The Worksop club run indoors - in what from the outside looks to be an industrial warehouse, but inside is actually a sports hall and bowling complex.

The sports hall is huge, with roughly half (or less) devoted to the track there is plenty of room for pitting. The surface is an unusual cork tile affair - which is pretty unique, and is certainly 'different' to race on. A lot of people rave about the surface, and it's certainly a distinguising feature - it's fairly slippy but in a different way to the usual polished floor type of surface.

The Worksop club was hugely popular in years gone by with buggy racers. Touring cars joined in the action around 1999 .The two classes raced alternate weekends but when the organisers lost interest the club stopped in around 2002, coupled with the expensive rental and low numbers, the club stopped racing. This meeting was actually the third race day since buggies have been racing back at Worksop - running along side the touring cars these days, in different heats of course and out-numbering the touring cars. The track is a compromise, with the main layout being for both type of car but additional sections with jumps and bumps for the buggies.

One huge jump was erected just under the rostrum - a tabletop with nice profiles, which was certainly much faster to 'down-slope', rather than under or over jump. Get this jump right every lap and you were on for a decent time since most people would make an error at least once in the race.

With racers in the USA attending the Cactus Classic, as well as other venues racing on the same day and the general poor weather (snow) - the numbers weren't huge for my first visit to the Worksop venue. Still, two heats of 2wd and two of 4WD were organised, with some decent drivers from the North East in attendance.

In 2WD it was the Xfactory X-6 of Dan Greenwood that set the early pace in round one, managing to avoid the chaos around him to finish around 5 seconds ahead of Wayne Collinson driving the B4. Those two the only ones on 16 laps.

Round two saw Tom Cockerill (Losi XXXCR) take the top spot but things were much closer with 8 drivers on 16 laps. Tom too the round 4 seconds ahead of an impressive looking Chris Long driving the X-6 (well, his car I mean - not chris himself). Dan Greenwood was a couple of seconds further back.

Round three and Chris Long was away - the only 17 lapper in 2WD qualifing. Chris secured TQ position ahead of Tom Cockerill and Wayne Collinson.

Meanwhile in 4WD Craig Collinson driving the Losi XX4 got off to a great start - taking the first round of qualifying by just over a second from Adam Skelding driving the new Hot Bodies car. Stuart Wood settled for third a couple of seconds further back driving the new Tamiya 501X car for his new team - oOple!

In round 2, Craig Collinson again took the win, this time ahead of Chris Long (X5), 2 seconds back, and Tom Cockerill in third (XX4). After breaking a wishbone in warmup, Adam Skelding made the (delayed) race but retired early with handling problems.

Round three of 4WD, the final round of qualifying, saw Adam Skelding take the win ahead of Chris Long.

The Top 5 qualifying (mainly due to lazyness in typing out the lists) were as follows:

At Worksop things run differently to how most meetings run. Indeed this, I am told, seems to be a legacy of the Touring car side of things. Though there are only three qualfying rounds - everyone gets two finals. The way this works out is that your best two runs out of your two finals and your BEST qualifier are added together to give your final position. (please let me know if this is wrong, but that's how I was told it worked - and who am I to argue!)

This does mean that, with solid qualifying and a poor first final - you still have a good chance in the next final to make things right.

2WD A final: Chris long got a good clean start and never looked back- scoring 18 second laps all the way down apart from one 19 second lap. Wayne Collinson finished second from James Pritchard in third. Chris Long had already theoretically won the meeting by taking TQ and the first leg - but went out in the second A final to win again.

4WD A final: Craig Collinson had already put in a good performance to take TQ, and like Chris Long in 2WD he set about the first leg of the A final in the right way- building up a small lead with some very consistent lap times. Stu Wood and Adam Skelding (cars 3 & 2 respectively) both got unlucky - tipping over at the same spot in front of a particularly (incredibly) apprehensive and lethargic marshal from the touring car final. Adam coming out with a 26 second lap and Stu Wood dropping from 2nd to last place with a 28 second lap.
Craig went on to win from Tom Cockerill, Chris Long, Stu Wood (clawing his way from 10th to 4th by the end) and Ian Barnard.
Leg two saw Craig Collinson again tear away- followed closely by Stu Wood and Tom Cockerill. Stu pressed a little too hard and dropped down the order a place. Whilst Craig powered away for another win on a clean track a scrap ensued for second. Stu Wood eventually finishing second - Chris long 1 second further back in 3RD and top another 5 seconds back.

Thanks to the organisers, the meeting was well run and the venue was pretty good - though took a little getting used to!