Bloomfield’s Bank Holiday Bonanza At Pro-Line Race
- When: August Bank Holiday Weekend
- What: Pro-Line International
- Track: Slough
- Report : Rob Cuss
The Pro-Line International meeting is a great 3 day meeting spread across the August bank holiday weekend. It’s a control tyre meeting and this year’s tyre was the Pro-Line Caliber in any compound. The event started on the Saturday with 1 untimed practice and 3 rounds of timed practice, with your best 5min run counting towards your reseed for qualifying.
Sunday is 5 rounds of qualifying with your best 3 to count and Monday is finals day in a christmas tree format much like the worlds.
People had travelled quite a way for this meeting with people from Ireland, Guernsey, Switzerland, France and Spain so the meeting had a nice international feel, a big marquee was put up to house all the drivers and the track was in stunning condition again with some cracking work being done by Adrian Svensson and his merry band of helpers.
Practice
One notable absentee at this point was a certain National Champ Darren Bloomfield, apparently having a well earned day off. Graham Alsop was looking mighty in practice 1 and pulled the first 9 lapper round the Slough track, Elliot Boots was second just missing the 9 and Tony Truman came in 3rd.
In practice 2, Bootsie lead it with Sloppy in second and the Agama of Hazlewood in 3rd. Dani Vega had popped over to race and help Jon with setups and the partnership seemed to work nicely and the support truck is awesome.
Practice 3 and Sloppy came in 1st with young Bootsie in 2nd and the Durango of Kevin Brunsden in 3rd. JQ was also here with his new whip called THE Car, he had Adam Lewis on strength testing duty and Jess Saunders on setup duty which saw JQ buzz about in the top 10.
So after practice had ended all the heats were reseeded and we were ready to begin qualifying in the morning.
Qualifying
Round 1 – Darren Bloomfield rocked up with the car that left the track the week before, same dirt same everything, he was in heat 1 as he did not have a practice time. He went out and stuck it 4th in round with a 9 in 5.32…..not bad, young whipper snapper! Dave Spashett was 3rd, Sloppy 2nd and Bootsie would TQ the round.
Round 2 – Kevin Brunsden took this round with his Durango, it looked at home on the Slough track and KB was super happy with it. Sloppy took 2nd in this round as well, looking back to his best with his Hot Bodies D8. A great run from Craig Drescher would see him come in 3rd, with a good showing by the AE boys the week before it seems they have found something in the setup of the car which has seen it improve a lot. Dani Vega rolled in 4th with his Agama.
Round 3 – Sloppy was fastest in this round, Tommy Chung was 2nd with his Kyosho MP9 and Darren Bloomfield came in 3rd. Dani Vega came in 4th again.
Round 4 – The middle heats had a mare due to a heavy shower, however by the time the top boys came out to play the track was drying. Bootsie would top this round from Sloppy in 2nd and Jon Hazlewood in 3rd.
Round 5 – And a mighty run from Bootsie would take this round and TQ, Tony Truman would come in 2nd in the round with a great run and in 3rd would be the Durango of KB. So Bootsie TQ’d and would go straight into the main.
Semi B would consist of:
- 1. Craig Drescher
- 2. Darren Bloomfield
- 3. Dani Vega
- 4. Jon Hazlewood
- 5. Reece Sawyer
- 6. Mike Craddock
- 7. Matt Perry
- 8. Karl Jackson
- 9. Anthony Conroy
- 10. Mark Stiles
It was nice to see actor John Goodman, Hollywood film star of such films as Coyote Ugly, Monsters Inc. and of course Roseanne, making a guest appearance at the Pro-Line race…
Semi A would be:
- 1. Sloppy
- 2. Tommy Chung
- 3. Tony Truman
- 4. Kevin Brunsden
- 5. John Holmes
- 6. JQ
- 7. Matthew Lewis
- 8. Brennan Ralls
- 9. Stewart Wilcox
- 10. Ian Barnard
With all that out of the way it was time for a mechanics race, Chris Boots, Tony Bloomfield, Keith Lewis, Lynsey Wilcox were amongst the big names and favourites, Dave Duggan was also involved along with Phil from Neobuggy who was lent THE Car for a strength test, another new car to be strength tested was Jon Hazlewood’s Agama being driven by Russ Bailey. As the drivers came up on to the rostrum there was tension in the air, a few nervous mechanics down below praying the cars would make it round, Bootsie had a great idea for his old man, he popped a number on the chassis just to help his dad out in the patented CB barrel roll move.
As the horn went the cars rocketed off the line, some straight some not so much! Duggan was laying it down Drescher style with a few 38 sec laps….Dave Duggan may come out of retirement after this, however it was not his day as a servo let him down.
John Adams, father of hot prospect Joe Adams took up the mantle and drove a stunner to win! Neo Phil was 2nd with THE Car which held up to the challenge, 3rd was the other new car Russ Bailey and the Agama, these guys drove superbly.
Ellliot Boots was less than happy with his Dad’s performance. Tools and pit mats went everywhere, Elliot was quoted as saying ” That’s it we are going home, I don’t wanna spend my time helping you out for you to drive like that!” We think Chris’s performance may have had to do with his new drink sponsor. It was great race and fun to watch, there were loads of folk watching all around the track. Massive well done to all those involved.
Monday – Final Time!
Starting bright and early at 8:30am….with a lot of finals the main mover and shaker was Barkley Abernethy with his Xray bumping from the 8th’s to the semi, and finishing the meeting a mighty 32 places higher than he qualified. Rising star Callum Niblett won his 16th to bump to the 8ths but his challenge ended here. On the A side young Jonny Skidmore, another bright light in the world of RC, bumped to the 8th’s as well with a cracking drive, he narrowly missed the quarters just missing the bump by finishing 5th.
The quarters were pretty fun to watch, the B quarter was dominated by Bruce Thompson, the others to bump up were Michael Todd, Yael Zurfluh and Bradley Baird. The A quarter was won by Jess Saunders and THE Car so that meant 2 of them in the semi’s on debut. The others to bump were David Grunill with a great drive, Rob “Hollywood” Rasey and Barkley.
The Semi’s
Drama at the start of the B Semi as Bloomfield had some issues and called for the delay. Starting from the back on the re-start, he dominated again, to win. Craig Drescher drove great to finish second, Jon Hazlewood booked his spot in the main with 3rd, as did Reece Sawyer, Dani Vega and Mark Stiles. Mike Craddock would have to wait to see if he would make it as fastest 7th place.
The A semi and I had a pitman’s view for this. KB dominated with a very impressive drive with his Durango to take the win, JQ had a great drive to finish second with his car. Third was Tommy Chung with his Kyosho, 4th was Brennan Ralls, 5th with a mighty drive was Sloppy, he had numerous problems to deal with during this race but knuckled down to make the main. In 6th was John Holmes, the last spot in the main was between Craddock and Wilcox, I was pitting for Mr Wilcox so this bit maybe a little biased, he was behind Craddock’s time by half a second with about 4mins to go but settled down and found his inner chi to blast around the last 4mins to beat Craddock’s time by 4secs in the end, well done Wilcox!!
The Main Event!
Sloppy called for a delay at the start of this one and would start from the back, Bootsie and Bloomfield led the pack from the off swapping positions for the first few minutes, Bloomfield got in front and opened a small gap, but Bootsie was not having that and reeled him back, this would happen a few times until Bloomfield stretched the lead enough for some breathing room. Bootsie then had a mechanical and was out. Then it was the same as last week, Bloomfield checked out and got faster and faster to win by 2 clear laps, a world champion in the making, well him and Bootsie have a great shot at that!
Second was KB with the Durango with a very strong drive, 3rd would be Tommy Chung and the Kyosho, Tommy was on it all weekend and it was nice to see him on the podium. In 4th was JQ with his new car which is a great result against strong opposition, 5th would be Reece Sawyer with a great drive with his Xray. In 6th was Hazlewood with the Agama, 7th Sloppy, 8th Dani Vega, 9th Stewart Wilcox and rounding out the top 10 would be John Holmes.
A Fantastic weekends racing at Slough, well done to all the organisers! Keep it pinned!
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