Nemo Racing report from the final round of the national championship held at Slough:

The 2014 BRCA National Championship went down to the wire and in his first year with Nemo Racing and Agama, Darren Bloomfield came through to take the title. Going into the weekend, Darren knew that if he could make the main final, he would take the title whatever his rivals Lee Martin and Elliott Boots achieved. The main threat came from Lee who could tie Darren’s score with a TQ and a win, but in that event Darren would need to make the final to ensure he had a better countback than Lee.
The team at the Slough club had pulled all the stops out to once again prepare an immaculate track ready for a hard weekend of racing, with the whole left-hand side of the track redesigned to give everybody a new challenge. As ever with the track surface, when the soil is prepared it can polish up to a very glassy finish in certain areas, and this time was no different as after practice the track was super slick in a few places.
Practice was a case of all the dust being cleared away from the racing line, so there wasn’t too much to be learned about grip levels, just getting into the rhythm of the track and learning the new sections. It was evident that track cleaning was the biggest factor as despite what tyre they chose, pretty much everybody preferred what tyre they ran in the second round as the grip was better.
Round one of qualifying got underway and the usual suspects were all up there challenging for the top positions. It was Lee who took the round win from Elliott and Darren, but there was less than three seconds between them and all had small mistakes and bobbles. Tony Truman, along with Richard Barton and Darren were running the new Agama car and they were all learning things as they went. Tony was tenth in round one and really positive about the overall feel of the car.
Round two saw an on form Neil Cragg take the round win by a few tenths from Elliott once again. Darren was fourth despite a massive crash that cost around eight seconds and indeed Graham Alsop who finished sixth in the round was a mere 0.11 seconds behind Darren displaying the usual very close nature of the times at Slough. Richard Barton was getting into the new car and he took ninth in round, Ben Williams continued his recent good form in tenth with Ollie Currie 11th. Ollie was going for the junior title with Callum Niblett and the battle was on.
Round three and Neil was on top again, taking his second round in row from Lee and Elliott. Darren was fifth and openly admitting he was racing to achieve a main final placing rather than going out to win as normal. His actual pace was fantastic when he let himself go and drove with freedom, but he was making a couple more mistakes than usual, probably just because he was caught between stick or twist. Ben Williams again placed in the top ten with yet another super drive and Jonny Skidmore was showing us his skills with a 13th in round. But it was so close as between 11th and 19th in round three it was a mere 2.2 seconds covering the lot.
Having secured three scores that would ensure a semi final place, Darren finally drove with some freedom and was able to take the fourth round win by over three seconds, looking much more comfortable and relaxed. Ollie Currie got himself into the top ten with ninth in round and Ben Williams was 11th to keep his consistent run going.
The final round of qualifying on Sunday morning and this saw the Agama boys packing out the bottom half of the top ten. Darren was fifth, but excellent drives from Ollie Currie (seventh), Richard Barton (eighth), Ben Williams (ninth) and Jonny Skidmore (tenth) saw them all secure semi final placings alongside team mates Darren Bloomfield and Tony Truman. Lee Martin would take the round win and by doing so would take the overall TQ he needed to take the championship fight on to the finals, and this meant Darren would have to safely negotiate his way through the semi final to be sure to win the title.
In the semis Darren was up first in the B side for what would be the most important race of his championship season. Darren took no chances and although in the lead early on he moved out the way of the lead battle and was happy to drive around with Graham Alsop, swapping second and third position. Darren would end by taking second place in the semi final and by doing so take victory in the overall series as Lee could not now beat him on the countback rule whether he won or not. A big moment for Agama, Nemo Racing and reward for all the teams hard work over the last four years. Darren actually seemed more relieved than anything else, but he knew the job was done. With the four from five scores to count, emphasis is on speed and reliability, with no retirements and fantastic outright speed, race wins and a 100 per cent finish rate would win the Championship for Darren.
On the other side of the semis, Jonny Skidmore and Leon Goode would end up in a battle for the final bump-up spot, but just as the fight was getting interesting Leon would be cruelly hit with another servo failure putting him out of the battle. This allowed Jonny to drive probably as slow as he had done on the whole season to see out the remainder of the race and take a place in his second main final of the year.
The main final turned out to be a race of attrition with many guys having issues. Neil was out early and this left Lee and Elliott to battle it out at the front with the former taking the victory he deserved after a fantastic final where both drove brilliantly. Darren would take fifth overall, driving a car with a rear brake set incorrectly resulting in an engaged rear brake at neutral.
The excitement was actually for the junior championship as both Ollie Currie and Callum Niblett could take the title with a win. It looked to be heading the way of Callum after Ollie ran out of fuel prior to a fuel stop leaving him a lap down. But lady luck would shine on in him and cruel luck would head Callum’s way just a few minutes from the end. A bad landing on the big jump across the back saw Callum break a front pivot and he was out handing the championship to Ollie. Ollie was obviously delighted, yet sorry for his friend and rival at the same time and the reality is that championships are won over a series of races not just one. So a fantastic season for Ollie where he made three main finals and really showed he is a genuine top ten contender for 2015, and equally Callum and Jonny who made up the podium of the junior championship.
That’s another national season over and this time we have a very sweet taste in the mouth with victory for Darren Bloomfield in the overall and Ollie Currie in the junior championships, and the first National titles for Agama and NEMO Racing.
Next week we move on to the BRCA Truggy Championship finale where Nemo’s own Jon Hazlewood will be going for the title. Then straight after that the World Championships in Italy.
Lastly a huge thank you to all our team and customers, who put their trust in our products and help to keep pushing us forward in the vision that Nemo was founded on. To bring to market the absolute best possible products we can at the absolute best possible price point.

Source: Nemo Racing