All photos are mine, all mine, and not to be used in commercial purposes without prior permission. copyright ©2007 Jimmy Storey. rc(at)oople(dot)com.

2WD Photos 4WD Photos
Video by BATHY - bigger embedded version at the bottom of this report.

UK National Series - Round Two - KIDDERMINSTER

Kidderminster was the venue for the second in the 2007 BRCA National 10th off road series. Kidderminster is a multisurface track consisting of brick, dirt, tarmac and astro turf. The track is located in the west midlands and is a regular feature of the National series. This year the tyre choices were swapped around a little from the usual 'Ballistic pin' to Ballistic spikes. The change meant that the second choice tyre, Schumacher mini spikes, was used more than in previous years since the Ballistic spikes don't seem to have a clear advantage over the Schumachers, especially in the dry.

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2WD
The day started very much random in terms of weather and this never really changed - brilliant warm sunshine would bathe the race one minute, the next minute could bring a light rain shower or a long spell of cloud and lower temperatures. This naturally played a role in the laptimes, it was just down to luck what the weather would be like from one heat to the next.

Most people chose to use the Ballistic tyres throughout the day. Speaking to Neil Cragg, he used the Ballistic tyres in 'pink' compound earlier in the day when the track was at its wettest, moving to the harder green compound as the day wore on. Just trimming some spikes off to calm the car down.

Neil cragg was back on form after a disappointing opening meeting at Tiverton - Taking the opening two rounds of qualifying. Tom Yardy took the third round and Darren Bloomfield took the fourth. This gave Neil the pole from Darren and Tom.

The first leg of the A final and Neil pulled away a small gap with Darren Bloomfield very much on his tail. Darren was pushing very hard - too hard in fact, and a roll put him back to third and in a battle with Tom Yardy. It finished in that order with Neil 5 seconds ahead of Tom, with Darren a couple of seconds further back.

The second leg saw Neil again pull a gap with Darren Bloomfield hot on his heels. Neil made an uncharacteristic error, rolling the car and giving Darren the position. A hard battle between this pair and neil was back in front with Yardy also in the mix - all three came together on one corner and it was Neil that got out cleanest with Darren right behind - Neil won his second A final leg and the meeting. Neil went on to win the third leg from Darren Bloomfield again, with Chris Doughty in third.

The final positions were as follows:

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4WD
The second day of the Kidderminster national was 4WD - the track had changed only a little from the previous day but was now being run in the opposite direction. The rain started early on and just never stopped - if anything getting worse as the day wore on.

Because of standing water on the track, the layout was slightly altered for the second round of qualifying to avoid the worst of it. This lead to lap times dropping for the top driver by an average of around 1.5 seconds per lap, but since we were using round by round qualifying, there would be no negative effect on the results since it was the same for everyone.

Tom Yardy was racing the new X11 predator for the first time at Kidderminster. Tom didn't have great runs in the first couple of rounds and only got the one-way in the car that morning, fitting it in time for the third round which was never run - so Tom never really got the chance to show what the car can do. We got an interview with Lewis and Tom about the new car and some VERY exciting plans for the future, but you can read more about that in the new 'predator' section being developed by our very own 'Northy', coming soon!

Both Richard Taylor and Chris Doughty narrowly missed out on 13 laps and Lee Martin was the only one to sneak through for a 13 lap run, almost 18 seconds faster than his previous run on the slightly longer track. Lee rolled it just after crossing the loop but the thirteen lap run gave him the round win.

Lee Martin ran in heat 6 of 12 - and the track was becoming increasingly flooded, with several cars in every head failing to finish because of the conditions. Most cars were failing with blown speed controllers. It is hard to describe just how chaotic the second round of qualifying had become, and the photos don't really do the conditions justice - but it was clear that something had to be done.

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Half an hour break was called after the second round so a decision could be made about what to do, as the rain continued to fall. In the end the choice was made to abandon the meeting and decide the positions from the best single time from both rounds - in effect this meant that most people used their second round score on the shortened track, as these times were a lot quicker obviously. It's a sad way to decide a championship leg but the only real choice given the conditions.

The only driver to make 13 laps was Lee Martin with the AERO - so Lee took his second National win in a row for AERO. It wasn't the sweetest victory ever, but a win is a win and Lee is looking good for the title at this rate.

Congratulations to Neil and Lee