Team Durango’s Chris Doughty Third at the Players 2012
The fourth running of the Players race took place this past weekend at the hugely popular Worksop indoor venue. The race uses a very similar format to the famous Reedy Race where every heat is a race in itself and there are no finals. The top 24 drivers in 2WD and 4WD would qualify into a separate Elite class where they would only battle against each other for the titles.
In timed practice on the first day of racing, Chris Doughty put in the fastest lap out of all the drivers and was the second quickest on overall time. Three rounds of qualifying would use the fastest three consecutive laps to determine those who’d go onto the elite class and race against the best – so the drivers had three runs to put in their three laps. Chris takes up the story:
For the first of the three rounds of qualifying I changed to a newer set of tires. I found I was lacking a bit of general pace and found myself getting caught up in other peoples mistakes. It was a similar story for the second round – always managing to find a crashed car to get stuck under on my third consecutive fastest lap. I eventually got three reasonable laps in, and this put me seventh overall.
For the final round of qualifying, I thought I was pretty safe inside the top 24 to get me through to the elite class, so I put on my old tires from practise and my car just came alive again. Instantly I was much faster – starting near the back on the stagger start I could see I was catching everyone. Half way through the race it was announced I had gone fastest counting my three consecutive laps – I continued this pace until the end of the run and set the fastest five-minute run of qualifying along with the best three consecutive laps to sit at the front of the Elite class qualifiers.
For the head-to-head races it was all about getting a good start, I had a few good starts, I also had quite a few starts where I ended up in the wall. When the starts were good and my tires were working I was able to convert them into wins, but some bad tyre ‘set’ selections in some races and some bad starts meant that I didn’t capitalise on races where it could have been a good win.
I found myself sitting in fifth position going into the last 2WD race, I needed to win the race and set a faster time that the current third place guy.
I had my tyre selection right for the last race, instantly on the warm-up lap the car felt completely switched on. I lined up for the start – front row this time and I was able to get the hole-shot and put in two fast out laps. I made a careless mistake at the end of the straight, luckily it went back onto its wheels and I only lost one position. I fought back up to the lead and didn’t look back – putting in some fast laps all the way to the end of the race. I took the win, and in a time that was quick enough to take third overall. If it hadn’t been for the silly mistake near the start, I could have taken the fastest time of the meeting – as it was, I wasn’t far off.
Here is a video of Chris in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoK5QXmze-g
Source: Team Durango
