Simon Moss's Schumacher CAT K1 dominated

Simon Moss confirmed the TQ by taking the third qualifier by a narrow margain from Craig Collinson and Danny McGee, who's joined up with the Schumacher team for 2013.

	4WD Qualifying Round Three - Top 10
	position name result 1 Simon Moss 14/ 5m 8.08 2 Craig Collinson 14/ 5m 8.85 3 Danny McGee 14/ 5m 8.96 4 Lloyd Storey 14/ 5m 11.42 5 Richard Lowe 14/ 5m 12.43 6 Greg Williams 14/ 5m 14.09 7 Richard Ralph 14/ 5m 18.12 8 James Helliwell 14/ 5m 19.26 9 Graham North 14/ 5m 21.60 10 Nathan Waters 14/ 5m 22.44

Chris Doughty from Team Durango has been racing back in the 10th off road class over winter and we went over to look at his immaculately prepared and 'blinged up' DEX210. Chris has joined Team Fister for 2013 - sporting the new directional wheel decals on all his rides - the decals make it quickly obvious which way round you've run the wheels previously Proper body shell Chris loves the bling and his ride had a few new option parts we can expect to see soon - new alloy thumb screws, an adjustable rear-front suspension hanger which features the same inserts used on the DEX410v3 to adjust anti-squat angle. The alloy shock caps were being tested by a couple of drivers and look wickedly cool in the olive colour to match the shock bodies. The bleed screw uses a tiny plastic washer to seal things up. Hmmmmm, new alloy shock caps & gold adjusters Chris's car had some new grey ball cups Gold bottom caps and chassis washer Fist forward! Some new grey ball cups on Chris's car looked pretty slick and are apparently a new material they're testing - no news on when or if these will become available but we overheard some positive words about them! The turnbuckles on the front of Chris's car aren't a new item but are actually option parts meant for the DNX408 and not really suited for this use since they're actually a larger diameter and the ball cups need to be drilled out to fit - but they look sexy. Those shocks just finish the car off for me, damn!!!!!

Nathan Waters broke through the magical 14 lap barrier on his way to TQ'ing round three and taking the provisional TQ, there was only Greg Williams who could challenge now.

	2WD Qualifying Round Three - Top 10
	position name result 1 Nathan Waters 14/ 5m 22.98 2 Craig Collinson 13/ 5m 1.03 3 Danny McGee 13/ 5m 5.81 4 Greg Williams 13/ 5m 6.93 5 Lloyd Storey 13/ 5m 8.28 6 James Helliwell 13/ 5m 12.66 7 Jack Neal 13/ 5m 15.95 8 Rob Fox 13/ 5m 16.94 9 Chris Doughty 13/ 5m 17.56 10 Adam Mackman 13/ 5m 18.06

The Track - a lap with legend, Chris Doughty

1 - Down the main straight, keeping to the outside lining yourself up for the first corner, I was actually braking slightly near the end of the straight unlike previous worksop layouts.

Chris gives us his thoughts on a lap with his 2WD DEX210

2 – The first corner at worksop is usually pretty critical, but this layout was even more so, entering with less speed than previous layouts, ensuring a tight corner and exit to line up for the chicaine.

3 – If you exited the previous corner tight, you could get back on the power to quickly weave through this chicane, you could also sweep wide on the exit of the chicane to carry a nice flow on entry to the first corner table.

4 – This corner table top was very tricky, the fastest way was to go ramp-to-ramp but this was super hard, all day I played it safe and landed safely on top then punching off to land towards the end of the downramp. Ready for the tight corner after.

5 – Rumble strip, this was pretty much a non-feature for me, I just took a usual sweeping racing line, my car soaked up the ripples, I used the carpet to get the car turned before transferring back onto the slippy floor, a little bit of brake to get the car pivoted for the hairpin after that.

6 – The slow table was a really nice feature in the track, entering the feature after a little corner/chicane and scrubbing a bit of speed for the slow jump to maximise the downramp.

7 – This mats section was short but very fun, carrying the speed from the downramp of the previous jump, just letting the car flow through the matts neither braking or accelerating is what I found to work best here, I also found that a tight exit to these matts really made the second of the corner table tops a much easier feature.

8 – The second corner table top was far easier to jump ramp-to-ramp, however I never really found a consistent line to achieve this. I think my viewing angle wasn’t too great to line it up nicely. I found it most consistent to take a wider line and hop on, hop off. I certainly was losing time here, but I knew I had a low-risk line.

9 – The Matts corner… for me, I don’t think I ever drove this corner how I would like all day long - these matts were super slippy, for sure the fast line was to ‘hook’ the white marker and minimise how long you spent on the matts, I never hit that apex, I was always dancing around on the matts trying to find traction. I’m not bitter about this corner at all :P

10 – Jump into 90 corner, I really liked this feature, nice little hop jump, aim to land on the apex, careful not to start turning too early in the jump else you’d need to counter-steer in the air to stop your outside dropping too early.

11 – The switch-back sections were quite fun, quite a distance from the rostrum so it was reasonably hard to place your car, but a good fun section. They key was getting rotation into the corner, but not over-rotating to make it hard to get the car to square up and drive to the next corner. Having a sharp and pointy front end setup really helped through here.

Simon Moss again took the TQ in round. Completing a savage domination of qualifying - Simon took the final round by the horns and rode it like a crazy pig to win the round with a new fastest time, a whole 6 seconds ahead of Craig Collinson in second and Richard Lowe fractions behind in third. Team Fister driver Graham North took 9th in round but it wasn't quite enough to make the A this time out because he forgot to apply his wheel-direction decals!

	4WD Qualifying Round Four - Top 10
	position name result 1 Simon Moss 14/ 5m 3.65 2 Craig Collinson 14/ 5m 9.73 3 Richard Lowe 14/ 5m 9.93 4 Lloyd Storey 14/ 5m 10.55 5 Nathan Waters 14/ 5m 12.65 6 Mark Smith 14/ 5m 17.55 7 Richard Ralph 14/ 5m 18.00 8 James Helliwell 14/ 5m 18.98 9 Graham North 14/ 5m 19.34 10 Greg Williams 14/ 5m 21.99

4WD Dominator Simon Moss was racing the awesome new Schumacher CAT K1 and confessed the car came much sooner than he'd imagined - even the team drivers were surprised by the K1! The K1 just looks right - without the complexity of the SX range the K1 is much easier to understand and it seems to go quite well too! Simon hasn't had a lot of time to test the car yet and was running the big bore dampers from his SX3 rather than the new(old) small bore dampers which come equipped on the K1 as standard. Ok - I don't like the shell, sorry. Bling bits by RPC racing   Simon was running a whole host of sexy red bits on his K1 which his sponsor and oOple advertiser RPC Racing sell. If only Simon were running the black small bores this would be a dialled looking car! :)

Whilst not quite as dominant as Simon Moss had been - Nathan Waters still took three of the four rounds in 2WD with his final qualifier. This time Nathan was joined on 14 laps by his Team Durango buddy Craig Collinson, no one else was close to 14 laps. Stu Evans had a good run - getting lost under the tabletop for over 2 minutes, how we laughed.

	2WD Qualifying Round Four - Top 10
	position name result 1 Nathan Waters 14/ 5m 20.84 2 Craig Collinson 14/ 5m 21.09 3 Lloyd Storey 13/ 5m 5.55 4 Chris Doughty 13/ 5m 8.91 5 Eugene Galley 13/ 5m 10.38 6 Jack Neal 13/ 5m 11.07 7 James Helliwell 13/ 5m 12.72 8 Rob Fox 13/ 5m 14.71 9 Ben Cosgrove 13/ 5m 15.62 10 Matt Dodd 13/ 5m 17.18

oOple hats make you faster - FACT, sort of.	Xray team drivers with the new XB4

4WD A Final
The 4WD A final kicked off with dominator-Moss on pole pulling out a quick lead with Collinson and Lloyd Storey chasing - as the rest of the field tripped up over each other on the first corner-tabletop.

Moss got a little too confident and had a roll on the second corner tabletop on lap one - landing on his wheels but down to second as Collinson now took up the lead with Lloyd nibbling at Moss's rear end in third. Another lap down and again Moss had an error in the same place - quickly rejoining but dropping to third now as Lloyd came past for second.

Moss chases Collinson	Lloyd Storey 2nd - Moss down to 3rd

Moss was quick - very quick - and was soon pushing Lloyd round, quite literally as it happens when he punched his team mate aside to force his way back to second as Greg Williams now took up third spot.

Moss began to reign in Craig Collinson whilst Greg Williams tried to stay with him - but making a small error dropped him to 4th.

The battle was now firmly focused on the front pair as Moss and Collinson battled it out. Collinson was landing atop the second tabletop and driving off whilst Moss was down-sloping it with skill and putting huge pressure on Collinson. Moss tried to pass using this section but it didn't pay off. The pair were lapping like they were joined by some invisible force and it was befitting of a world championship A-final.

	Moss tags Collinson

Moss was clearly the quicker driver but Collinson wasn't giving in to the pressure. Moss tagged Collinson but let him go - the two cars were now barely more than a foot apart on the next lap and another collision was unavoidable as the pair rounded the hairpin after the second corner tabletop. Again, Moss waited and the racing resumed with Collinson out front but now Greg Williams was in the mix, much to the crowds joy. The excitement seemed to get the better of Greg however and almost as soon as he was in the mix, he drove off the track like he'd forgotten how to steer.

Moss again catches Collinson as he looks for a pass	Moss and Collinson about to start the final lap

Moss and Collinson renewed their intense battle for the lead - another small touch didn't change anything and the pair continued another lap. Collinson went wide as they came around to start their final lap and Moss drew alongside - the guys started down the main straight for the last time side-by-side but quickly came together and Moss spun out. Like a crazy hammer of Thor, the Durango of Nathan Waters slammed into Moss and went straight through it - putting Simon out of the race. Collinson had a decent lead and held it for the win ahead of a rapidly approaching Nathan Waters.

Geffo Moss turns his back as Simon retires on the last lap after a great battle.

	4WD A final results
	position qual name score chassis 1 2 Craig Collinson 14/ 5m 12.30 Team Durango DEX410 2 4 Nathan Waters 14/ 5m 13.12 Team Durango DEX410 3 7 Greg Williams 14/ 5m 16.04 Schumacher CAT K1 4 1 Simon Moss 13/ 4m 49.85 Schumacher CAT K1 5 9 James Helliwell 13/ 5m 0.62 Tamiya TRF511 6 5 Lloyd Storey 13/ 5m 5.03 Schumacher CAT K1 7 10 Mark Smith 13/ 5m 6.31 Associated B44 8 3 Richard Lowe 13/ 5m 7.40 Associated B44 9 6 Danny McGee 13/ 5m 7.79 Schumacher CAT K1 10 8 Richard Ralph 13/ 5m 9.40

2WD A Final
Pole man, Nathan Waters kept it clean through the first few corners as Collinson and Greg Williams tried to stay with him. By the end of lap one however Nathan had already build up a nice lead and the rest of the field were bunched together a couple of corners back.

Nathan quickly build up a huge lead and as the field started to spread out the battle for second place was between Craig Collinson and Greg Williams. Greg put in the fastest lap of the race to close right in on Collinson - the pair of them lapping a couple of times together before Collinson had a small error which allowed Greg past for second.

Greg looked to have a good turn of speed as he started to pull away from Collinson in third - but an error over the second corner-tabletop jump saw him require marshalling and drop way back from Collinson. Nathan Waters had a huge lead out front but a mistake on the same corner tabletop saw him facing the wrong way on the track - giving enough time for Collinson to close the distance and make it a fight to the line. Nathan held on for the win with Collinson less than a second behind and Greg Williams a further 5 seconds back.

	2WD A final results
	position qual name score chassis 1 1 Nathan Waters 13/ 5m 1.69 Team Durango DEX210 2 2 Craig Collinson 13/ 5m 2.49 Team Durango DEX210 3 3 Greg Williams 13/ 5m 7.01 Schumacher Cougar SV2 4 4 Lloyd Storey 13/ 5m 13.18 Schumacher Cougar SV2 5 8 James Helliwell 13/ 5m 15.44 Centro C4.1 6 6 Danny McGee 13/ 5m 15.52 Schumacher Cougar SV2 7 7 Jack Neal 13/ 5m 16.16 Schumacher Cougar SV2 8 9 Simon Moss 13/ 5m 16.94 Schumacher Cougar SV2 9 10 Rob Fox 13/ 5m 20.96   10 5 Chris Doughty 12/ 5m 9.39 Team Durango DEX210

Greg Willams 3rd - Nathan Waters 1st - Craig Collinson 2nd

Nathan Waters 1st 2WD and Craig Collinson brought home the win in 4WD to double Durango.