The Horizon Hobby UK team report from round three of Maritime Raceway’s Off-Road Wars indoor winter series:

Round three of Maritime Raceway’s popular indoor winter series saw nearly 90 entrants make their way to the Chatham Dockyard’s venue despite forecast threats of snowfall and dropping temperatures. In contrast to the weather, the on-track action was hot and closely contested once again as some of the best drivers in the South East pitted themselves against each other and the track to provide a master class of controlled aggression and clean, open-wheeled car competition.
A new track design had been laid and tested at the club meeting a few days before in order to iron out any potential troubles or pitfalls. A few subtle tweaks ensured that by the weekend of the 12-13 January, the track was eminently race-able but challenging with its multi-surface nature and high to low grip variations. Driving a fast lap proved rewarding yet frustratingly difficult to achieve, needing the perfect blend of focus, control, aggression and car set-up.

Blowing Hot and Cold
With the ambient temperature being much lower than the preceding day’s open practice, Sunday’s opening practice heat illustrated that tyre temperature is not just important in Formula One racing or in RC touring car racing, but also now in off-road buggy racing. The natural floorboards of the Dockyard’s historic ropery loft floor proved to be almost devoid of grip at the start of the day despite the preceding day’s running having rubbered the surface in nicely and correspondingly, lap times were down on the previous day. With overcast skies and little chance of any natural warmth from the sun’s rays, it seemed that this would provide an extra challenge for the racers to contend with.
One such driver who was able to extract the maximum grip from his car right from the off was TLR’s Darren Bloomfield with his TLR 22, fresh from the recent EOS meeting in Germany, who set the early pace with a blistering 18 lap time, some six seconds ahead of Team Durango’s recent signing Ellis Stafford who narrowly missed out on the extra lap. Grant Williams and Horizon Hobby’s Chris Delves battled hard against each other to finish third and fourth in the round some four seconds adrift of Ellis and ahead of EOS racer David Poulter and Racer’s Matt Benfield whilst Richard Cree and Schumacher’s touring car supremo Chris Grainger were separated by a hairs breadth in seventh and eighth respectively.
In 4WD, Xtreme RC’s Ed Kerry stormed into an early TQ position with his Team Xtreme Vega 4 prototype machine, some 12 seconds ahead of Schumacher’s Chris Grainger with his new CAT K1. Local racer James Clifford backed up his 2WD top ten time with third overall in the 4WD class with his Durango with the top three all on 18 laps but separated by almost a whole lap.
Round two saw TLR’s Darren Bloomfield try out his rear motored 22 buggy. Clearly enjoying its classic handling traits and drifting it with impunity through the slippery sections, the TLR man smashed his earlier TQ time by six seconds to end up seven seconds ahead of the still duelling pair of Grant Williams and Chris Delves who were separated by six-hundredths of a second with Dave Poulter and Dave Bowen also posting 18-lap times to put themselves firmly into contention at the mid point of qualifying.
In 4WD, similar lap time gains were to be had by many but it was Ed Kerry who maintained his dominance over Chris Grainger, beating his own round one time by over half a lap and still finishing over 12 seconds ahead of the Schumacher man. Once more, Faversham local driver James Clifford demonstrated the affinity with slippery surfaces that only comes with regular racing on polished flooring to post an 18-lap time to stay in touch with the two drivers ahead of him and comfortably ahead of the pursuing pack.

The Heat is On
Round three saw a change in fortunes for the early pace-setter Darren Bloomfield as he retired during his heat after some scrappy laps to save his tyres for the next run. In contrast, Ellis Stafford was flying with his new 2WD ride but he’d finish 0.15 second outside of Darren’s earlier round two FTD time and would have to settle for second overall at this stage of the day. Dropping one place each down the order were Grant Williams and Chris Devles who were unable to improve on their round two times, but Racer’s Matt Benfield pushed himself into the top five with an improved time to sit just a couple of seconds behind the duelling pair ahead of him. With 7 drivers all on the magic 18 lap pace, it was beginning to look like an 18 lapper would be needed to secure a place in the all important 2WD A final.
In 4WD Ed Kerry continued to pile the pressure on and again displayed a dominant qualifying performance to record the only 19-lap run of the day, leaving Schumacher’s Chris Grainger alone in 2nd place on a fast 18 lapper. Team Xtreme employee Will Johnson pushed his prototype Vega 4 into third place, usurping the consistent James Clifford into fourth but nearly half a lap down on the Schumacher man ahead of them. With only two cars in existence and both in the top three and splitting multiple National TC Champion Chris Grainger, Team Xtreme’s Lewis Dickinson was justifiably looking like he was the cat who had stolen all the cream.
Round four, or the last chance saloon as it’s commonly termed often see’s drivers excel or crash out in misplaced glory as they push too hard. Darren Bloomfield and Ellis Stafford were both pushing hard trying to snatch the all important TQ bragging rights. Both smashed the current TQ time but it was the TLR man who snatched the pole with an 18 in 300.99, fractionally ahead of Ellis’s 18 in 301.43. The two drivers had given virtuoso qualifying performances, extracting the maximum from their equipment in their quest for pole position, demonstrating that there is a sublime art to 2WD buggy control in varying grip conditions.
Despite having not improved since round two, both Grant Williams and Chris Delves would still line up on the second row of the grid ahead of the much-improved Richard Cree who only secured his place in the A final during the last chance saloon shoot out. Similarly, Stu Rand snuck into tenth overall in his last run whilst Chris Grainger and Tony Evdoka both slipped back into the middle of the B final being unable to improve on their earlier times.
Another driver unable to improve on his earlier round time was the 4WD of Ed Kerry but his 19-lapper from round three would remain unbeaten with the Lydden-based driver being the only man to achieve 19 laps in either class. Chris Grainger improved marginally and a great run from James Clifford secured third place on the grid just over 0.1 second ahead of fellow FORCC driver Will Johnson. Xray’s latest signing, Glenn Westwood deserves a special mention for placing his new Xray XB4 machine into eighth place in the 2WD A final. That’s right, although designed as a 4WD machine, a problem during practice had resulted in the Xray driver irrevocably damaging the front gearbox of his new XB4 but instead of wasting the day and the chance to race, he removed the front driveshafts from the car and swapped to the 2WD class.

Final Time
The 4WD A final witnessed a clean start as the front-runners all snaked their way over the corner tabletop and through the shutter-board chicane. Ed Kerry looked to be in control and try as he might, Chris Grainger was showing little sign of being able to close the half a second or so gap to the front man. With these two drivers comfortably pulling well clear of the field, the on-looking spectators only had eye for the front two cars. Some close driving and consistent pressure ensued for a few laps until an uncharacteristic mistake from Ed allowed the Schumacher man through to take the lead. Looking done and dusted at this point, Chris was looking to consolidate his track position advantage until he also made a slight error allowing Ed back into the lead. What was shaping up to be an epic battle between the two drivers was sadly cut short as Ed retired whilst in the lead, suffering an electrical gremlin. Remaining unchallenged, Chris cruised to take the win whilst the podium was rounded off with James Clifford successfully fending off the challenge from Will Johnson for second and third respectively.
The final race of the day was the 2WD A final. Anticipation was heavy in the air as the drivers took to the stand and the cars lined up. Qualifying times had indicated that there were pairs of drivers who were very closely matched with each other throughout the entire grid with less than four seconds effectively splitting third from tenth on the grid. As the start tone sounded, TLR’s Darren Bloomfield got a great start and headed up the train as they filtered through in single file across the corner tabletop. Within the first few corners, Darren, Ellis, Grant and Chris Delves were beginning to eke an advantage and were breaking clear of the pack until, on lap three, a small tangle between Ellis and Grant saw the Durango man slip down the field leaving Grant and Chris in second and third respectively. Darren used the opportunity to get his head down and put it some quick laps to break himself clear of the battling pair behind him. Ellis meanwhile, had recovered into fourth place and was quickly closing in on the TLR 22 of Chris Delves. Eventually sizing up his chance over the corner tabletop, he dispatched the Horizon man and set about chasing down Grant and Darren who by now, was checking out. A mistake at the half way point saw Grant crash on the corner table top allowing Ellis back into second place and at about three minutes, a slight mistake by Chris saw his chances of catching Grant for a podium place disappear as he got swallowed by the rabid pack of drivers behind him. Meanwhile, Darren was out in front, effortlessly guiding his TLR 22 with pinpoint precision without having to take too many chances. A flawless drive by the TLR man saw him take home the win to accompany his TQ for maximum points in the championship.
Horizon Hobby UK would like to thank Ian Knight and all the crew at Maritime Raceway for another superbly organised and well-run event. Despite the cold weather outside, the race action proved once again to be hot with the top drivers in both classes demonstrating their terrific car control skills for all to enjoy. Well done to Darren Bloomfield and to Chris Grainger for their class wins. Maritime’s popular club racing continues every Tuesday evening (see www.maritimeracing.info for more information) but the next big meeting at the Chatham venue will be the two-day Off-Road Wars meeting on 23-24 February when we hope to see Jörn Neumann return to defend his crown and the likes of Darren Bloomfield, Ellis Stafford, Lee Martin, Ed Kerry and others throw down the gauntlet and pit their wits against each other to be crowned ‘The One’.

Source: Horizon Hobby UK