2 006 Batley Supercup race report! by Chris Long. |
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Dan Greenwoods X - 5...........Photos courtesy of Oople. |
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Race Report
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Sunday 29th January 2006, Today is the Batley Supercup run by Batley Buggy Club at the popular indoor facilities within the sports hall of Batley Sport centre. This is no usual meeting, this is the annual event, sponsored by CML and attracting racers from all over the country.
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Entry was be prebooking only, and did it need it! I turned up early to find the pitting area already filling up and so space was at a premium. With the forthcoming Indoor finals coming up in March, many drivers took the opportunity to enter this event to race the fastest drivers and gain some valuable practice for the finals event. With many fast local drivers entering 2wd such as Neil Cragg, Stuart Wood, Stephen Lawson Richard Lowe, David Bailey, Paul Bradby, Ben Riley, and also Ellis Stafford who has travelled a long way for the event and Mark Redmond returning to 1/10th after a (successful) spell in 1/8th rallycross. The 4wd entry is equally impressive, with Stephen Lawson, Ben Riley, Craig Harris, Chris long, Dan Greenwood, Graham North, James Pritchard, Matt Osland-Jones (OJ), Matt benfield, Adam Skelding, Matthew Dodd, Tim Wood, Richard Isherwood. 60 entries in 2wd and 45 of 4wd = 12 heats of qualifying. During drivers briefing it was announced to run round by round qualifying, this is not the norm for indoors but at Batley the track can change between rounds with dramatic changes in grip due to temperature change.
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The track from the start line to the right of the rostrum begins on carpet, and a short run over a tall hump type jump, directly into a hairpin right and up some crashmatts around another hairpin dropping off the crashmatts onto the slippery sportshall floor, around another hairpin and running onto carpet for a long straight the full length of the hall (nice!), around a long sweeping left hander tightening, onto carpet through a fast chicane to the right running alongside the straight over some more matts, leading into a banked/rippled corner made from the matts, dropping off them into a fast right into left chicane around a very fast sweeping corner consisting of a cars width worth of carpet, into a left and over another jump/hump at high speed landing onto matts dropping off them into a sharp right turn, through a chicane ending back on a slippy floor section, into a right hairpin and then a chicane right and left, back onto carpet and over the startline.
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The track had a lot of thought put into it, and track building had been on the Saturday by some kind willing volunteers. The track had been taped down very well, and did not move all day. The way the track had been built meant a lot of thought had to be put into driving around it, as fast laps meant completing clean laps, and clean laps were hard to achieve when driving at this track aggressively as many drivers discovered. Smooth, lines and careful control over the obstacle sections were required. Car setups here are almost identical to what some drivers use on outdoor track, some drivers opting for Schumacher Minipins, and some on Schumacher Minispikes, always on yellow compound.
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Open practice was controlled by giving each racer a ticket at booking in which was used to allow each driver one practice. Timed to 4 minutes, and a Batley member would stand by the rostrum taking crystal frequencies ensuring no more than 10 cars at a time and shouting the end of each session. This seems a much better way to allow practice rather than allowing a free-for-all open practice.
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2wd Round 1, FTQ is taken by the current world champion, Neil Cragg, with a good clean run, finishes less than 3 seconds ahead of Craig Collinson, Stuart Wood in 3rd, Stephen Lawson 4, Richard Lowe 5th and Ellis Stafford 6th. Jamie Booth proving he still has the talent to control electric finishes 7th using Neil Craggs spare car, beating David Bailey by over 4 seconds in 8th and Paul Bradby in 9th.
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4wd Round 1, FTQ is taken by the XX4 of Stephen Lawson, and the only driver on 14 laps. Predator X10 of Ben Riley 2nd, Ellis Stafford 3rd with XX4, Chris long with the X5 in 4th, Craig Harris with the X5 in 5th and Tony Bishop with the Predator X10 in 6th.
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2wd Round 2, FTQ again is taken by Neil Cragg. Richard Lowe gets a 2 for the round, Ellis a 3, Paul Bradby a 4 and Stuart Wood 5. There are many fast drivers here, all equally capable of the front of the A final, a lot of competition for the top 5 positions.
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4wd Round 2, FTQ is taken by Ben Riley, who impressively failed to finish his run and would have been the only driver in the round to achieve 14 laps had his motorwire not desoldered on the last lap. Stephen Lawson takes 2 points, Tom Cockerill 3rd with an impressive fastest lap below 22 seconds, Dan Greenwood 4th, Craig Harris 5th, Adam Skelding 6th, Ellis Stafford 7th and the only other driver to achieve a sub 22 second lap, Chris long in 8th. A mere 4 seconds splitting 1st from 6th, and another 4 seconds between 6th and 8th, today really is not the day to make even a minor error!
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2wd Round 3, Neil continues his domination with another Round win, Stuart wood taking 2nd, Paul Bradby 3rd, Stephen Lawson 4th, Jamie Booth 5th, Richard Lowe 6th, David Bailey 7th and Ellis Stafford 8th. Craig Collinson in 9th and Ben Riley with a very respectable fastest lap but on 10th.
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4wd Round 3, What a round. Dan Greenwood from the middle of the stagger at the start takes advantage of some early mistakes my Ellis and Stephen to take the lead of the heat, and use the clear track to fly ahead and take the round win. Tom Cockerill in 2nd, Ellis in 3rd, Stephen Lawson in 4th, Bruce Thompson taking 5th, Ben Riley 6th, and Tony Bishop 7th.
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2wd Round 4, Neil Cragg seals his pole in the A final with 4 out of 4 round wins, Paul Bradby getting 2 points, Stuart Wood 3rd, Jamie Booth 4th, David Bailey 5th Craig Collinson 6th, Stephen Lawson 7th and Ben Riley 8th – had Ben done enough for the A final?
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4wd Round 4, and a 4th name on the round win, this time by Ellis Stafford, Ben Riley on 2nd, Dan Greenwood 3rd, Stephen Lawson 4th, Craig Harris 5th, Adam Skelding 6th, Tony Bishop 7th and Tom Cockerill 8th, the only sub 22 second laps again by Tom and Ellis.
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The A final 2wd is as follows:
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A clean start and Neil immediately look comfortable holding off Stuart Wood and Paul Bradby who are both chasing hard hoping to gain a position. Almost a full lap completed and over the tricky matt section Paul hooks up into Stuart wing allowing the whole field to go past before a marshall can recover them. Neil runs away to win by 9 seconds from Richard Lowe and Stephen Lawson in 3rd.
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1st Neil Cragg
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The A final 4wd is as follows:
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And the B final consisting of many very fast drivers, and F1 drivers who had fought so hard to try and make the A final.
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The start of the 4wd A final and the lead is taken by Ellis followed by Dan in 2nd, repeating the close exciting battle from round 4, 3rd by Stephen Lawson. The battle continues and the whole pack of cars do not seem to spread out right to the end. Ben Riley drops out within 3 minutes with another hot desoldered motor wire, and Dan Greenwood picks up some tape used to hold the track in position and is forced to let a marshall pick it off quickly and immediately drops to 9th, also damaging a front driveshaft. The finishing result is extremely close and in the following order.
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1st Stephen Lawson |
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This meeting has been immensely popular and well run, I am sure it will be even bigger in 2007!
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Chris Long |
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