SUNDAY RACE REPORT ARDENT

well ardent was the place to be this Sunday with the first round of Gt10’s F1 pan cars and Mardave.
As I arrived at the circuit the car park was filling fast, at it seems everyone was making their way to the Midlands premier indoor circuit.
As soon as the doors were opened by John the pit tables filled up in no time every space taken by racers. So much so that extra pitting area was alongside the track. Every place you looked racers all with big smiles to do battle for the day.

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Booking in was brisk

Simon worked faultless to scrutinise all the cars after every race all of the ardent team pulled together to give the racers a first class day. There was a great show of Mardaves with some guys traveling well over a 200 mile round trip to take part in ardent first series of the winter.

The whole meeting run like clockwork as per normal first up on the line was the Mardaves with some 13 drivers in the first heat. The track looked awesome as per normal with some great infield turns and the new track end yellow markers that was only too willing to give you airtime if you made the mistake to ride them. I found this out on the first lap but soon settled into a routine around them. Luke Westwood Karl Dransfield and James Carvel soon stamped their mark on the circuit breaking from the pack early and following through to take 1st 2nd and 3rd position with some cracking track times. Kayn Underwood who was the rc circuit cars summer champion had a dreadful day not finishing any of the rounds but young Kayn said he had a great day so that’s all that matters.

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Some of the rift raft that made the long trip to ardent

Heat 3 saw the GT10’s do battle and what a great sight to see this class going a break neck speed around the circuit with Scott Birch putting in a blistering 14.69 lap followed with Tyrone Birch 15.23
Lee Groves a newcomer to the Gt10’s came third in heat 3 with a lap time of 15.85 lee normally races mardaves and always pits next to me I asked him what he thought of the day Brilliant!!!!.

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Round 4 saw Chris Blakley put a staggering 13.98 with his GT10 followed by Graham Oxford and Rob Shepherd all with a second in it. Again some great driving in this class with some awesome battles taking place down the pack.

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Round 5 saw Mr Ardent himself John Dawson put in a 13.50 lap time best of the day with his Gt10 followed by Jason Butterfield and Ian Plimmer Gary Crisp was down the field due to ESC problems that had dogged him all day and finally he return to the old ESC to improve his times. You must admit all the guys with the GT10’s put in great performances in this fast growing class that is well supported at Ardent




Round 6 was the superfast 1/12th pan cars the cars you race and don’t blink for 8 minutes Nigel Hill best lap of 13.40 now compare that to John Dawson’s 13.50 you can see how fast these boys are going.
Peter Winton and Allan Smallwood coming 2nd and third in this round.
Round 7 of the 12ths saw Mick Farrell put a blistering lap time of 12.86 Allan Sawyer with 12.91 and Andy Griffiths 12.93 now is that close or what.



The F1 retro boys had a cracking day with some eye catching F1 cars on the track and what a great sight to see these going round Ardent again this is a growing class John Dawson with his yellow camel F1 put in the best time of the day again in this class with a 15.02 Like Hobson with a 15.07 Chris Holmes with 15.12 all in all there was 14 F1’s that’s took part in this opening series Simon Taylor showed a hot pair of heals in round 12 with a 14.47 lap time to the other six F1’s so if you are sitting at home reading this and you have a F1 come on down to ardent for round 2 you all know you are going to enjoy a great day of racing with a great bunch of guys.

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Round 13 saw the tc boys come out to play with Andy bird dominating the field with a 14.99 lap time.
All in all it was a great day the company was good the food was first class and a big thanks to the char ladies who kept the race fed and watered all through the day these are the un sung heroes that slave away feeding the guys well done to you both. I’m sorry if I missed anyone out but this is the first time I have written a race report take pictures and race all in one day.
By now you should all be ready to do battle again at Ardent for round 2. The one thing I will say is if you have not been to ardent then you are missing a great time a great circuit good company good food, lots of banter and rain will not stop play. Hope to see you all trackside again for round 2

ENJOY THE OTHER PICTURES

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WELL DONE MATE

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Dont you think its time you made your way to ardent the racing is good the company is brilliant the banter is second to none. big thanks to the team at ardent from us all for making sundays what they are totaly brilliant big thanks to Moonie who guys gives up his racing to do the job he did for us Sunday

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F1 VIDEO

what a great report well done paul:)

thanks Russell did you see the rif raf sheep chaseing cockney wide boy clan!!!! pmsl

Admin wrote:thanks Russell did you see the rif raf sheep chaseing cockney wide boy clan!!!! pmsl

Great report Paul, its was good to get back to the "land of my father's" after an excellent day of banter mixed in with some racing!

Just a quick mention, Team LB Tyres 1st + 2nd in both brushless and brushed Mardaves, well done lads!!

Alway a pleasure to meet up with you guys the banter all in good taste forgot to give you that pot of mint sauce me wife put in just to make those sheep a little more fun!!! glad you enjoyed the race report first proper one i did just hope everyone else is happy till next round 2 Barrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr barrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Thanks to the Ardent team for an excellent first round for the Winter pan car series.

I had packed my camera with plans to take photos which didn't quite come off. So good to see a report and photos from the meeting posted here. Top job

Two heats of F1 Retro class were properly competitive which is promising for the rest of the season (and for the class next year). Very impressed that an out of the box F104-W kit could both make the A final and be so competitive in Luke Hobson's hands

A voyage of discovery for set up and speedo settings/gearing in qualifying left me with a good set up in round 3. Which I then messed up with silly driving mistakes. D'oh

Redeemed myself with a 2nd in final leg 1 and a 3rd place overall, from 7th on the grid. Ten fast F1 cars on the track at the same time made for a cracking final

Also watched many of the GT10 heats once the F1 and my 12th car were sorted. And the 12th finals to get a feel for blinky pace ahead of next Saturday...

Aside from spraying up a lighter shell for next time (NOT a red + white Mclaren as there are so many of them already!) not much else to work on before round 2. Bring it on

chuck up my own little write up on my blog:

By chris Blakey


Tuesday, 18 October 2011Ardent Pan Car Winter Series Round 1
Last Sunday saw the first round of the Ardent Pan Car Winter Series.Very good turn out for both F1s and GTs. Unfortunately the day got off to a bad start when I dismissed my alarm rather than snoozed it!! Woke up 1hour late!! Got to the track quite late which mean we had to pit along the side of the track which turned out to be great, sat and watched the racing while I was working on the car

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Managed to get out for a few sighting laps just to check the car was ok and that the new bodyshell I was using didn't catch on anything. I got put in the second heat for qualifying, this meant a bit of traffic dodging but not too bad. 1st round of qualifying got under way and I got a fairly good time in but the car felt unstable and I wasn't able to get a rhythm going round the track. I did a slow 24 lap but the top guys were doing fast 25 laps. I was running magentas all round so swapped to magenta rear purple fronts for the next round. Car felt much better, quite a bit calmed but allowed me to do faster laps. Unfortunately didn't get a clean run but still managed to improve my time slightly. Top guys were hitting 26 lappers now but they were using 2s lipo 17.5t motors which has a major advantage round this track especially. 3rd Round of qualifying and I wanted to get a 25 lapper in to guarantee a spot in the A final. This run was fairly clean and I stayed out of trouble. This allowed me to get a solid 25 lapper in and left me 5th in the A final.


Finals Time!
I really need to work on my starts as I almost got mobbed on the start by the quick reactions of Vince Formosa (not bad for an old bloke!) I almost managed to gain a place but the door was rather firmly shut and I ended up last. People ahead of me had a bit of a scrappy race but managed to fight my way back for a 5th place finish.
Second final and I got a much better start, the first lap was amazing! Everyone drove a clean first race and the couldn't have been more than a couple of millimetres between the cars going round corner. A couple of time it was 3 abreast! I managed to grab third place by the end of the first lap and the car felt great. Unfortunately about 6 laps later I hit one of the yellow kirbs at speed and it left me facing the other way in 7th place. I manged to fight back to 5th and was having a fantastic battle with Mark Simpson. Managed to get past him going onto the straight. I thought I was going to have some trouble keeping him behind me until he was took out by a back marker which ended his race (shame as it was a fantastic battle). I managed to cruise round to take 4th place. This allowed me to take 4th place overall or 1st of the 1s lipo cars


Many thanks to John and team for a fantastic event and I can't wait for the next one.
Here are few pics from the event, thanks to Vince Formosa for the taking them. There are fair few more over on [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] so head over and have a look.


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A Final Grid

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Great stuff chris nice write up thanks for taking the time and effort to share with us


guys dont forget to visit chris's blog the guy does some brilliant stuff so please do go visit his site

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Top report Chris

The straight and long sweeper would have suited 2S 17.5 in GT cars, so top result to get 4th overall. I expected the higer voltage and weight would make them a handful in the infield, but most looked settled and good to drive.

If I'd have missed my alarm I doubt I'd have woken up an hour later (was still getting over Vegas time on Sunday!). But you had a front row seat for the racing.

Bet you can't wait for round 2

Thanks mark, through the tight corners 1s were slightly quick but the rip out of the corners that the 2s lipos had was too much to overcome!
Can't wait for the next one though!

PS
Paul its BLAKEY not blackley
Also photos were took by vince

chris_blakey wrote:Thanks mark, through the tight corners 1s were slightly quick but the rip out of the corners that the 2s lipos had was too much to overcome!
Can't wait for the next one though!

We figured as much when we saw Chris O'Ds 2S car sprint away at the start of the straight at the Maritime GT/F1 national. I ran within him in practice and had to work real hard around the rest of the track to pull away. I went back to my pit wondering why my car was so slow

You could set up a 1S + 10.5 to get more punch, but it would make the car really hard to drive with that much turbo ramp. What I did run for 13.5 was a touch of Push Control on the Tekin to keep up the corner speed and the RPMs on the motor. Never tried it with a 10.5....

Jason and I talked about 2S and concluded it needed more running. The stubby LiPo packs make fitting a lot easier. I'm now thinking running them inline up the chassis is the way to go. Three days of too much grip lifting wheels in Vegas does that to you

well personally I don't think the 1s and 2s cars should be run together.
I don't like competing in races that are dictated by horsepower rather than driver skill.
We will see what happens at the AGM regarding this. Still bloody good fun racing against the guys with 1s though!!

It was a great day, i had a mare with my new gear (not enough running or understanding), HOWEVER how great is the F1 shaping up!

Really looking forward to the next round

I was looking over the results from last Sunday against other meetings with F1 and GT running. May me think Daz is right and the pace has really picked up in the F1 class.

Not just the move to 21.5 brushless motors as Luke Hobson was seriously quick with an out of the box F104W Mclaren and brushed motor. I let him unlap himself in final let 1 as his car was noticably faster and I wanted to protect 2nd place.

Good times