Sunday 28th September 2008
The 2008/9 winter Worksop series (Schumacher Indoor Off Road Masters) is back and bigger than ever - with the maximum 140 drivers booked in to race the first round. 57 drivers in 2WD turned up to race and 80 in 4WD - 137 drivers, not a bad number. Some notable drivers were missing - the rescheduled pendle 8th buggy national falling on the same day providing too big a draw for those nitro heads.

Above: The unique cork tile surface at Worksop provides some nice slides around the corners. The series of five jumps at the back were a challenge all day - the safest bet was to take then one at a time.

Even with a few drivers missing, the event is one of the biggest electric off road meetings around - 14 heats of mayhem. Practice was run in heat order and strictly controlled - only one round was run before racing got underway at 9:10am. The organisers disallowed any warm-up laps before the race to prevent drivers from arriving late at the line, but it was mentioned that this did leave some drivers feeling 'cold' and not getting into the groove until several laps into the race.

It was moist outside, but the hall at Worksops indoor venue was warm, well not as warm as last year, but comfortable enough. Not that stuffy heat that makes you want to go to sleep, but airy, just as well seeing as some of the drivers had indulged in spicy madness last night.

HotBodies driver Tom Yardy (B4) didn't have a HotBodies 2WD but still managed to take round one over 12 seconds ahead of second place man - Dan Greenwood with the XFactory X6. Tom Cockerills X6 placed three seconds further back in third with Matt Dodd with yet another X6 right behind Tom. As if to 'take the mick' a bit, Lee Farrer finished 5th in round with......... an X6! This is becoming a very popular car indeed.

We like to manipulate photos of Nathan Ralls to make him look even crazier. This one is straight from the camera.	No team orders for the Schumacher boys - it was every man for himself.

The grandstand style seating helped provide a great atmosphere track side with plenty of viewing area for spectators.	Dan Greenwood gets sandwiched!

In the 4WD class, Ben Jemison showed the fast way around the track with his CAT SX - safe and steady and getting 6th in round in the process. Simon Moss's SX got into all sorts of mess early in his heat but still managed to take the round - Richard Lowe took second less than half a second back with his JConcepts BJ4we - with Chris Bowater third with another SX.

Round two of qualifying saw Tom Yardy take another 2WD win by 5 seconds over Matt Dodd in second and James Helliwell third. The 4WD class saw the first 13 lap runs with Richard Lowe dominating the round on 13/316.16 - only two other drivers made it through for 13 laps, with Dan Greenwood (Xfactory X5) coming in second and Nathan Waters (CAT SX) coming in third.

The Worksop organisers put a lot of effort into making this winters series the best yet and have invested lots of money in new BBK timing software, along with two laptops and various other bits and bobs. Rob Nelson from BBK came along to help bed in the new system. The new system allows drivers to access live results from the pits on their laptops and gives a great real-time breakdown of the race day.

Team schumacher had a large area set aside for their team - who are all missing at this moment. Never mind.	Steve 'Bondy' Bond now drives for Kyosho in both 1/8th Truggy and electric off road! What a guy.

Schumacher sponsor the event and Mark Musgrove from Schumacher is the main man behind running the event - so you'd expect a lot of Schumacher drivers now they actually have a car to race, and they didn't disapoint. Robin Schumacher came up to watch the racing and talk to us about how much he likes oOple.com - what a guy!

NEVER give Ben Jemison redbull at night - he goes mental.

Kyosho actually had a small team of drivers at the event and I'm sure we'll see more of these guys as the series progresses. Karl Marsden is the man responsible for developing the team so we hear, and with a 4th in the 2WD A final it seems he's serious about it.

Team Xtreme must have been practicing for the '09 Nuremberg toyfair because they quickly set up a huge display stand which also gave away the names of their new 4WD cars. The Predator X11 '08 - and the Predator X11RS.
The '08 car is intended to represent all the advancements made during the 2008 race season and will come with the new 'big bore' shock absorbers and other parts. The 'RS' car will be a replica of the X11 - but with things like the alloy hinge pin blocks done as moulded plastic composites instead of metal to create a more affordable version of the original.

Team driver Nathan Ralls also showed some of the first batch of new springs - released to fit the newer big bore shocks.

Also on Nathans table we spotted one of the new Tekin motors that he's been running this weekend. The new motors feature small diameter sintered rotors but in the words of Nathan himself were 'crazy fast' - cool!

The new Tekin sensored redline motors are seemingly machined from a hunk of alloy - check the thickness of that can.

Lipo is welcome at the Worksop series and with the likes of 'Mac' from Trakpower at the event supporting the customers, it made things even easier.	Ian Barnard had his CAT SX out for the first time and made it into the A final.

Round one 4WD winner, Simon Moss, didn't have a great time in round two - breaking with 30 seconds left to go after a bad setup choice. Simon had a better time in round three - putting in the fastest time of the day so far with 13/313.36 to take the round. 6 drivers put in 13 lap runs in round three. Tom Cockerill came in second and Ian Barnard third. Richard Lowe got the fastest single lap time in the round but could only manage 6th.
Little Greg Williams took round three of 2WD ahead of Rob Fox in second and Tom Yardy third.

Mac from Trakpower showed us a couple of their latest 10th electric products. The sensored Hacker brushless motors are proper race motor and are said to have very smooth drive characteristics - we'll be testing the 6.5 shown at the next Worksop round.
Trakpower are also distributing a new line of servos from INO-LAB. We'll be thrash testing out a couple of the servos in the latest review car but the range also includes some very tasty looking micro servos with great specs.

The Hacker motor has a pre-wired sensor lead but there should be a version with a plug fitted available soon so you can easily replace the wire.	The INO-LAB servos have great specs and we'll give them a proper beating as part of a review soon.

2WD A final

Tom Yardy had pretty much dominated the 2WD qualifying with his Associated B4 - tempting me to finally use the tag line 'TOMination', but the time isn't right to bring out the big guns yet. Tom lined up pole for the final and quickly set about demolishing the field (he'll like that) - leading all the way to the line to take the win 9 seconds ahead of Matt Dodd and Tom Cockerill a few seconds further back.

Yardy leads them round the first corner	Wheels touch as the drivers battle mid field

Dan Greenwood with his Azarashi'd X6	Andrew Jones doesn't care what his car looks like!

We didn't manage to get any photos of Tom Yardys Associated B4 but he ran a 7.5 Nosram brushless motor and Orion 5000mah lipo. Tom is racing the B4 until the much anticipted HotBodies car is available.

4WD A Final

The 4WD A final was a little more open with some seriously quick drivers. Simon Moss got away from pole with the number 2 car of Richard Lowe quickly on his tail through the humps. As the leaders came over the table top in front of the rostrum Richard got the car up on two wheels - losing time and allowing Simon to pull away a little lead. It was Moss - Lowe - Tom Cockerill. Coming up to complete lap one Richard Lowe made yet another mistake, turning in too early and rolling the car as Tom Cockerill went through for second closely followed by Dan Greenwood. So it was Schumacher - XFactory - XFactory.

The superstars (and Ian Barnard) line up for the start	Simon Moss leads Richard Lowe around the first corner

Simon and Richard over the bumps	Richard Lowe went onto his roof as Tom went 2nd

Simon Moss had a nice little lead on the rest but a mistake through the bumps saw that crumble away as Tom Cockerill closed the gap. The pressure told and Simon made a mistake - ending up on his roof as Tom now took up the lead. Tom was like a kid in a sweetshop - the glory of leading too much for him and he overcooked the end of the straight, sliding wide into the wall and losing all the lead he'd just built up over Simon Moss who'd managed to hang onto second.

Simon Moss drove like a manimal to push Tom hard and regain the lead.

The Moss-man was on fire - braking later, turning sooner and was nibbling the rear of Toms car - Tom took the bumps with a 2-1-1-1 but Simons 1-1-2-1 seemed quicker and every time he closed any remaining gap. Coming over the bumps for the second time behind Tom, Simon tagged the rear of Toms car but waited for Tom to get going.

Simon followed down the main straight and took a tighter line around the sweeping right hander - passing Tom on the inside to regain the lead. It was now Simon Moss, Tom Cockerill and Nathan Waters all together on the track with a long gap back to 4th place. A lap after losing the lead Tom clipped the corner sending him tumbling and allowing Nathan Waters up to second. Nathan was driving well but couldn't match the pace of Simon, who went on to drive flawlessly for the rest of the race to take the win by less than a second from Nathan.

Left to right: - Tom Cockerill 3rd - Simon Moss 1st - Nathan Waters 2nd.

Simons winning car was the Lipo chassis version of the new Schumacher CAT SX, and this was his first time out racing the lipo car. Simon used a new Speedpassion 6.5 straight from the box.

With 7 cars in the A final - the new Schumacher car is certainly making an impact and more 'established' brands like Associated, Yokomo and Losi were nowhere to be seen.

At the end of the days racing there was the usual prize giving ceremony - only this year there were even more prizes. Title sponsor Schumacher, along with Trakpower and Dremel put forward some great gear for the lucky winners - all picked at random. Those that had already gone home lost out and the prize went to someone else. Perhaps the most unlucky driver was poor Lee Farrer who won twice! unfortunately Lee went home after 2WD as he'd already broken his 4WD and couldn't race.

Thanks to the organisers on running a tight meeting and the track crew for building another raceable & challenging track.