Paddy Piston Race 2010

This was our second year of involvement and I arrived on Friday night looking forward to a fantastic event, just like the previous year. Unfortunately due to other commitments, the established stars from CML's race team were unable to attend, but this gave the opportunity for some of our other drivers to take the limelight. Up and coming star Joe Adams and Lloyd Pitt of the CML B team made the trip over with their Hyper Pro UK cars and we also had local driver Bradley Baird with his RC8B. On arriving at the track Saturday morning it was clear that the club had made the track even better than the previous year with just a few tweaks to a couple of jumps and a slightly revised layout at the early part of the lap. For me, this track along with Slough, are easily the 2 best tracks in the UK, and the guys who came over from the mainland also agree. We started with an hours free practice, and that time we used to get the guys familiar with the track and work on getting the engines running the 10 minute qualifiers without a fuel stop. With lap times of over 50 seconds, that is quite tough as you have run for a minute before you start your run, meaning that you really need to be able to a 12.30 to be comfortable. Fortunately for our guys they had their RB motors tuned well and 12.30 was the mark they were hitting.

Into qualifying and we had 5 rounds on Saturday and everybody started on a new set of the Proline M3 Caliber control tyres. It was Richard Taylor who was generally setting the pace. The regular national A finalist was driving well and looking in control, although it was Richard Cree who actually produced the fastest race time with a mega run at the end of the day. One very interesting, and good point about the track was that despite several light showers, the track lost no lap time when that happened, indeed Richard Cree set his standout time on a damp track. From the CML drivers, Bradley had started out well as expected as he had track knowledge and was using it well, although a switch of engine part way through the day did mean a couple of runs getting the new engine set right. Both Joe and Lloyd made good progress through the day and picked up their pace considerably. We made some set up changes along the way, and moved much closer to the top guys as the day progressed. The club put on a fantastic BBQ on the Saturday evening which all the competitors indulged in and after a few beers it was away to the B & B. Sunday morning got underway with another 45 mins free practice and both Lloyd and Joe made a significant jump in lap time over that run, meaning that Joe could challenge the top 5 round scores and Lloyd would be pushing the top 10 on a good run. Joe drove an excellent round 6 and but for a crash on a corner with no marshal that would have placed him 4th in the round. Lloyd also had a great run which yielded his first 12 lap run of the weekend. Joe is a driver that takes a bit of time to build up his speed on a new track and he takes his time in learning where he is fast or slow to make improvements later on. For his young age he makes very few mistakes, preferring to drive within himself until he is comfortable on the track and then attack when he and his car are right. A very mature approach that usually sees him do well in the finals.

As qualifying finished it was Richard Taylor who took the overall TQ after a strong performance throughout qualifying. Both Joe and Lloyd were in the B final, but with both drivers having picked up their pace significantly as the meeting had gone on, they were confident. Joe got himself into the lead of the B final around the time of the first pit stops and was well in control when and bearing in the rear gearbox failed which led to rear drive being lost. Joe was pretty gutted as he felt confident that he could have challenged the top 5 in the main final with the consistent pace he had found. Lloyd put together a really strong B final after a rough few opening laps to get himself into second and with it a place in the main final. A really good effort from Lloyd and he had an hours driving to look forward to. The main final turned into a battle between Richard Cree and Richard Barton. After Richard Taylor ran out of fuel at an early stage he was left driving flat out to try and make some time back, and with it some spectacular lap times that saw him rise to 4th at the flag. Richard Cree finally stretched away from Barton and Michael Todd to build around a 25 second lead, which he would maintain to the end. Cree drove fantastically for the entire hour and fully deserved his win, his first of any note in 1/8th scale racing. All in all another fantastic meeting, and my thanks go out to Barkley and the guys from the club for putting it all together and showing us such great hospitality. I am already looking forward to next year?s event! Dave Duggan, CML Team Manager