TORCH 10th

February 20th should have been another round of racing at Slough, the home of UK 1/8 rallycross, however t he Great British weather knew better. Heavy rain the week before caused the track and surrounds to be so water-logged that there was no way the race could be run. Truth told we'd all been trying to decide where to head for some race action, this just made the decision much easier... off to TORCH for a morning of 10th electric.

Me in action, Tony 'RC' on the camera

I rolled in at 8:15, pretty much last of the regular runners. Jamie Kerr was running his Kifopaint bodied Durango, Byrners was out with his day-glo orange B44.1, Cameron had defected to 4wd with one of Dave 'Dibble' O'Brien's old Losi's and Tony 'RC' was running his 'Rango as usual. I had the Mighty Ansmann X-Pro all set up and ready to go, plus the Team C TC02C 'mid-motor' version almost ready. With the track obviously wet an slick I figured rear-motor was the way to go, the TC02C will be out later in the year when it dries up.

RC Lazy in da house (Simon Crabb in da van)

We were joined for the day by Simon Crabb, of RCLazy.com fame, running his Schumacher Cougar. It was good to finally meet Simon and be able to put a name to a face... plus pick up some Lazy Goo and Lazy Balls!

The day got off to a great start when I realised I'd main a complete noobie mistake and forgotten to transfer my PT from Truggy into the electric. Rats, guess I'll be adding an extra hole to my shell and running a hand-out. In truth I've been waiting to do it, and at least it was a club that still has a few hand-outs. Moral of the story - I need a second PT...

Tip #1: Don't forget your PT!

Round one quali, and I'm coming of the one spot. Running my standard TORCH setup, with a change to medium front springs and the normal spot rears. Pretty much the rest of the field were on spikes of one kind or another on the rear, but I stuck with a set of mini-pins... with stagger ribs up front I just love the balance the car has with these. The run was awesome, the car felt the best ever and I streaked off from most of the field, swapping second an third place. Off the rostrum at the end of the run, and I'm well down the field. A quick check on the computer reveals my hand-out transponder had kindly dropped my last two laps. Bugger.

Round two, pretty much the same deal, but with worse driving by me . Trying to compensate for the first round I wound up pushing too hard, something a 2wd seems to punish you for. Clipped pipes resulted in a couple of flips, and you ain't making time while you're on your lid. Better yet, the hand-out once again lost a couple of my laps. Next quali it's time for a differnt hand out and we'll see what happens.

Third quali saw some better, if not great driving and at last a fully functional hand-out transponder. At this point the tracks got a drying line, and my car's set up is going off a little - the car's good, but has a little more on power push than I'd like. I'm going to need to work on this as I'm definitely losing time on a drying track. I think a little extra nose weight should help fight the push I tend to suffer... I may also cut the stagger ribs and see what effect that has.

In 4wd Jamie Kerr was having an up and down day, flying most of the time but suffering a lot of breaks, and also a lack of his usual consistency. This culminated in Byrners beating him home in round three, some thing he delighted in pointing out at any and every opportunity. It's amazing Tony 'RC' didn't start pointing out he once bumped up...

Byrner's beats his prodigy. He may have mentioned that...

Rounds four and five netted a fifth and fourth place respectively, happy but not delighted with that. I'm turning consistent 38-40s laps which is OK, what I need to do is drop the odd mistakes I'm making. A little tweaking on the set up should help trim a little lap time and then it's just down to sorting out the driver... much harder to set up!

Finals next, and I'm in fifth. To be honest my performance we poor to say the least. Inconsistent, and making stupid mistakes - a flip on the first lap in a marshal free spot drops me way back, and there's no way I can fight back from there. No one to blame but the driver this time round.

Jamie Kerr buffs his ride for the final, and tries to remember where he left the alcopops.

The 4wd final was a master class from Steve B as usual, although this week not with his familiar Durango. In the opening stages Jamie was giving him a run, but again Jamie's bobbles let him down, unusual for Jamie as he's normal fast and reliable. Back down the field Cammers and Byrners seemd happy to knock seven bells out of each other, while Tony's Durango was looking (and sounding) much healthier than before. The move back to a 7.5T motor from his 6.5T also seemed to have helped his consistency.

I grabbed a little bit of (poor quality) video of the mixed 4wd/2wd B final. Next time I'll try and get the HD camera up and running, if I can ever find the charger in my huge box of cables. Still, for those who've not been to the new TORCH circuit, this should give you an idea of what to expect.

Mixed final footage

Another top morning of racing and banter, big thanks to the TORCH guys for organising, and the lads for making racing what it is. Next week should be truggy time at Clanfield if the weather holds... see you all there.

Slough Winter Series Rnd 6 - 30 January

With the last two rounds of racing at Slough cancelled due to adverse weather conditions (snow and flooding) it was a relief to finally get some racing in at the excellent Berkshire venue. With Slough championship having effectively ruled out truggies, it was out with the Losi 8ight EU to get some quality buggy action in. I have to say I've always found Slough to be a 'buggy' track, but it is a real shame not to see at least one heat of truggies running.

I arrived at the track at about 8 o'clock and pitched up with the rest of the Clanners. Mark Byrne was running his AE RC8B as was Cameron Taylor. Chris Spencer-Smith was running a Kyosho MP9 (and contemplating a JQ), Jamie Kerr was rolling his usual X-Ray and Tony RC and Dave O'Brien were both in the Losi camp with me. Latest additions to the 'team' were Ben Elliot, also running X-Ray and Jordan with a brand new JQ. Gazebo's pitched and pit tables set up, a few of us ventured out for some last minute practice whilst Nora got the kettle on. The arctic conditions made a hot coffee even more tempting than normal!

The Clanners on the road

The track was frozen solid for practice, and rear end grip was almost non-existent regardless of tyre choice or chassis. I was running a new set of red compound Hot Bodies tyres, Khoas on the back and Blocks on the front. This produced a stunning amount of turn-in, but a very loose car on corner exit. Dialing in a lot of negative expo on the throttle helped, but for a very smooth throttle finger was still required, at least by my normal (truggy oriented) standards. Back in the pits a thicker front anti-roll bar was fitted, the theory being taking off a little of the front end grip should help give a more neutral balance to the car.

After the standard drivers briefing from Adrian Svenson it was straight into round one qualifying. Dave was out first and it soon became apparent that the track had changed some what since practice twenty minutes earlier. The previously frozen surface had thawed out, and was now a quagmire that was in many cases quite literally sucking in cars and stopping them dead. I've never seen a track change so much so quickly!

Mark B's new shell. Paint by me, mud by Slough.

When it became obvious what was going on I rushed back to the pit bench to alter the car ready for my third heat run. Raise the ride height, richen the engine to cope with the mud and dowse the car in GT85. I went out with the rest of the field, and I have to admit went pretty well considering. The car stayed relatively clean compared to many others, and the engine was running as well at the end of the run as at the start... the tune seemed pretty spot on for the conditions. 6 laps in 5 some odd isn't going to set the world on fire, but I was steady and made it to the end of the run with a car in one piece and still just about recognisable!

Given the state of most of the cars by this point I got off quite lightly

Marshalling was a nightmare, I'd drawn point four - the bombhole, which was probably the wettest section of the track. Jumping in to pull out cars was tricky with out slipping over, getting back up and out again was almost impossible. The end result was a good belt in the shins by a flying car as I struggled back to my marshaling point. I don't know how many cars finished in heat four, but I suspect not many. The conditions were getting progressively worse and cars were grinding to a halt all over the place.

Some mud (and Dave's car) after round 2 qualifying. Flames not visible...

I elected not to go out in round 2, having pitted for Dave whose car got so bogged down it actually managed to combust it's clutch(!) before eventually giving up the fight and quitting. Marshalling heat four, round 2 was much simpler as only one car went out, everyone else deciding to sit the round out. Chris Spencer-Smith Kyosho clutch faired little better. The shoes disappeared in a pool of aluminum slag, the spring melted and the clutch pins were so deformed a new flywheel will be needed. It was RC carnage all round.

Dave's clutch, post fire. Now that's commitment!

Back in the pits I was contempating running in round 3. Then, disaster... Some how the car had been left on with the transmitter off. Sat like this for an hour and half or so had put a huge strain on the throttle servo and blown the motor. Two lessons to be learned, one - I should always make sure the cars off before killing the transmitter and two - I should really set my fail safe up better. Ah well, at least that sorted my dilemma of whether to run or not. I'd be qualifying based on only one round. Bottom final for me then! A mad thrash then ensued to clean the car and fit a spare servo kindly supplied by Mark to get me back out for the final. Big thanks to both Mark and Tony RC for pitching in.

Everyone else went out for round three, and it soon became obvious that the track was coming back round and the conditions were improving. It might actually be possible to run the anticipated 15 minute finals.

Tony 'RC' Scott tries out for the QVC channel!

At the end of qualifying Jordan and I were in the bottom 'F' final, Dave in the 'E', Byrners in the 'D', Tony RC in the 'C' and Clanfield star Jamie 'The Boy' Kerr in the 'A' final. Great driving Jamie. Star of the day though has to be Ben, new to off road racing and with a less than stellar engine he'd managed a run into the 'B' final, and was looking really good out on track. With more track time under his belt I think he'll be giving Jamie a hard time pretty soon.

My final had an eventful start, with me getting knocked to the back at the first chicane. After that it was head down and drive through the field. I managed to get into the flow, and after five minutes of so the car was feeling pretty good. I wound up fifth after 15 minutes, missing the bump spot by one place. Given that Jon 'Bump-up King' Dell went all the way from first in my final to a good finish in the A I don't feel quite so bad!

Dave drove really well in his final, his smooth electric style certainly shows. Sadly his engine was miss-behaving badly and meant he couldn't really show what he could do. I have to admit I missed the D and C finals, but I know Byrners started a bump up run, bumping from the D to C, and then C to B. By the B final I was back to help Dave pit him, and a missed communication resulted in a cut after his stop, probably due to alack of fuel on the way in. It was irrelevant as he lost drive shortly after, his clutch bell shedding it's teeth. Ben had been staring, leading the B, but again a missed call resulted in him running out of fuel on the way into the pits, and the lost time put him out of contention. Better luck next time mate...

Just the A final now, and Jamie Kerr was our last chance of a staring turn. He elected to change tyres before going out, bolting on a set of M2 Calibers. They didn't seem to work, I would suggest the compound was to hard for the cold wet conditions. He was driving well, but didn't seem to be able to get into his usual flow, and was making to many mistakes, eventually finishing outside the top 10. A great days racing and a good final, but he was kicking himself for making that last minute change... lesson learned for next time, as his manger, Mark B was quick to point out!

All in all a great days racing, only let down by breakages and the track conditions. All being well we'll be back on the 20th February for another crack. Here's hoping it's as much fun.

Click here for full results (courtesy of RemoteWorld)

Clanfield Winter Series - Round 4

And finally the crappy British winter relents and we get some nitro action! Having missed the rescheduled round 3 the previous weekend this was my first nitro race of 2011, and also my first in nearly two months. In the mean time the RC8T had been through a complete overhaul, and I had also decided to try some tweaks to the setup to see if I could get the truck more suited to UK style tracks. I've always liked the RC8T as a car, but found it can be a bit 'twitchy' at speed.

I rolled into the Clanfield car park at about 8:15 to quite a shock. Clanfield's been suffering falling numbers for a while now, for a number of reasons. Now with a new club committee in place there was promise of changes and improvements, and based on the number of drivers present yesterday I have to say things are moving in the right direction. I really hope that the club can maintain this momentum as the track's naturally contoured layout is right up there with the best in the country. It also takes an incredible amount of work to maintain as it's an all dirt layout, which is always going to suffer given the harsh weather that comes with the winter. The surface yesterday was certainly starting to suffer, and in truth could do with a good roll, but was certainly good enough to race on, and after all this is off-road! I'm sure the committee will be sorting a roller soon, and the track will be right back up there where it belongs.

Several big name drivers were in attendance, including Jon Hazzlewood with his Nemo Racing/Agama outfit. They rolled up in style with the Nemo support bus, and were joined by recent Bren Ralls, now running Agama after his recent departure from the XRay team. Tommy Chung was running his regular Kyosho, and Marc 'Jaf' Jakka was running the 1/8th Durango buggy.

Rob 'Hollywood' Rasey graced us with his presence to assist Grant Fribbins running JQ Products THE Car. An a shock move local hot-shoe Jon Wolfe had also jumped ship, again from XRay to Agama, so Jamie Kerr had to endure much ribbing through the day as we speculated on his future car choice.

The Associated Truggy HQ for the day (plus an Xray interloper)

After setting up the gazebo, and making space for fellow Associated runners Mark 'Byrners' Byrne and Paul 'Berky' Berkinshaw plus X-Ray buggy racer James 'Young-un' Kerr it was out for some practice. Byrners was going well as always, and my set-up seemed OK as well, but I was catching way too many ruts which was tipping the truck. The red compound Hot Bodies tyres were working well however, so they'd be staying on for the day. Back on the pit table some extra negative camber was dialed into the rear to try and alleviate the tendency to flip, and out we went to qualify (or clean the track for the buggy boys if you prefer...).

John Wolfe's new Agama buggy

The round went well, if not stunningly and I ended with a third. OK, but not an 8 lapper. The tipping was better, but the rear end was hopping all over the shop through some of the choppier sections. I was also trying to re-adjust to driving nitro on a large track after weeks of 10th racing. Chatting to Byrners the decision was made to stand up the rear shocks, inside hole on the arm, outer on the tower. That should give a more linear feel, and hopefully calm the hopping.

One of the benefits to the increased turn out was that more heats of qualifying could be run (one truggy, four buggy), so the usual mad thrash was avoided. Set-up changes could be made easily, and there was plenty of time to socialise, wonder around and take photos.

Round two qualifying was considerably better than round one, with me ending second to Byrners and James Tatlow in third. The only downside was that for some reason the BBK software shortened the round to three minutes. The truggy was now feeling pretty good in the tough conditions, and my driving was calming down.

Rob 'Hollywood' Rasey was present to support Fribbers with THE Car 

A little more rear camber was dialled in for round three, and in the round the truck felt awesome. Third again was a fair reward, although I was gutted to be .98 of a second short of scoring 8 laps. Oh well, there's always next time I guess. One thing that was becoming obvious was that the track was evolving massively between rounds, both drying and smoothing out in some sections whilst simultaneously blowing out in others. Line choice was getting critical.

I left the truggy alone for round four, and got another third place, but was 13 seconds slower than round three. The truggy just felt less consistent and planted, plus the driver just made too many mistakes. Oh well, I'd line up third in the final, with Byrners TQ'ing followed by JT. Adam Bailey would be behind, with a hole where Simon Hunter's Kyosho should have been behind that, and Berky coming off the sixth spot.

The start of the final descended into chaos, with neither starter or pit men being able to hear the PA. As a result Lee 'Tortoise' Warren was late starting me, and I was dead last through the first corner. I'd recovered to third by the end of lap one, but didn't have the pace to worry the leaders. I ran a 10 minute strategy to the first stop to check the Alpha S852 was still up for the job (it was), but splashed and dashed three minutes from the end as I had a safe margin from Adam, and at the end of the season point make prizes! Lee did a cracking job and was well on the ball, despite his lack of recent practice(!).

Positions stayed set through the race, with Byrners leaning JT across the line by about 1.5 seconds, me in third two laps down an Adam behind me by a further two laps. Berky went out at mid-race, a high speed meeting between his front offside corner and a solid post proving terminal. Third was about what I expected given the competition, but I'm disappointed not to have run the top two a closer race.

Truggy podium (l-r James Tatlow, Matk Byrne and me)

As I haven't yet mastered driving and photography at the same time, I lent my camera to Lei, Lionel's better half for the truggy final, you can see here photos in the gallery below. She's promised to dress more appropriately next time so she can explore the track more fully.

I didn't get the chance to watch much of the buggy action, as I was distracted my caching up with a few people I hadn't seen for a while, but what I was looked like some class action. In the end Losi driver Rich Barton took the win from Tommy Chung with Jon Wolfe mastering his new ride for third place.

A final buggies (l-r Tommy Chung, Rich Barton and Jon Wolfe)

All in all a cracking days racing, it's great to see Clanfield getting back to where it used to be. Here's hoping it can be maintained. A big thanks to the committee, Chris for running race control, Nora for the endless supply of coffee and everyone who made the day what it was.

Link to full results (courtesy of Clanfield RC Club).

Some TORCH video footage

(Apologies for the lack of quality, I only had my stills camera on me and it's video isn't the best)

So, after we'de done with the serious stuff on Sunday Tony RC and Cameron decided that it was time to play. Cammer's is contemplating a 4wd, and so decided it was time for some testing. Tony, well we're not sure what he was doing... he's normally a little better than this. Check the videos and see if you can decide.

Another fun morning @ TORCH

With the continuing poor weather this week I made a decision mid-week to strip the truggy right back and start preping it for the new season, after all, the planned Clanfield race wasn't going to happen... Tony and I figured we'd do the morning at TORCH as the Astroturf surface is almost always fine. So at about 2:30 on Saturday the call comes in, Clanfield is on as the track has dried up. Oh well, we're committed now so TORCH it is.

The numbers were well down on normal, with the nitro posse largely of at Clanfield and a number of the other regulars of at the Petite RC, being held at Ardent up that there Norf somewhere. Still, six 2wd drivers were out, including Cammers with the Schumacher, and seven 4wd made the show including Tony with his Durango, Dave O'Brien with his various cars and Mark 'Byrners' Byrne making a rare showing with his AE B44.

Mark's day-glo orange Bulldogged up AE B44

With the low numbers we ran three rounds of qualifying over two heats, and then three-leg finals. Round one went well for me, coming off the one spot I led the first couple of laps before droping back due to unforced errors. This produced a ding-dong battle with Cameron, and I eventually ended up third in the round.

Round two was a disaster, the car being jittery and seemingly in some form of trouble. Nothing was obvious, and I suspected the LiPO wasn't as charged as it should be. Putting in a fresh pack I went out for round three, and whilst not as fast as round one was able to grab another third placed finish. That was good for fourth over all, but I was still gutted about round two, and still not 100% on what was wrong with the car.

Tony tries to convince Mark he needs a Durango

Mark B auditions for The Shopping Channel!

Legs one and two of the finals are best forgotten. The problems from qualifying re-appear and I wind up with a pair of DNF's. I'm gutted, the car felt awesome when running well, and I think my driving is improving week on week, I know I'm better than this.

Round three, new batteries and everything's back to normal. I get a flyer from fourth on the grid, and Cameron stuffs it at the first corner, I'm up to second and running. But no, Cameron flies through the corner and piles into me, we're both at the back. Half a lap of poor driving from me and I've got a real challenge on my hands to get anything of a result. Still, I regroup, settle down and just go for it. At the end buzzer I'm up to second behind Cameron, aided by at least one DNF in the rest of the field. Still, I'm happier.

Who says Byrners don't jump?

Tony's Durango earns it's wings (where's Byrners going?)

We end up the day watching Tony RC blasting his Durango around to get some practice, whilst Cameron is running one of Dave's Losi chassis to see what he makes of 4wd. I think Dave senses a sale in the offing! Cameron's setting some good times in a car he doesn't know, with easy 38s laps, dipping into the 37s eventually. Give him some time and he'll be up there (assuming he parts with the cash!). Eventually Tony and Cammers decided to have an impromptu race, unsurprisingly resulting in the carnage I managed to catch on video (watch this space!).

Another excellent time at TORCH, big thanks to Julian Mallard and everyone else involved in making it happen in Steve and Mike's absence.

Ansmann XPro Setup for TORCH

As promised here's a copy of my set up for the XPro as I ran it at TORCH last week. This seemed like a pretty quick set up in the conditions, and was very consistent. Click on the picture for the full sized view!

(Click for full view)

TORCH Clubby Race Day

AKA The Great British Winter strikes again...
(Please note, I only have a few photos from this round, I will add them when I've got them off my camera, so do check back)

Sunday 9th January should have seen us all make the trek up to Slough for a round of their winter series, however with the recent wet weather it always looked unlikely. When Adrian emailed to let us know it was off it wasn't a massive surprise. The photos he posted were, the lakes on the track were only surpassed by those in the car park, I think even Jaff's Landy would have struggled! Having planned ahead Tony 'RC' and I had decided another day at TORCH was a suitable alternative so Saturday was spent in the workshop tweaking the Mighty Ansmann and getting the LiPO's charged and ready. One pleasant surprise was that my previously damed pack that I'd disassembled and had resoldered (big thank Dave H, you da man!) charged perfectly and balanced at exactly 4.20V per cell. Looks like I may have saved it, with a little help.

In terms of car set up, I'd not done much since the last race. I rebuilt the shocks with slightly thicker front and thinner rear oil and fitted softer springs on the rear. Ride height was lowered, the front toe set to 0 degrees and camber checked. The main change was to pull the pin on my speedo, as whilst checking the settings during the week I had noticed I had the throttle limit set to only allow 40% of full power. School boy error, should have double checked that earlier.

Having agreed to collect Tony at 8:00 I stuck my head out the door at 7:40 to find the thickest frost I think I've ever seen. No idea what happened there, but the whole world had gone diamond white... hum, early qualies are going to be interesting then! After clearing the car and collecting Tony and his gear we rolled up trackside and set up for the day. Cameron 'Cammers' Taylor rolled in shortly afterwards and set his stall up next to us, at which point a side wager started on which car he'd end the day running having started the last couple of meetings with the Schumacher Cougar, and each time falling back to the X6 Squared when the Cougar gave trouble! Shortly after Dave O'Brien pulled up to pit with us followed swiftly by Jamie Kerr, out with his Durango for the first time. Having received an express delivery from Kifopaint the day before Jamie was rocking full on pro gear, including a branded hoody and matching body shell. Clear having all the gear, did he have any idea? Time and results would tell.

The track layout was unchanged from the previous round, but the track was frosted hard. Clearly grip was going to be at a premium, and with my limited selection of tyres I was on the back foot from the off. General advice seemed to be pink Ballistic Buggy spikes, of which I own precisely no sets. Ah well, out on the trusty Schumacher yellow mini-spikes then, staggers on the front as always. Into round one qualifying, and I can;t believe this is the same car as the week before. It's all over the shop... not quite undrivable but not far off! The results was 7 laps in 5:52, I bit slower than the week before and not the result I hoped for. In truth I must have gone faster than I thought as I was figuring on only 6 laps, but I wasn't happy. The car was a handful and I was over driving it trying to make up for it. The main problem was inconsistent grip, with the back end snapping away at really odd times.

Four wheel drive qualifying went badly for Tony RC, his Durango snapping yet another servo saver arm. Dave ran well to a solid seven lapper, but the boy Kerr was a revelation running a solid 8 lapper to finish just over a second behind Steve B in the fight for TQ of the round. A good showing for the first run of a car, could he keep it up through the next three rounds?

Due to marshaling for Tony whilst he worked on his damaged 'Rango I didn't change much for round 2 qualifying and it showed. I dialled in a degree of front toe out in the hope it would stabalise the car, which it did, but nowhere near enough. The official line is five laps, now I don't want to argue with the computer, and I did make a lot of mistakes, but I'm pretty sure I crossed the line more then five times. Oh well, that round was going to be a dropper, and it was time to get to work on the car for the next one.

In 4wd Dave was again solid with 8 laps, Tony did yet another servo saver and Jamie was again second in the round, all be it slightly further behind Steve B who seems to just keep getting smoother and faster.

For rounds 3 and 4 of qualifying I took a real punt. Realising that my problems seemed to revolve around the rear tyres I decided to try a set of new yellow mini-pins with firm inserts. I figured that the mini spikes were fitted with too soft an insert and were rolling over mid corner causing the snap instability. The use of spikes in the now soaking conditions (the frost having thawed) seemed to raise a few eyebrows, but hey I'm new to this malarkey so I don't know any better. And besides, I don't exactly have too many sets of tyres.

Within half a lap I knew I'd made the right call. The car was so much more consistent, especially in the high speed sweeping center section of the track. Things got even better when I passed Cammers, and then realised he was struggling to keep up. Result! Things looked up even further when the results were posted and I realised I hit my first 8 lapper, which had been my goal going into the day. That result put me forth in the round, not bad for a cheap little Ansmann with an electric-racing noobie on the controls, even if I do say so myself.

Round four was much of the same, with a few other drivers following me onto spikes. This round saw me sixth with another 8 lapper, about a second behind Cammers but pushing him all the way. We had a cracking ding-dong battle for several laps, great clean fun and exactly the kind of RC action I enjoy (yes, I know we were qualifying, but we just couldn't help it!). In the end Cammers finished fifth and I was sixth in qualifying which I was pretty pleased with all things considered.

In 4wd Dave had continued his consistent runs, having found his cup. Tony had finally come good and after borrowing a servo saver from Jamie final got in two half decent qualifiers. Jamie had a bad run in round 3, pulling out with a mechanical, but was back in round four to finish second to Steve again, leaving Steve to TQ, Jamie second, Dave fourth and Tony back in eighth.

Finals were run over a single leg, and in my 2wd A final Cammeron and I had a blast running round together. I could push Cammers hard, but just couldn't quite get the jump on him for fifth. I lost some time on the penultimate lap giving the leaders room to get past which upset my rhythm, although I guess it did the same to Cammers and we crossed the line fifth and six, with me just under a second behind. The final was probably the most fun I've had in RC for some time, being able to push to 100% for a full five minutes against Cameron was a blast. What was more amazing was Cameron running a whole day with the Schumacher, I think the X6 Squared was feeling a little neglected sat on his bench all day.

JK employs an unusal start line tactic in the 4wd A final!

In the 4wd B Tony lead from flag to lights taking a dominant win. In the A final Steve B again dominated, taking the win by around half a lap from Jamie, with Dave coming in fourth. Top marks to young Jamie Kerr, he drove a fantastic race and it's hard to credit that this was his first time out with the 'Rango. Give is some time for him to get it fully sorted to his liking and I think Steve could be facing some stiff competition.

The field for the 4wd A prepare for the off (TQ man Steve Brown out of shot)

Click here for a full set of results, courtesy of TORCH.

So a great days racing drew to a close, and Dave, Tony, Cammers and I decided it was time for a bit of car swapping. We spent an enjoyable hour or so playing with each of the 4wd contenders to see what we thought. Me, I still prefer 2wd... but I would like to try the Ansmann Pro4 just to see how that goes.

A big thanks to Steve, Mike and all involved in organising another great, relaxed days racing at TORCH, any disappointment at another weekend without a nitro fix was rapidly erased once racing kicked of. If you haven't been to TORCH yet, I strongly suggest you do, ASAP!