Round one of players races:
Race 8 - Open Players Race, 4WD.
The race started somewhat chaotically with multiple pile ups at the end of the straight and around the bottom corner, this was a fine example of why local Worksop-warrior Leon 'I can jump higher and further than anyone else' Morell is kept seperate from the Elite finals. But just to prove us wrong he took the lead for the first two minutes, from 'Cockney Wide Boy' Rob Rasey, by just over one quarter of a lap.
Leon flipped coming over the big jump, he had become somewhat over excited, and Northern Monkeyboy Greg Williams saw his chance and slipped through to take the lead with his stealthy low down Predator car..
Four minutes into this final, WideBoy-Rasey pressured Leon coming over the double jumps, forcing an error and taking 2nd place. Leon was not to recover from this traumatic pass and had to settle for 3rd place, whilst young Greg brought it home to take ONE in this race, and was called over to receive some chocolate fingery delight from Muzzy (of the Cadburys variety), as every race winner to press had received whether they wanted to or not.
Overall finishing positions:
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Open Players - Race 8 - Round 1. |
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1 |
3 |
Greg Williams |
14/ 305.60 |
2 |
2 |
Rob Rasey |
+ 14.24 |
3 |
8 |
Leon Morrell |
+ 18.40 |
4 |
4 |
Rob Jaques |
-1/ 312.44 |
5 |
6 |
Mark Dyson |
-1/ 321.51 |
6 |
1 |
Graham Smith |
-3/ 301.10 |
7 |
5 |
Ian Barnard |
-4/ 232.03 |
8 |
7 |
James Garner |
DNS |
8 |
9 |
James Wilkinson |
DNS |
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Race 9 - Open Players Race, 4WD.
Despite trying to keep it clean and go easy from the start line, Jimmy 'Joffrey' oOple took a rough one from behind, ending up on his roof at the bottom of the straight, but he was soon back on his wheels and put up a chase to return the favour.
Stu Evans and Jon Dell (mechanic to Lee Martin) tussled through the centre sections of the track (in a manly fashion of course) but it was Stuart big-man Evans who won this man-wrestle and brought home the goods in third place.
Joffrey ran into difficulty shortly into this race, when the drive pin from his centre CVD became seperated from its parent assembly, penetrating deep into his Li-Po, it didn't work out too well and he ended up sitting out the second half of the race like a naughty school boy.
Stu couldn't really remember anything else eventful, despite having driven fairly well for his third place, but stated he had some nice pie, chips and gravy for his tea. Jeff Steele brought home the bacon with the win from Sam Smith in second.
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Open Players - Race 9 - Round 1. |
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1 |
4 |
Jeff Steele |
14/ 300.53 |
2 |
5 |
Sam Smith |
+ 8.26 |
3 |
7 |
Stuart Evans |
+ 8.72 |
4 |
8 |
Jon Dell |
+ 14.07 |
5 |
2 |
Jamie Cheshire |
-1/ 306.68 |
6 |
9 |
Stuart Band |
-1/ 315.69 |
7 |
6 |
Jimmy Oople |
-5/ 209.36 |
8 |
1 |
Robert Black |
-11/ 72.96 |
9 |
3 |
Russell Woodhouse |
DNS |
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Race 10 - first Elite Players race in 2WD.
The first race in the specialist Elite class started reasonably well, with only a couple of minor flips or clips on the bottom corner. Nathan Waters was into the lead one lap into the race, and started to pull a good lead on cuddly Orange Hero Andrew 'Jonesy' Jones who was busy battling for 2nd place with Nathan Ralls. Further back the field Mark 'Sponsored by Dremel' Christopher could be seen weaving his car all over the track, possibly suffering from interference, his car almost went AWOL underneath the big jump.
Nathan Waters was on a mission and kept well ahead of everyone else, meeting traffic only when he came through to lap the field. Nathan Ralls was thrashing hard trying to catch up, but had to settle for second place, 11 seconds further back.
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Elite Players - Race 10 - Round 1. |
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1 |
5 |
Nathan Waters |
14/ 303.44 |
2 |
3 |
Nathan Ralls |
+ 11.25 |
3 |
2 |
Andrew Jones |
-1/ 304.68 |
4 |
6 |
Daniel Austin |
-1/ 305.68 |
5 |
4 |
Alec Springer |
-1/ 319.13 |
6 |
1 |
Mark Christopher |
-1/ 324.27 |
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Race 11 - Elite Players, 2WD.
As soon as the start tone sounded, Lee Martin was straight into the lead, whilst an unfortunate turn of events saw fellow southern-dude Grant Williams straight to the back of the pile. Lee was quick to pull a strong lead on 2nd place Danny McGee, with local track-design-warrior James Helliwell in 3rd place. Pile-ups and chaos on the track saw multiple changes in race position, Helliwell was caught up and demoted to 5th place, doesn't sound so far back but remember these are 6 car races.
Danny was pushing hard and an almighty cracking sound as he landed off the jump trying to catch up with leader Lee had his fans gasping, but his alloy-chassis'd car continued to move in the correct direction and he wasn't ready to give up the fight just yet, despite being some miles back from the top spot. Danny finished 5.8 seconds behind Lee Martin in the ONE spot.
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Elite Players - Race 11 - Round 1. |
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1 |
5 |
Lee Martin |
15/ 318.36 |
2 |
2 |
Danny Mcgee |
+ 5.87 |
3 |
4 |
Ashley Caunt |
-1/ 325.57 |
4 |
3 |
James Helliwell |
-2/ 306.32 |
5 |
6 |
Eugene Galley |
-2/ 312.33 |
6 |
1 |
Grant Williams |
-2/ 314.82 |
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Race 12 - Elite Players 2WD.
This race started rather dramatically, with cartwheels and pile-ups at the start, Tom 'JoffreyHair' Cockerill and Dan Greenwood made it out good, with Dan taking the lead like a gentleman and TomCock rolling off the Big Jump, Steve Pierce was keen to show what he's made of and was soon into 3rd place putting up a chase.
The racing was close at the front, Dan and Tom both knowing that Ellis would be piling on the man-pressure to catch up, and indeed he was, overtaking Steve 'no nickname' Pierce over the Big Jump. The two would swap and change places with Ellis making silly errors as he pushed too hard to catch up the leaders.
Meanwhile further back the field were Dave 'Stampys best mate' Grunhill and Richard Coates, racing up close and personal over the double jumps, indeed neither of them wanting to be last place.
After holding a decent lead for much of the race, Dan was to lose out to TomCock with two minutes left to go, and he was soon left behind as Tom started lapping up the backmarkers.
Third place Steve Pierce found himself nose-in to the trackmarker right before the loop, and Ellis slipped through to take third place, which was followed by a dramatic final lap between the dancing pair, but it was Steve who finished ahead of Ellis with the exact same race time. Tom Cock took the win with Dave Grunill seriously considering what Stampy said about him back in last place.
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Elite Players - Race 12 - Round 1. |
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1 |
5 |
Tom Cockerill |
14/ 303.41 |
2 |
2 |
Dan Greenwood |
+ 5.25 |
3 |
3 |
Steven Pierce |
+ 18.23 |
3 |
6 |
Ellis Stafford |
+ 18.23 |
5 |
1 |
Richard Coates |
-1/ 304.72 |
6 |
4 |
Dave Grunhill |
-1/ 309.90 |
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Race 13 - Elite Players 2WD.
This was a star-studded event which had viewers and fanclubs across the country gripping their chairs for the race duration. As the start tone sounded Bradders cruised swiftly into the lead, with a rather keen Neil Cragg appearing to lose some traction as he alighted from the start line, however the many time national / European / World Champeen was hot on his team-mates tail and pushing his ageing B4 hard to keep up.
Slovak superstar Pavel meanwhile was chasing in the third spot, followed by Andy Griffiths, Bart Echelpoel and Ben Jemison bringing up the rear. Thats four drivers - four distinctly different countries! AMAZING!
Griffiths snatched third place from Pavel one minute into the race, whilst Bradders slammed his door shut on Neil, an error from Neil spinning in the mud at the end of the straight allowed some degree of breathing space for Bradders, but this was to be short lived as a slight error from Bradders and some thumb-energy from Neil saw the two racing closely once again.
Another error from Cragg flipping as he approached the Big Jump saw some more space for Bradders, with a 2.4 second lead.
By half race distance Bradders was homing in on the backmarkers, and more drama for the chasing Neil Cragg as he became caught in the traffic and hen crashed on the downslope of the Big Jump, yet never dropping far back from his first place target.
After what had been a dramatic race so far for Neil, an error from Bradders coming over the double jump was all he needed to slip through into the top spot. Bradders wasn't far back though and kept close to Neils tail, dropping the hammer down and pushing to reclaim his first place, but the ever-cool Cragg wasn't playing any games now, this was his race and he was going for the ONE.
Meanwhile BenJem had moved up into third place whilst no-one else was watching, and all eyes remained on the top two, and Neil took the win 0.78sec ahead of Bradders.
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Elite Players - Race 13 - Round 1. |
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1 |
1 |
Neil Cragg |
15/ 313.53 |
2 |
3 |
Paul Bradby |
+ 0.78 |
3 |
2 |
Ben Jemison |
-1/ 318.21 |
4 |
6 |
Andy Griffiths |
-2/ 301.93 |
5 |
4 |
Bart Van Echelpoel |
-2/ 308.04 |
6 |
5 |
Pavel Balint |
-2/ 309.06 |
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Race 14 - Elite Players 4WD.
"Bradders and Neil, the ReMatch, well, almost"
After a rather intense race 13 and with no break in between races, the duo were back on the track to battle it out with their 4wd cars, was this going to be as exciting as the previous race?
Cragg was straight into 1st place in this one, whilst a defient Bradders was held up in a pile up. Team Durango Team-boss Skelding made it out clean and was close to Cragg but was soon to make a silly error which saw Bradders nudge past a crashing Skelding-mobile to take 3rd place.
Meanwhile Jonesy seemed to have appeared quite at random, and was moving pretty rapidly behind Cragg, whilst Skelding and Bradders were not too far behind.
Bradders was soon looking up the inside of Jonesy, pressuring to make his pass; An error from Skelding coming through the doubles saw some more space at the front of the field for Bradders to push Jonesy harder. Jonesy was oblivous to all this drama on his rear end, as he was dazzled by the brightness of his orange machine, alas the dazzling effect proved too much and Jonesy flipped his car twice in the space of half a lap, which indeed was all Bradders needed to make his move into 2nd place and start the close-in on Cragg.
This really didn't make an awful lot of difference to the top-spot man, who by now had a strong lead on his peers and was up ahead 'getting it done'. Skelding was down to 5th place and Nathan Waters in 4th.
Bradders ran into some bother when his car landed on the wrong side of a track marker coming off the double jumps, which was all the cue Jonesy needed to slip back into 2nd place. Something happened to Skelding and he was well out of it by now. Cragg of course remained on his lonesome up ahead, with free reign of the track, probably wondering where all the other competitors were. An error from Jonesy coming off the double saw Bradders take 2nd place, 13 seconds behind Cragg in the ONE. Cragg is a god.
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Elite Players - Race 14 - Round 1. |
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1 |
3 |
Neil Cragg |
16/ 318.57 |
2 |
5 |
Paul Bradby |
+ 13.47 |
3 |
2 |
Andrew Jones |
+ 14.05 |
4 |
1 |
Nathan Waters |
+ 14.45 |
5 |
4 |
Adam Skelding |
-5/ 243.39 |
6 |
6 |
Dan Greenwood |
-11/ 109.37 |
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Top 10 in round 1 - all 4 classes.
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Round 1 Elite Players Races - 2WD |
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1 |
Neil Cragg |
2 |
Lee Martin |
3 |
Tom Cockerill |
4 |
Nathan Waters |
5 |
Paul Bradby |
6 |
Danny Mcgee |
7 |
Dan Greenwood |
8 |
Nathan Ralls |
9 |
Ben Jemison |
10 |
Ellis Stafford |
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Round 1 Elite Players Races - 4WD |
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1 |
Neil Cragg |
1 - 1 |
2 |
Craig Collinson |
1 - 1 |
3 |
Bruce Thompson |
1 - 1 |
4 |
Danny Mcgee |
1 - 1 |
5 |
Ellis Stafford |
2 - 2 |
6 |
Grant Williams |
2 - 2 |
7 |
Paul Bradby |
2 - 2 |
8 |
Simon Moss |
2 - 2 |
9 |
Nathan Ralls |
3 - 3 |
10 |
Andrew Jones |
3 - 3 |
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Round 1 Open Players Races - 2WD |
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1 |
Sam Smith |
1 - 1 |
2 |
Jeff Steele |
1 - 1 |
3 |
Chris Stewart |
1 - 1 |
4 |
Greg Williams |
1 - 1 |
5 |
Fabien Simonini |
2 - 2 |
6 |
Steven Bond |
2 - 2 |
7 |
Nick Caro |
2 - 2 |
8 |
Rob Rasey |
2 - 2 |
9 |
Rob Fox |
3 - 3 |
10 |
Jon Dell |
3 - 3 |
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Round 1 Open Players Races - 4WD |
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1 |
Steven Pierce |
1 - 1 |
2 |
Jeff Steele |
1 - 1 |
3 |
Dave Belsten |
1 - 1 |
4 |
Richard Coates |
1 - 1 |
5 |
Greg Williams |
1 - 1 |
6 |
Gareth Stanton |
2 - 2 |
7 |
Brian Shardlow |
2 - 2 |
8 |
Sam Smith |
2 - 2 |
9 |
Ben Broughton |
2 - 2 |
10 |
Rob Rasey |
2 - 2 |
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