Schumacher Off Road Indoor Masters - Worksop

Schumacher indoor off road masters - Worksop 24-02-08

Round six of the Schumacher Indoor Off Road Masters was held on the 24th of February 2008 at the usual venue for the series - Worksop. With the 'National Indoor Finals' held at the save venue in a months time - it was a chance for drivers to get some practice in before that event, so there were 12 heats in total.

In 2WD, Danny McGee took the first round with his Losi XXXCR - always fast here and today was no different. Tom Cockerill with his newly aquired X-6 took the second round of qualifying. It was Mark Stanley who was the most consistent though to take the last two rounds and take pole on the grid for the A final with his Losi.

2WD A Final
Mark Stanley got away cleanly from pole and never had to look back - putting in smooth consistent laps. The fight for second place was a lot more entertaining however - Danny McGee was having a hard time of things and Tom Cockerill made a couple of mistakes that prevented him catching Mark. Mark Stanley took the win by 8 seconds from Tom Cockerill and Grant Williams a further 6 seconds back.


A friendly nudge for Danny McGee - comin' thru!	Mark Stanley kept it smooth to take the win

Pos	Qual	Name	Result	Avrg Lap	Best Lap
1	1	Mark Stanley	10/ 5m 6.59	30.66	29.31 (10)
2	3	Tom Cockerill	10/ 5m 14.66	31.47	29.57 (10)
3	6	Grant Williams	10/ 5m 21.50	32.15	30.94 (9)
4	8	James Helliwell	10/ 5m 24.67	32.47	30.91 (6)
5	5	Matthew Dodd	10/ 5m 27.46	32.75	30.28 (3)
6	7	Matt Benfield	10/ 5m 32.27	33.23	31.34 (8)
7	4	Chris Bowater	10/ 5m 33.43	33.34	31.15 (8)
8	2	Danny McGee	10/ 5m 33.66	33.37	28.34 (8)
9	9	Chris Long	9/ 5m 2.66	33.63	30.50 (8)
10	10	Ian Barnard	9/ 5m 13.37	34.82	32.18 (9)

Thanks to Mark Christopher and Mac at Trakpower - I was using the Trakpower Lipo after the third round. The relatively mild motor (14x2) that I'd been running was transformed into a bit of a beast with the extra voltage and punch.

After the final I manage to put a grand total of 1250 back into the pack! I could just easily manage three races between charges at that rate!

I was really stoked with the performance and ease of use (bring 1 pack to a meeting already in the car - instead of the huge heavy box) - luckily Schumacher decided to allow LiPo for use in the series and it's starting to gain a following with the likes of Neil Cragg winning the previous round with his Reedy Lipo.

Mac from Trakpower brought some of his latest toys to show around the popular event. The new slimmer 3200mah pack looked interesting and was only 20.8mm high - and very light indeed (193g vs 268g for the 4900mah pack) and should hit the shops soon. Another new pack is the long awaited saddle pack - this is 4800mah but won't fit all cars due to the extra height over standard cells - the packs are 70mm x 47mm and 30mm high each. We'll get the pack in soon to test out in various cars but we're told another version will be released later with a lower capacity and correspondingly lower height to fit in a wider range (pretty much all) cars.


From left to right, 4900mah 2 cell lipo - 3200mah 'slim' 2 cell lipo - 4800mah saddle pack lipo - 5400mah 3 cell (11.1v) Traxxas lipo.	The new 3200mah lipo from Trakpower slightly lower profile than a normal pack of cells - this gives even more options to mount into different cars, or like Mark Christopher does you can run a sheet of lead underneath the pack to make it as high as the original pack but with weight as low down as possible.


The new saddle pack consists of two chubby gold bricks which connect with a removable / customisable lead using 4mm (corally) plugs. The pack won't fit in all the current crop of cars but should at least be adaptable for a good number. The main problem is the height - which on the test car above meant the top deck needed raising 1mm with washers. We'll get our grubby hands on one to review soon - but we're also told a slimmer version of lower capacity (likely ~3200) will follow later which should fit just about any car. Check out the latest products on the Trakpower website - http://www.trakpower.com/

4WD A Final
Ellis Stafford was on pole for the final with his XFactory X5 Squared, but a roll on the first lap put him straight down to fourth as Adam Skelding (HB D4) took up the lead followed by Richard Lowe (JConcepts BJ4we) and Stuart Wood (B44). Skelding passed but it was short lived and Lowe was back out front - the chaos reigned behind and positions were changing all the time - Ellis made the most of it to once more challenge for the lead, pushing Richard Lowe hard. It wasn't to be though and Richard was able to extend his lead when ellise made some mistakes. Richard took the win on 11 laps - with Ellis a couple of seconds away from the 11 laps and Chris Long pushing up to third.


Ellis rolls on the first lap	...But comes back to fight for the lead

Pos	Qual	Name	Result	Avrg Lap	Best Lap
1	2	Richard Lowe	11/ 5m 30.76	30.07	28.64 (7)
2	1	Ellis Stafford	10/ 5m 2.26	30.23	28.52 (10)
3	6	Chris Long 4wd	10/ 5m 2.59	30.26	29.31 (8)
4	5	Stuart Wood	10/ 5m 4.19	30.42	28.97 (3)
5	7	Steven Pierce	10/ 5m 12.13	31.21	29.27 (8)
6	3	Adam Skelding	10/ 5m 13.18	31.32	28.25 (9)
7	4	Ben Riley	10/ 5m 13.78	31.38	28.38 (10)
8	8	Chris Bowater	10/ 5m 17.87	31.79	29.12 (8)
9	10	Matt White	9/ 5m 4.63	33.85	29.87 (5)
10	9	Simon Reeves	6/ 3m 9.74	31.62	30.09 (5)