Durango Domination At North West Regional

By admin On September 16, 2010 · Add Comment

Durango Domination At North West Regional

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Sunday the 22nd of August was the last round of the BRCA North West Regional Championships held at the Keighley Model Car Club venue. This was the Keighley clubs first regional, with the track being laid out on 99% grass with one tricky large Astroturf double jump feature. The track looked a fairly simple layout, but the hard backed soil under the grass would soon poke through and make the track much more challenging.

Qualifying

Graham North was â€œliving the dreamâ€ in qualifying to take TQ in all four rounds even with the track deteriorating throughout the day. Paul Crawford after amazing even himself with an excellent 2nd in round one, backed it up with an 8, another 2 and a 3 in round four to grid up 3rd – his best ever regional qualifying position. Conner Cocker changed chassis for the last round of the series, borrowing his fathers DEX410. A 3,10,6,8 gave him 7th on the grid.

B Final

An impressive battle in the B final resulted in Phil Campbell taking the win from 3rd on the grid from Nick Casey who had lined up on pole, both driving DEX410’s.

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A Final

Graham led from the buzzer and gained a small lead while battle commenced behind. Paul Crawford made the jump into 2nd place while Conner was scrapping for 7th position. A charge from Gavin Crolla saw him move up to 2nd place on lap 4, but with Graham regulating the gap it looked safe at the moment, Gavin was catching Graham but only slowly. On lap 10 Graham came upon a big group of back markers and although they did their best to get out of the way the challenging track conditions meant he got bumped about loosing over 5 seconds in the process. Gavin was right on Graham now, and pulled an overtaking move on the downslope of the double jump to take the lead over the line at the start of lap 11. A small bobble on the next lap allowed Graham to seize the lead again, with Gavin right on his gearbox. A small error on the next lap by Gavin gave Graham a little breathing space, eventually keeping it on its wheels to cross the line the winner by just over 2 seconds.

Paul Crawford eventually crossed the line in 4th (his best regional finish) after a bit of a rough and tough battle for 3rd, missing out by just under 2 seconds. Conner eventually bringing his car home 8th. Graham’s late championship charge of 2 wins and a TQ means that at the end of the series he finished 2nd overall.

His TQ setup can be found HERE