BRCA R1 – Kidderminster – 2wd Qualifying Round 3

If you’ve read the round 2 report you will know that Neil Cragg just needed one more TQ run to secure pole positions for the 2wd A Finals. Before we tell you about how that went we can tell you thank we’ve had very good performances from Michal Orlowski, Ben Pugh, Ben Smith & Paul Crompton…..

Straight down to business….

We will come back to the mid-field heats – for now the excitement and tension is at the sharp end. Neil Cragg has gone unanswered in round 2 and so far has minimum points with two zeros. His closest challenger, as previously reported, is Tommy Hall with two twos. Hall has to get a TQ in Round 3 to keep his chances of pole position alive. The track slowed up slightly mid morning, so were going to look at the two men’s latest times for comparison and there is nothing in it – both on 14 laps in around 315 seconds. It was clear that no extra pace was needed from the cars – just clear runs without the oversteer moment which both suffered from.

2022 BRCA 1/10th Offroad National Championships

Round 1 – Kidderminster – 16/17 April 2022

Learning curve…

Seperately to the battle for TQ, we’ve a keen interest in the progress of Michal Orlowski. Michal has been rapidly improving over the first three rounds of qualifying and now is flirting with the sort of times we’re seeing from Neil Cragg and Tommy Hall. The battle for pole position is a run with lap times around 22.4 seconds – Orlowski putting in regular 22.5s! Running in Heat 9 he managed to check out from second placed man Mark Smith and set a time of – 14/318.59 – which included several mistakes and even a few champions rolls. The time good enough for 4th in round and a clear signal that Orlowski could be a contender in the A Finals.

Battle for Pole

Tommy Hall and Neil Cragg are not in the same heat, so each spectator was doing their best to work out the sum of the mistakes and bobbles to compare the two – an easy sum as Tommy didn’t have any errors. He drove in an extremely neat and well paced manner to throw down the gauntlet to his Team Associated teammate. Tommy unchallenged in heat – his closest rival being Jamie Hall some 8 seconds down. Tommy setting a faster time than expected – 14/312.79. He was also the first driver into the 21 second lap bracket.

Former World Champion Neil Cragg also go of to a good start in Heat 12. A little oversteer at the back of the track put his car up on a concrete curb briefly – but no major damage done to his time. He was on a very quick pace and started to lap backmarkers prematurely whilst they were still bunched together. Contact with a backmarker, even though it was very slight, was again just a small hindrance in a race which couldn’t contain any compromises. Neil got the hammer down to recover – but only to 14/313.16.

Round 4 will decide pole postion.

Top 10 2wd times from Round 3 of qualifying.

Overall points after Round 3 of 2wd Qualifying