Branson wins BRCA 1/8th Rd9, Wood retains title
Round 9 of the Championship was held at the Cotswold circuit which is located on the Kemble Airfield. A good turn was expected for this the championship decider. This season, the battle for top honours was between the Serpent drivers of Wood, Hicklin and Green. With Green winning 4 of the previous rounds but having to count a very low score, required him to win this race and hope that Wood is out of the top 3 and Hicklin does not finish higher than 3rd. The remaining drivers had to push hard to try and disrupt the overall outcome above.
On Saturday, the track was wet, but started to dry very quickly in places. The main problem was that the complex section in front of race control was shaded by trees and would take longer to dry out. At around 4 pm, the track was fully dry and the grip started to emerge to allow at least 2 hours of productive setup work to be carried out. As usual, Mark Green seemed to have the quickest and most consistent car from the chasing pack of Branson, North, Diver, Hicklin, Wood and Hastings.
Sunday was bright with no hint of rain. Practice got underway in heat order for 10 minutes to allow final chassis setups to be evaluated and revised if required. North however had engine problems due to changing the exhaust pipe and lost valuable setup time.
Round 1 was probably going to be the quickest and only run since the clouds had started to gather above which was not realised by some drivers. In heat 4, Kyle Branson was on a storming run and was heading for a very good TQ time, until a mistake cost him some time but a fast 19 was still a good score. In heat 5, Mark Green pulled out a lead over Tim Wood until a mistake cost him 8 seconds and overall TQ for the round went to Wood on a 20 lap 308 score. The remaining drivers played it safe to get a banker score apart from Diver (Crash), North (Mistake and pulled off) and Heath, who was disqualified due to his fuel tank being over size. The rain then came and no one could improve.
The top 10 was as follows:
1. Tim Wood (Serpent/Mega) 20 Laps 308
2. Kyle Branson (Serpent/Sirio) 19 Laps 300
3. Mark Green (Serpent/Novarossi) 19 Laps 301
4. Richard Hicklin (Serpent) 19 Laps 301
5. John Carr (Serpent/Mega) 19 Laps 308
6. Andrew Hastings (Serpent/IDM) 19 Laps 311
7. Ashley Gouveia (Serpent/Mega) 18 Laps 304
8. Stewart Wilcox (Mugen/Ninja) 18 Laps 307
9. Pete Hastings (Velox/IDM) 18 Laps 312
10.Mike Powell (Mugen/Ninja) 18 laps 314
The Finals were run in very wet conditions with a lot of drivers struggling to just keep the car on the track. The main final started with Green, Carr and Pete Hastings not making the line due to radio related problems. This therefore gifting either Wood or Hicklin the title. Up front the battle for the win was between Branson, Wilcox and Wood. Wilcox making his second appearance of the season due to his off-road commitments was using his smooth driving skills to the max and was in the lead for short periods between fuel stops. Due to a problem with the on-way bearing made the fuel stops longer than anticipated and therefore made it difficult to gain back the time lost to Branson. In the end, a good win for Branson, with Wilcox second and Wood third. This then gave Wood the title for the second year in a row. Well done and well deserved. The Full championship standings can be found on the www.brca.org website.
The top 10 was as follows:
1. Kyle Branson (Serpent/Sirio) 69 Laps
2. Stewart Wilcox (Mugen/Ninja) 68 Laps
3. Tim Wood (Serpent/Mega) 68 Laps
4. Andrew Hastings (Serpent/IDM) 66 Laps
5. Mike Powell (Mugen/Ninja) 66 laps
6. Richard Hicklin (Serpent) 62 Laps
7. Ashley Gouveia (Serpent/Mega) 2 Laps
8. Pete Hastings (Velox/IDM) DNS
9. John Carr (Serpent/Mega) DNS
10.Mark Green (Serpent/Novarossi) DNS
Thanks to Andy North for the report and photos.
