HEREFORD NATIONAL NOV 2011

Never thought to do a report on this so I didn't pay that much attention to the top heats, not being in them myself, but had a great time in the lower heat with some great guys, Kyle Gardner was so fast on Sunday he was uncatcable all day and rightly qualified in the higher heats. I myself had a really good dice with Gareth Bevans in the Saturday blinky final, fidhting for the lead all the way through, until he unfortunately clipped me on the hairpin on the penultimate lap causing us both to lose time, me more than him, lol, Gareth finished 2nd and me narrowly beaten by Ian Maddock for 3rd by 1.4secs, so no trophy for me, would have been my first 1/12th one too!
The Sunday mod day was not so good for me, despite running a 5.5T HPI Flux in blinky mode,(the only way i could control the speed), qualified 49 out of 51 so hey ho. There was just too much difference in the speeds of the cars, 7 laps between the 1st and 10th qualifier, led to quite an eventful race. After making a flying start, 9th to 3rd after the first two corners, the slower starting but faster cars then all caught me on the third, after quite a few hits, then waiting to be marshalled I was relegated to the last, and half a lap down on the nearest car. After fighting my way back, and avoiding being hit by the faster lapping cars, some not seeming to give us slower guys much room on the way through, I eventually finished 7th so was quite satisfied.

I did pay some attention to the Sunday finals though.
The 'B' saw a fantastic race. Jim Spencer shot away from the start and soon built up a substantial lead from Andy Sawyer. Andy had done well to make the final, as in the last qualifier he nearly totally destroyed his car! He had hit the side of the track and snapped the rear of the car, on taking it to his pit bench and removing the only still attached side link, the complete rear pod fell off! So, a complete re-build to get to the start with a completely untested car. Jim was still well into the lead at the 4 minute mark, and then Andy slowly started to catch him. With 30 secs to go Andy was right with Jim, and was waiting for his chance, however Jim was keeping his cool and the lead. After some really close racing with Andy trying numerous times to overtake, but Jim holding his line kept him away, Jim finally made his first mistake and Andy was passed to take the win, with Jim in 2nd place to a round of applause to both drivers.

The 'A' was mainly a prcession behind Olly Jefferies, who had TQ and led from start to finish, with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places seeing a good battle between Andy Griffiths, Mark Stiles, and Mark Spashett. After dicing through the first 4/5 mins Andy got clear to take the 2nd place, leaving Mark and Spash to have a fantastic race for the 3rd spot. Mark was living up to his nickname of 'Roadblock', not making a mistake and driving the racing line, leaving Spash trying his utmost to get passed, but Mark was having none of it. At the buzzer you could see Spashh lining Mark up all the way through the final lap for a final 'Banzai' move. Approaching the final corner the cars were almost touching and Mark finally drifted slightly wide, Spash was up the inside like a rat up a drainpipe! But, with just 6ft to the line Mark held on to take the place by .04 sec. Phew, a tremendous fight by two of our foremost drivers. Not forgetting of course there was two in front of them, so congrats must go to Olly and Griff.

A point on the tyres, I ran Xceed tyres all weekend, as did quite a few others, Jim Spencers car looked really good. For the first thre runs of each days I ran Xceed soft rears and a comination of, Parma 2x pnks, Jaco Lilacs, and Xceed medium fronts. I preferred the drive of the 2xpink front with the Xceed soft rears, but the Xceed mediums were probably just as good, just my personal preference.
For the last qualifier and the finals on both days I chose the Xceed medium rears / Xceed hard fronts. I had my best races, handling and results on both days, so I will be sticking to the Xceeds I think from now on, and at £8 a pair, very good value. For any of you technophobes the rears were 46mm and the fronts 44.5mm.

I must pay more attention at Tamworth.