Round five of the Schumacher Indoor Off Road Masters was held on the 27th of January 2008 at the usual venue for the series - Worksop. The club had a nice surprise in store for the racers - new lighting! this made a massive difference to the grim yellow cast of the old lighting and made racing easier on the eyes too.

The meetings at Worksop are always popular but with 11 heats in total, 7 2WD and 4 4WD, this was one of the larger turn outs of the series.

The track was laid out the previous evening and was wider than the usual layout - with plenty of well thought out features to tax the drivers skills. Two of the hardest obstacles were the corner table-top at the far left corner of the track - and the large table-top jump that lead to the 'wall ride' on the far right of the track. The latter in particular drew a little criticism since the racers couldn't see the down slope - and sometimes got the angle wrong on the aproach. Over all though it was certainly one of the better Worksop layouts.

In terms of 'new stuff' there wasn't a lot to be seen but Adam Skelding brought the new Hot Bodies D4 Worlds spec kit to show off. The new car comes with several upgrades seen at the World Championships in Japan last year, and some new innovations like the revised slipper. Adam didn't get chance to fully prepare the car so was using his Edit equiped original D4.
There were a few rumours going around about the new Schumacher 4WD - plenty of talk but sadly no car! Still - there were several Schumacher sponsored drivers in attendance so it wasn't too hard to get a (tiny) hint of the progress on the new car.
The team were supposed to have a private test session which was sadly rained off - so only Simon Moss seems to have driven the new car but wouldn't be drawn on any details what so ever. Some of the 'features' that are rumoured are a triple-belt drive system, very narrow chassis, 4+2 cell layout (similar to the XFactory cars use) and it's said the car will use the widespread Losi wheel fitment. Oh and it looks 'brilliant'. The car might debut at the Nurenberg Torfair next month - and/or the next round of the Worksop series.

A pack of 'the usual' 4200mah cells blew up in the pits at the start of round four of qualifying - with a huge bang the pack spat its burning contents around the hall, hitting several people. The offending cells will likely be banned soon under the newly enforced cell dimension regulations but perhaps it's time to look at LiPo?
Neil Cragg was certainly 'looking at LiPo' as he was running the newer cell technology all day in his 2WD car, in the form of the new REEDY pack. Neil went on to win too.

A Final 2WD
Stuart Wood (RB Modelsport / Team oOple.com) got off to an early lead from pole position with Neil Cragg in tow. These two stretched a small gap on the field, with Stuart unable to get any significant distance on the 8th rallycross National Champion - Cragg. The pair were evenly matched but Neil start to 'go big' in lap three - gaining some confidence and jumping further and higher than Stuart to close the gap. On lap four Stuart was giving it his all but a small mistake cost him the lead - Neil sailed through to take the lead and a good one at that.
Danny McGee got though for 2nd and Stuart Wood was down to third.
Stuart regained his composure and tried to reel in Danny for 2nd place - but just when it looked like he might do it a drivetrain failure ended his race early.
Neil didn't look back and kept to consistent 28/29 second laps to take the victory.

Stu Wood leads the A final	After a mistake from Stu, Neil got through - and won.

4WD A final

Richard Lowe had dominated qualifying with his JConcepts BJ4-Worlds and quite rightly sat on pole position for the final. Richard got away on the buzzer cleanly and built a quick lead, followed by Bruce Thompson from 2nd on the grid, Chris long and Ben Riley. Number three qualifier, Adam Skelding made an error on the first lap - running too high on the wall-ride and disappearing down the back! - effectively putting him out of the running by the time he'd been rescued. Chris Long managed to pass Bruce Thompson for 2nd but Richard Lowe was ultra-consistent and wasn't going to be caught - going on to win by 17 seconds over Chris Long, with Graham North putting in a fabulous run to finish 3rd.

Adam Skelding - oops!	Richard Lowe flys on to another victory.

Thanks to the Worksop crew for another great meeting - and Schumacher & RRCI for the prizes of course.

Did you attend this event, or are you interested in attending future rounds of the championship? Comments on the race report are welcome, discuss on the oOple forums: HERE.