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The National Indoor Finals is the climax of the indoor racing season, with drivers having qualified primarily by racing the indoor regionals - in truth there were plenty of spaces left over so getting an entry wasn't a problem. The venue for the 2007/8 indoor finals is the excellent Worksop venue, which has been one of the most popular indoor venues over the winter season.

Worksop has an unusual surface consisting of cork tiles - which gives a unique driving characteristic unlike any other track. Some have compared it to racing on dirt - but however you look at it, its a nice surface to race on. There are also carpet sections on the track to give a different grip level and keep the drivers working hard - adjusting driving style around the track. Lastly, as always at worksop there are plenty of quality jumps and features.

Saturday 29th March 2008 - 2WD
The first round of heat-order untimed 4 minute practice got underway just after 8am. With only 8 heats this was over quite quickly and it was slightly unusual to see so few drivers in the venue as a typical meeting here through the winter series has seen 100 drivers.

After a brief sort out with the heats a second round of practice took place before the drivers briefing.

The BRCA decided to allow the 2008 homologated cells at this meeting for the sake of safety - along side the existing 2007 cells which will be illegal for National competition in a couple of weeks time at the first round of the 2008 National series.

The layout at worksop changes at every meeting, though usually follows a similar pattern- and this was no different, with a clockwise rotation and large table top jump right in front of the rostrum. The layout is apparently styled on the track used at round two of the Schumacher Indoor Off Road Masters series at this same venue a few months ago.

ROUND 1
Neil Cragg was in heat 7 and set a blistering time in round one of 14laps / 304.61 to take the top spot. But it didn't last long and in the next heat Ellis Stafford driving the XFactory X6 went even quicker, with a 14lap / 302.34 to claim the TQ of round one. Danny McGee came in third with his Losi XXXCR on 14/306.41

ROUND 2
In round two, Neil Cragg again set the pace and threw down the first 15 lap run in a time of 15/323.85 - this time no one could match Neil in the top heat and he stayed on top. Danny McGee and Ellis Stafford came 2nd and 3rd respectively both on 14/302 times seperated by only two tenths of a second.

Below: Arslaan Butt has his new 4WD buggy here ready for the 4wd event. Arslaan swapped to from his Yokomo BX to the Associated B44 for this year - but wasn't overly impressed with the standard car. So like a few people now, Arslaans father took matters into his own hands and made some modifications to the car.

The first thing i the shocks - Shimmy swapped to the blue shock bodies from the RTR B4 in order to do away with the threads on the bodies - so he could run the Losi springs (and spring retainers).

Shimmy also swapped out the stock shafts and went with longer T4 truck rear shafts at the back, and B44 rear shafts in the front shocks. To accomodate the longer length shocks, both towers are around 5mm higher all round - but Shimmy didn't stop there. To do away with the somewhat weak top deck camber link mounts, which can break and render the whole top deck useless - Shimmy added camber link pickups to his new rear shock tower. Up front, Shimmy made a whole new camberlink brace which attaches to an extra front shock tower mount.

Both top decks on this car are new custom made parts - identical to the kit items but without the lugs for the camber links. So it would be easy to modify the kit items - just not as 'neat'

Team oOple destruction tester Vicky oOple has been testing out some new driving lines on behalf of the top drivers, in round 3 Vicky attempted to save time on the table-top in front of the rostrum by driving under it, however unforseen obstacles supporting the jump caused some delay which resulted in a 42 second lap. In the same round Vicky managed a 29 second lap. Funny faced Warrior.

ROUND 3
Neil Cragg took the third round - just missing out on 15 laps with a time of 14/300.84. Danny McGee came in second with 14/306.02 and Lee Martin with his B4 in third place on 14/306.43

ROUND 4
Lee Martin showed his pace in round four - leading heat 7 on a potential 15 lap pace, followed by Phil Sleigh. Neil Cragg had fallen down the order but slowly worked his way back up the positions. At 45 seconds to go it was Lee, with Sleigh half a second behind and Neil Cragg up to third.
A couple of small mistakes from Lee saw him fall off 15 lap pace but a stellar last couple of laps saw Lee Martins B4 get the best result of the day, 15 laps in 320.42.

In the last heat of qualifying, Danny McGee took the lead with his XXXCR and was on a seriously fast pace - blitzing everyone with an even quicker 15 lap run than Lee Martin had just put in - 15 / 316.16

So Danny McGee took the round with 15 / 316.16, Lee Martin second with 15 / 320.42 and Phil Sleigh on 14 / 301.94.

Position

Name

Overall scores

1

Neil Cragg

2 [2 1 1 5]

2

Danny McGee

3 [3 2 2 1]

3

Ellis Stafford

4 [1 3 5 4]

4

Lee Martin

5 [16 9 3 2]

5

Phil Sleigh

8 [14 5 15 3]

6

Tom Yardy

8 [4 4 4 27]

7

Simon Moss

12 [5 7 23 75]

8

Tom Cockerill

13 [7 14 8 6]

9

Richard Lowe

15 [8 27 20 7]

10

Simon Reeves

16 [18 6 10 11]

A Final Leg 1
The A finalists get three leg finals just like at the outdoor Nationals. The first leg started with a bit of a nightmare for Richard Lowe when he broke his car in half before the start. A quick swap of cars for someone elses and he was back as the officials kindly held the race.

Neil Cragg was on pole and didn't hang about. Neil pulled a small gap on the rest with Danny McGee in tow. Danny started piling on the pressure and was all over Neil but it wasn't to be & Danny made a mistake which saw him drop to fourth.

A little controversy: Tom Yardy was in 3rd, Ellis was in 4th and Simon Moss just behind in 5th place - Ellis collided with Tom mid-air over a jump before the AMB loop, leaving Tom on his roof. Tom was down to 5th as Simon Moss came through as well. The officials decided to 'demote' Ellis two places for the incident.

Neil went on to win the first leg, with Lee Martin 2nd and Tom Yardy 3rd.

Position

Car

Name

1

1

Neil Cragg

2

4

Lee Martin

3

6

Tom Yardy

4

7

Simon Moss

5

3

Ellis Stafford

6

8

Tom Cockerill

7

2

Danny McGee

8

10

Simon Reeves

9

5

Phil Sleigh

10

9

Richard Lowe

A Final Leg 2
Leg two and again Neil got away cleanly followed by Danny McGee. Danny was quick but couldn't catch Neil who was putting in smooth and consistent laps - going on to win by 8 seconds from Danny with Simon Moss in third.

With his second leg win, Neil wins the 2007/8 National Indoor 2WD title.

A Final Leg 3
Since he'd already won, Neil tried some crazy tyres for the third A final - but they were so bad that he quickly switched back to the regular Schumacher yellow mini pins, just in time for the start.

Neil again got away with Danny McGee and Ellis Stafford in tow. Coming around his second lap, Neil made a mistake allowing Danny through - but it was short lived and Neil got back past, going on to win the third leg.

Position

Car

Name

Car

Total

RD 1

RD 2

RD 3

1

1

Neil Cragg

B4

2

1

1

1

2

4

Lee Martin

B4

5

2

6

3

3

6

Danny McGee

XXXcr

7

7

2

5

4

7

Ellis Stafford

X-6

7

5

5

2

5

3

Simon Moss

B4

7

4

3

6

6

8

Tom Yardy

B4

7

3

8

4

7

2

Phil Sleigh

B4

11

9

4

7

8

10

Tom Cockerill

X-6

13

6

7

10

9

5

Richard Lowe

B4

17

10

9

8

10

9

Simon Reeves

XXXcr

17

8

10

9

Sunday 30th March 2008 - 4WD
There were a maximum 100 drivers booked in for 4WD - 11 didn't turn up in time but 5 reserves got places to bring the numbers to 94.

Maybe it was the extra numbers or perhaps the old dears in the bowls hall next door were making too many cups of 'tea' - but the power went down a little after practice started. It was only off for 20 minutes though and didn't happen again.

There were again two practice rounds for the drivers to get used to the track - which itself was mostly unchanged from the previous day but with some new corners on the far right hand side.

The new Schumacher CAT SX buggy was at the meeting, on its second public outing (previously here at this same venue last weekend). Matt White and Simon Moss were both running the car which has some very unique features.

Both drivers were running the NiMh 4+2 cell version of the car since LiPo batteries aren't legal for sanctioned off road racing in the UK.

Matt White was using a centre one way and front one way. The centre one way can be locked by inserting a pin which locks it to the shaft - held in place with an o-ring. Matt swapped out the front one way for a differential in one round, but switched back for the next one.
The differentials themselves are fairly well sealed from dust. The diff rings extend right out to the edge and appear like they'll prevent most dirt ingress.

Matt White only got his bodyshell on the afternoon of the race showing just how new these cars are to the drivers.

The shock absorbers aren't finalised yet and while Matt White was running aeration type - where the air is 'allowed' to mix with the oil like on the AE / Losi / Tamiya etc. Simon Moss's car had bladders in the shocks to seperate the air from the oil. As if to prove just how new these prototype cars are - when Simon Moss had a big 'off' in practice he broke a shock shaft and was unable to replace it - so Simon used the shocks from his Associated B4 for the rest of the day.

The SX shocks themselves are possibly a little smaller than on most current cars - with a slightly smaller diameter than AE shocks but only by a fraction of a MM.

Final drive ratios can be changed with matched pairs of gears toward the rear of the car. The ones shown on the prototypes are quite wide but the production car will use gears about half this width and include a small gear cover to protect them & your fingers.

The bodyshell has caused a little controversy - I quite like it, but anyway. The shell will be tweaked a little to accomodate the highest brushless ESC's, which currently hit the body.

The dual pad slipper uses B4 style pads and spurs gears. This is adjusted from the opposite side with a nut and spring.

Another new car at the meeting that was driven in the 2WD event is the Atomic Carbon S2 - production car. The S2 has been around for around a year but has changed plenty from the earliest versions and the car shown here now has the new body shell.

The S2 features a mid motor layout with 4-gear gearbox and lovely carbon fibre tub chassis.

The S2 is a conversion for the RC10B4, check out the atomic carbon website for more information.

Round 1
Ellis Stafford in heat 9 took the first round of qualifying with his XFactory X-5 on 15 laps in 315.58. Lee Martin was the only other driver on 15 laps, with a time of 319.41. Local super star Richard Lowe, who won the Schumacher series at Worksop came in third just missing 15 laps with 14 laps 300.05

Richard 'Tricky' Taylor was distraught that we didn't get chance to interview him at the neo last weekend, so we took this opportunityto throw some questions at him at the indoor finals.

What is your favourite pie filling?
Meat and PotatOe.

What did you have for breakfast today?
A bacon sandwich - cooked by dad in the van, and eaten in the pitting area(!) (oooh bad boy, report him quick!)

If you could be any superhero, what super power would you want?
I think I'd like to be invisible.

If you could have dinner with any celebrity, who would you choose?
Hmm, ooh, that's a difficult one, we'll come back to that one later.

Where were you born?
Preston.

How many years have you been racing r/c cars?
19, since I was 7.

Do you take offence to people referring to your hobby as 'toy cars'?
No.

What is the fastest lap you have ever completed?
Haha, I have no idea!

What is the most damage you have ever caused to an r/c car in one breakage, and how?
I've snapped the chassis and sure I've destroyed many cars- pretty wrecked.

What is your favourite drink?
I like a beer.

Would that be a traditional dark english beer, or something lighter?
Lager.

Which track is your all time favourite?
A few - The Miinreg at Tampa bay, and I like Southport.

Do your parents have pet names for you, and where does the nickname 'Tricky' come from, is it because you can do backflips?
No pet names. Ian Flinns Dad called me Tricky Ricky because when I started racing I was really small and could run up the rostrum steps amongst peoples legs without them noticing, to get onto the rostrum first.

List your top racing achievements, which one are you the most proud of?
7th at the 2003 Words in 4wd, 2nd in both classes at the 2002 European Championships, National Champion 4 times, once was a double. Proudest achievement is the Worlds result.

What are your thoughts on indoor racing?
I don't like indoor racing unless it's on dirt.

Do you prefer nitro powered or electric r/c cars?
Ohh, errm, it's a difficult one, pretty tied at the moment.

Where is your favourite hoiiday destination?
I like going skiing, so somewhere like the alps or some kind of snow activities. I plan to go to the USA or Canada.

Who has taught you and helped you the most with your racing?
My dad has helped the most, and I've probably learnt most from watching other racers.

How much are your thumbs worth?
I've no idea - how much are they worth?
(It depends how much you win.)

Round 2
Round two was even faster with four cars getting through for 15 laps. Lee Martin took this one with his Associated B44 on the quickest time of the day so far - 15 laps 315.40. Neil Cragg came in second with his Yokomo BX Worlds Edition a couple of seconds off Lee, with Richard lowe stating to show his true pace right behind Neil by only one hundreth of a second.

Round 3
Only three made it through for 15 laps in round three - Neil Cragg was on top this time with the fastest time of the day to this point of 15 laps in 314.35. Lee Martin had an awesome start in his heat and was on pace to beat Neil, but a roll cost him a few seconds and he finished on 15 / 318.84.
Mark Stanley won the 2WD Schumacher round here a few weeks back and pulled out a good run in round three to secure third in round just over a second back from Lee.

Interview - Ole Steen Karlsen (aged 15), Ketil Pettersen (aged 29)
Ole is from Oslo and Ketil is from Trondheim in Norway.

What brings you over to England?
The Norweigan motorsport association have sponsored us to come over to the UK and spend the weekend racing here to learn more about the sport. We're only here from Friday to Monday I've been wanting to compete here for a while, the level of competition is very good.

Have you raced on a track like this back home in Norway? What surfaces do you usually race on?
Not this type of surface - indoors we usualy race on carpet, and outdoors we race on clay.

Are you enjoying this event so far, how different is it to the events in Norway?
Yes, it is very good. It helps that there are 80 people racing here, in Norway only 10-15 turn up, so there isn't a lot of atmosphere.

Have you ever heard of oOple.com and if so what do you think of the website - what improvements can you suggest?
Yes - I like it, how can you improve something that is perfect already? (did you pay him to say that?)

What is your favourite racing tool?
Ketil - This one - it is a tiny flathead screwdriver that I have owned for over 20 years, I look after it very carefully.
Ole - My J-Concepts toolkit - hexdrivers.

Is this your first visit to England, what were your first impressions?
Ketil - Yes, my first visit. In many ways it is similar to Norway so it is like a second home. It was a bit scary at first driving on the left side of the road, I've never done that before.
Ole - Second visit to England.

What is Norway famous for?
There is a famous Norweigan football player who plays for manchester united (we're still trying to find his name).

What is the driving standard like in the UK compared to in Norway?
The best drivers are better, the next best drivers - there are so many of them. The best drivers in Norway are like the second best drivers here.

What is your favurite style of potatoes?
Ketil - I like chips.
Ole - Potato Boats (Wedges?)

Have you ever injured yourself whilst racing toy cars, and have you ever broken any bones?
Ketil - I fell off the rostrum once and twisted my ankle. I've never broken any bones in my body, but I think I broke someones knee last year - I didn't see the marshal on the track and drove my nitro 8th scale into him at full speed. The scary thing is he didn't even feel it.
Ole - No injuries, although I did break my nail once.

Do you race outdoors in the snow?
We don't race in the snow, although we know people in Norway who do.

What is your favourite joke? - Are you funny people?
We are funny but we don't tell a lot of jokes. I know a joke about swedish and danish people - we like to make fun of scandinavians.

What is your dream car?
Ketil - Il tempo Gigante - it's from a Norweigan movie.
Ole - Lamborghini Gallardo.

Do you race nitro powered cars and which is most popular in Norway - gas or electric?
Ole - I don't race nitro cars, I don't like them.
Ketil - After 20 years of racing electric, I started racing some nitro cars last year, mainly because they have 80 people turn u to race meetings rather than 15 who turn up for electric, so Nitro is the most popular.

Round 4
Ellis Stafford laid down a great time in the final round of qualifying - putting in a new fastest time, but it was quickly overshadowed by Lee Martin in the final heat who went even quicker with a 15 / 312.48. Neil made a small error and didn't make the 15 laps.

Lee Martin had a nicely consistent 2 1 2 1 finish in the qualifiers with a perfect score of 2, so took pole from Neil Cragg on three points with a 1&2 and Ellis stafford in third also with a 1st and 2nd finish.

A Final Leg 1
Lee Martin got away with Neil Cragg and these two stretched a small lead on the rest. Neil got closer and closer - putting on the pressure but while these two were battling it out Ellis Stafford was making up space. Neil passed Lee and these to swapped positions a couple more times in the space of only a couple of corners. Ellis caught up and these three went round for a couple of laps nose-to-tail. The Neil Cragg sanwich ended when Neil made an error coming over the large table top.

Ellis put the pressure on Lee for first now and coming over the table top Lee made a mistake and Ellis made up another position to first. Neil had dropped off the pace and dropped to fourth as Richard Lowe moved up to third.

Ellis held his position and Lee made another mistake allowing Ellis to pull away a little. Richard Lowe meanwhile had been working hard to catch up and

A Final Leg 2
Lee headed out with Neil Cragg, Ellis and Simon Moss with the new CAT SX in fourth. These four had a small gap back to Sleigh - then a bigger gap to the rest. Neil and Ellis were piling the pressure on Lee and forced an error from the current 4WD National Champion. Lee dropped to third with Simon Moss right behind. From then on it was a show between Neil Cragg leading and Ellis Stafford chasing. Ellis looked really quick and kept looking for ways past but couldn't quite manage it.

Ellis made a mistake on the closing lap and dropped further back. Neil went on to win with Ellis second and Simon Moss third.

A Final Leg 3
With four possible winners it was still very open - Lee Martin, Ellis Stafford, Neil Cragg and Richard Lowe could all take the title. After a few mistakes it was Neil Cragg who got into the lead in the third leg and he really stretched it out, pulling a nice buffer from Ellis in second. Looking like he'd go on to win, Neil made a mistake coming over the mats before the huge table top - ending up on his roof at the far side of the table top where he couldn't even see the car.

Ellis looked certain to take the lead but incredibly made the same exact mistake. Ellis was closer to the marshall and was put down first, but by this point Ellis had dropped to third and Neil fourth. Lee was now back in the lead with Richard Lowe doing everything he could to catch. It wasn't to be for Richard though and Lee took the third and final leg.

With his 1st and 2nd, Ellis Stafford took the win with his Nosram powered XFactory X-5 Squared. Lee Martin was second and Richard Lowe third.

The overall results from the three legs was as follows.

Below, Ellis used a Nosram Matrix ISTC brushless controller with 5.5 motor, last years 4200 Nosram cells - he was also planning to go to KFC to celebrate his win!

From left to right: Lee Martin (2nd), Ellis Stafford (1st), Richard Lowe (3rd). It was close, but Ellis Stafford takes home the goods for XFactory.

The top 8 cars in the A final were all different chassis - a rather good sign of the strength in this class currently. Well done to the winners and well done to the great team that organised and ran the meeting!

2WD Photos

4WD Photos