BRCA 4WD Onroad Nationals R5 Colchester – Report

For the fifth and final round of this year’s BRCA 4WD Onroad Championship it was off to the Colchester track.  With the Modified and 17.5 titles already decided, it just left the 13.5 title to be decided. A couple of surprise entries were previous champions Olly Jefferies and the now un-retired Elliott Harper.  In Modified the first round of qualifying saw the returning Elliott Harper with his Schumacher Mi8 go fastest from Alex Thurston’s Yokomo BD-12 and defending champion, Kyle Branson, with his Xray X4, the top six were all on 22 laps.  Q2 saw another TQ for Elliott from Bailey Graves, Alex and Schumacher’s Andy Murray.  Elliot made it a hat-trick of wins by taking Q3 from Olly Jefferies and Kyle.  So, it was Elliott on pole position from Alex with Olly edging out Kyle for third by virtue of the tie-break.  In the finals, the first leg was wet with the rest being dry, and it was Elliott who took the clean sweep of all three legs for the overall win, what a way to make your return. Behind him it was Alex in the runner-up spot with a brace of seconds, with the final podium spot going to Kyle with a second and a fourth, edging out Olly who had two thirds.

In 13.5 it was Schumacher’s Ollie Payne who put in the only 22 lapper to go top, from defending Champion Zak Findlay and his Xray and Ricky Copsey, on his home circuit, showing a return to form in third.  Q2 saw Zak take the TQ from Ricky and Sam Law. The third round saw Ollie take the TQ from Zak and Billy Fletcher was third with his Schumacher Mi8.  This saw Ollie on pole from Zak and Ricky.
The first leg saw a bit of rain and it was Ollie who took the win from Zak and Ben Moorey’s Awesomatix was third. The second leg saw another win for Ollie from Ricky with Billy Fletcher in third. With the overall win the bag, Ollie sat out the final leg which saw a win for Ben from Sam Nicholls and Ricky. This gave Ben second and Ricky third on the podium.And by virtue of the win, Ollie Payne became the
2023 13.5 Champion.

In the first round of qualifying it was Tony Broad with his Xray X4 fastest with a 21 lapper, from the Schumachers of Mason Weston and Jamie Hickin.  Q2 went to Mason from Tony and Jamie.  Round 3, and with Tony and Mason sitting it out, it was Jack Collins who took the win with his Schumacher Mi8 from Jamie and Chris Parrott. All of which saw Tony on pole from Mason, by virtue of the tie-break, with Jack edging out Jamie for third.  In the finals, it was Mason who took the first leg from Tony and Jack. The second leg went to Tony from
Jack and Jamie. Tony took the overall win by winning the third leg from Mason and Jack and that was also the final order.

Thanks to Mike Haswell from the BRCA 1/0th Electric Section for the report.