Neumann Dominates at the Wars
The 2012 Off Road Wars were held at the extremely popular Maritime Raceway in Chatham. A strong international field of drivers were on show including 2WD and 4WD European Champions Lee Martin and Jörn Neumann. The indoor track was particularly testing with plenty of features to keep the drivers busy. In the 2WD event, pole position wasn’t decided until the final heat had been run. It was Team Durango’s Jörn Neumann who took it in the end from Schumacher’s Tom Cockerill and Tamiya’s Lee Martin.
The finals were rather hectic with the close pace of the racers making it extremely difficult to overtake. After a bad first leg, Jörn got his act together to take legs two and three and with it the overall win. Tom took the first leg, but couldn’t quite keep with Jörn after that, still taking a comfortable second place with Lee taking third after some error strewn races.
2WD Overall
1 J̦rn Neumann РDurango
2 Tom Cockerill – Schumacher
3 Lee Martin – Tamiya
4 Tony Truman – Centro
5 Ellis Stafford – X Factory
6 Richard Lowe – Centro
7 Lloyd Storey – Schumacher
8 Darren Bloomfield – TLR
9 Nathan Ralls – MCS
10 Keith Robertson – Centro
For the 4WD event, the track was made even faster with the adjustment of some jumps, creating some super fast lap times. It was Jörn Neumann with his Team Durango DEX410 who again snatched pole position, but only just from Lee Martin’s Tamiya TR502X and Tom Cockerill’s Schumacher CAT SX3.
The finals were full of drama with Jörn again having a bad first leg. But he did the business in the second and third legs to take the win and defend his title. It was Darren Bloomfield who took the first leg this time, which would help him to second overall with Lee finishing the podium in third.
4WD Overall
1 J̦rn Neumann РDurango
2 Darren Bloomfield – TLR
3 Lee Martin – Tamiya
4 Tom Cockerill – Schumacher
5 Tony Truman – Associated
6 Danny McGee – Ansmann
7 Lloyd Storey – Schumacher
8 Kevin Lee – Kyosho
9 Elliott Boots – Kyosho
10 Ellis Stafford – X Factory
Look out for a full report in the June issue of Racer.
