Louis takes the GT12 Class by storm!

Track

It was a good night for team Parker with Richard being fastest qualifier and winning the “A” final in the club mardave class, not to be outdone Louis Parker put in what is probably his best ever performance to be unbeatable in the GT12 class. Very well done Louis.

A good standard of driving from everyone this week made for some really close racing, Jenson Butlin was the top driver in the mardave “B” final, with Roy Matthews second testing out David Simpson’s car and Joshua Galbraith took third.

Richard Parker duly won the “A” final, but there was a tremendous race for second place between Paul Galbraith and Lee Bishop with Lee eventually finishing 2 seconds ahead of Paul.

The GT12 final was run at a very fast pace, Louis Parker dominated the race and holding off a determined challenge from Dave Tomlinson in the latter stages of the race, both driver finishing with 51 laps. Behind them Daniel Williams finished third after another close battle with Bob Harley, both drivers achieving 50 laps.

After his great win last week Darren Ford was not as successful driving his GT12, watch out for him in the next few weeks when he gets it set up!

Another very exciting evenings racing.

Team Galbraith dominate the leagues and Darren Ford leaves everyone for dust.

This was the final round of the current league and in the Mardave class division 3 Joshua Galbraith after his break from racing last week took maximum points by being fastest qualifier and best in the final which won him division 3 – well done Josh a fine performance. Roy Matthews got the better of Courtney Orme this week but did not make up enough ground to overtake him in the league so the final league positions were Courtney second and Roy third.

In division 2, despite Lee Bishop’s recent tremendous run of victories he missed out racing this week (was the pressure too much?) and Paul Galbraith was the champion with some excellent driving and maximum points from the evening. Looks like team Galbraith are the ones to beat at present!.

Division 1 was keenly contested with Darren Ford making a return after missing several weeks, he also had a maximum point evening which included a tremendous drive in the final to achieve 55 laps which was 1 lap better than the GT12 class – great driving. Richard Parker was the division 1 winner with consistently good driving throughout.

In the GT12 class the best 6 from 7 results counted for each driver as the league started a few weeks later than the mardave class, some great racing during the evening with Keith Heathcote being fastest qualifier just ahead of David Simpson and Louis Parker third.  In the final Keith won again and a fine race by Louis gained him second place – well done Louis!

Despite not racing this evening Dave Tomlinson was the GT12 league winner with Bob Harley second and Louis Parker third.

Remember it is round 2 of the Superleague next week which runs throughout 2014 on alternate months with the drivers best 5 from a possible 6 weeks results to count.

Lee is top Mardave Class driver once again!

Qualifying

The penultimate round of the current league and Lee Bishop set the early pace in round 1 of the mardave class followed by Paul Galbraith and Mike Simpson. The order changed in round 2 with Mike leading, Paul second and Lee third. However in the last qualifying round Lee put in a great performance to be fastest qualifier, Paul second and Mike third. Rob Hambridge and Jenson Butlin took fourth and fifth spots. In division 3 Courtney Orme was again the driver to beat, with Roy Matthews second.

In the GT12 class round 1 Keith Heathcote was fastest, closely followed by David Simpson and Dave Tomlinson just one lap down.  David Statham took over the top place from Keith after round 2, David Simpson’s evenings racing was soon over after a failed servo.  In the last qualifing round Dave Tomlinson moved up into second place, so the order on the final grid was David Statham, Dave Tomlinson and Keith Heathcote.

Track

An interesting test of driving skills with a very slippy section near the rostrum offering little grip and making accelerating and braking tricky.

Finals

With several retirements there were just two eight minute finals this week.

Lee Bishop was by far the quickest achieving 40 laps with Paul Galbraith and Mike Simpson being second and third respectively 2 laps down. Jenson Butlin had an excellent drive to take fourth place on 36 laps.  Courtney Orme repeated his qualifying heat performance to finish ahead of Roy Matthews once again.

The last race of the evening was the GT12 final which was an excellent race, David Statham won with 44 laps, Keith Heathcote was second on 42 and a great drive from Chelle Snowden assured her of a third place finish.  Another great race!

Lee Bishop leaves everyone trailing in the club mardave class.

After qualifying in second place behind Richard Parker, Lee had an absolutely storming “A” final to win with 42 laps which was a clear 2 laps ahead of the rest of the field.  A tremendous battle took place behind Lee with Richard Parker taking second place, Mike Simpson third, Graham Oxford fourth and Paul Galbraith fifth – all on 40 laps with just 3 seconds between them all – close!

Jenson Butlin won the “B” final with 36 laps, Courtney Orme continued his fine run of form to be second on 33 laps, Joshua Galbraith was third on 31 and Roy Matthews fourth a further 3 laps behind.

Despite the very tight track some very fast times were achieved in the GT12 class, David Simpson was top qualifier, Dave Tomlinson second and Bob Harley third. This was also the finishing order in the final with David Simpson winning on 47 laps, the fastest lap time being set by Dave Tomlinson.

Track

A track with some very tricky sections this week.

Can Lee Bishop win the final two remaining rounds in the league to complement his present six wins out of six to win division 2 and achieve the maximum possible 328 points?

NO PRESSURE LEE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bob Harley leads his Team to victory!

There were five teams of three drivers entered for the team event, the team captains being Dave Tomlinson, Chelle Snowden, Louis Parker, Bob Harley and Daniel Williams.  There were four six minute rounds with the sum of the individual teams drivers laps being counted as the team score.

After the first round Bob Harley’s team were leading on 78 laps, Louis Parker’s 72 laps and Dave Tomlinson’s 71 laps.

The second round saw Bob’s lead cut to four laps on 151 with Louis and Dave joint second place on 147 laps.

Bob’s team extended their lead again in round three to six laps scoring 229 with Louis 223 and Dave 222, setting the scene for an exciting final round with the winning team to get a free weeks racing.

With all the team captains racing in the final race of the last round, the pressure was on as it was still possible for any of the top three teams to win.  A loss of power on Louis Parker’s car put him out of the race which lost his team the chance of second place, Dave Tomlinson went on to wins the race with Bob 1 lap down which was good enough to secure the overall team victory. A good evenings racing, a very close result.

The fastest driver of the evening was Dave Tomlinson driving his Mardave GT12 who achieved 30 laps, with Bob Harley and Chelle Snowden on 29 laps.  In the club Mardave Class Richard Parker was top scoring 29 laps with Mike Simpson and Lee Bishop both getting 28 laps each.  All the drivers had very creditable scores which made for an exciting finish!

Congratulations to Bob Harley, Mike Simpson and Jenson Butlin on winning.

Track

The track was extended to the full length of the hall this week, it is back to the size last used at the Drakelow venue in 2003.