Having had a recent and unexpectedly dry round at Halifax, drivers made their way to the excellent Cotswold Model Car Club facility at Cotswold airfield in Cirencester last weekend for round six of the BRCA 1:10 IC championship. Numbers were slightly down due to this fixture clashing with other national events. Racers of the 200mm touring and 220mm GT class made progress in setting their cars up on the Saturday for an expected wet Sunday race day. The usual Xray racers including Peter Spratley, Simon Wood, Mark Owen, Mathew Williams and series recent returnee Ady Garlick made good use of the practice to set their NT1 2015s to this technical and enjoyable layout. Series regular Jon Withington was absent from this meeting, choosing to be a full time mechanic for his son’s first 1:10 electric national.
Sunday saw a difficult qualification due to the wet conditions later on. Most drivers switched from car set-up to attempting to solve water ingress prevention for their electronics, chassis and engine intakes in the hope to be able to run the 30-minute final. One particular driver, Mark Owen showed once again his good understanding of how to do this and how to drive in these conditions.
Three Xray NT1s made it in the A final and we were hoping for good results. At around 14:00 the 200mm A final was under way and as the drivers settled into the race and became more confident in the grip levels, one car quickly made progress into the lead. The well-sorted NT1 of Mark Owen looked dialled and quickly stretched out a confident pace. Mark’s combination of tyre choice, car set-up and wet weather preparation made this outfit hard to challenge. With his usual steady but quick driving, Mark, who started sixth and showed the rest of the field how to do it and brought his ultra-reliable Xray home in first place, 11 laps ahead of the second place driver over the 30-minute final.
1. Mark Owen – Xray NT1
2. Kai Grainger
3. Joe Kerry
4. Matt Dambrine
5. Matt Cook
6. Pete Spratley – Xray NT1
7. Kev Nash
8. Matt Williams – Xray NT1
9. Alex Thuston
10. John Zottl
