil Cragg |
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| 4th |
Jukka Steenari (SF) |
Team Losi |
| 5th |
Jorn Neumann (D) |
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| 6th |
Hubert Honigl (A) |
Team Losi, LRP |
| 7th |
Peter Pinisch (A) |
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| 8th |
Lee Martin |
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| 9th |
Marc Reinard (D) |
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| 10th |
Darren Bloomfield |
Team Losi, Peak, LRP, KO |
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Winner's all |
Oops heavy |
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The Pits |
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Overall the 2005 European Championships proved to be a resounding success for Helger Distributions /Team Losi team of drivers, Five in the 2wd A final and three in the 4wd A final was awesome result well done guys.
Ellis Stafford, TQ and 1st in 4wd, 6th in 2wd
Richard Cree 2nd in both 4wd and 2wd
Darren Bloomfield, Third place qualify in 2wd and 7th in A as well as 10th in 4wd
Richard Taylor 9th in 2wd
Phil Sleigh 10th in 2wd
That's not to forget the rest of the team who where there and contributed to the results with their feed back on set ups and ideas.
Steve Lawson
Matt Dodd
Brian Preddy |
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| Team Car's |
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