Essex Summer Series 2015 – Race Report

The Essex Summer Series event returned for the second year, and took place this weekend once again at the Adur circuit on the south coast of the UK. Organised by the well-known EWS team, the event attracted 100 entries from around Great Britain, added to by the attendance of Alan Bickerstaff from Northern Ireland, Nicolai Lindegaard from Denmark and Martin Hofer from Germany.

In the Modified class, the battle for pole position was between Xray’s Olly Jefferies, Associated’s Chris Grainger and Schumacher’s Elliott Harper. The three drivers raced through the four qualifying rounds, split by at most a few seconds every time. Olly took control during the two rounds held on Saturday, topping the timesheets both times. Chris fought back on Sunday morning by taking round three, as Elliott strung together a set of top three runs, choosing to run only one set of his allocated tyres to leave himself two news sets for the finals. Olly secured pole position after taking the final round, Chris lined up second on the grid, with Elliott third and Capricorn’s Stefan Chodzynski hanging on to the leaders coat tails in fourth. Alan made his trip worthwhile by securing fifth on the grid, ahead of his Associated team mate Matthew White. The Schumachers of Andy Murray and Aaron Rose would like up seventh and eighth, whilst the A Final was rounded out by the Yokomos of John Pape and Brian Eldridge.

The A finals saw Olly continue to head the pack, notching up a comfortable win in the first final, as Chris, Elliott and Matthew endured a race-long battle for second. The second leg saw Olly seal the ESS title with another win, however he was pushed hard by Elliott, the Schumacher driver finishing just half a second back at the end of the five minutes. Olly completed his sweep of the finals with a win in the third leg as well, once again battling with Elliott until the former Worlds podium finisher retired at the three-minute marker after pushing a little too hard over one of the kerbs. That allowed Chris to take second in the leg and secure the runner up position, with Elliott rounding out the podium.

Modified A-Final Overall results
1. Olly Jefferies – Xray/LRP – 2 points
2. Chris Grainger – Associated/Reedy – 4 points
3. Elliott Harper – Schumacher/GForce – 5 points
4. Stefan Chodzynski – Capricorn/GForce – 7 points
5. Matthew White – Associated/Reedy – 10 points
6. John Pape – Yokomo/Nosram – 10 points
7. Alan Bickerstaff – Associated/Reedy – 10 points
8. Brian Eldridge – Yokomo/Muchmore – 13 points
9. Andy Murray – Schumacher/Hobbywing – 14 points
10.Aaron Rose – Schumacher/Hobbywing – 14 points

The Super Stock class saw a multi-way battle for pole position. Nicolai Lindegaard proved his speed immediately by topping the first round for Schumacher, in front of the Capricorns of Mark Trinder and Glenn Westwood. Jimmy Maddison then took his Xray to the top in round two, ahead of Glenn and Daniel Booker’s Tamiya. Glenn set the best time in Sunday morning’s third round, with Nicolai second and Daniel third, but it was Jimmy who secured the pole position by topping the final round ahead of Daniel and the defending race winner, Dominic Skinner and his HB. This meant Glenn would line up second in front of Nicolai, Daniel, Mark and Dominic. Martin Hofer seemed to improve his speed with every round, but would start seventh on the grid for Yokomo, in front of the HB of Darren Tickner and the Xrays of Ricky Copsey and Shaun Batt.

The first A final was a messy affair, which led to the drivers getting a stern talking to from race director Oli Meggitt. After reviewing a number of incidents, the result remained unchanged with Martin Hofer coming through the melee to take the win in front of Jimmy Maddison and Dominic Skinner. The second and third legs provided much better racing, with consistent battles for the top places. Jimmy took leg number two after a race long fight with Glenn Westwood, who took second in front of Nicolai Lindegaard. This result left things wide open, with three drivers in with a chance of the victory and six a chance of the podium.

The final leg saw battles again between Jimmy, Glenn and Nicolai, with Martin again working his way up the field throughout the five minute race. Jimmy did enough to run out the winner, securing the overall victory, with Martin finishing second in the leg and the same position overall, and Nicolai third. Glenn was unlucky to miss out on the podium with a strong fourth, in front of Daniel who had a break-out event and looked capable of challenging for the podium in each of the finals.

Super Stock A-Final Overall results
1. Jimmy Maddison – Xray – 2 points
2. Martin Hofer – Yokomo – 3 points
3. Nicolai Lindegaard – Schumacher – 6 points
4. Glenn Westwood – Capricorn – 7 points
5. Daniel Booker – Tamiya – 8 points
6. Mark Trinder – Capricorn – 10 points
7. Dominic Skinner – HB – 11 points
8. Shaun Batt – Xray – 11 points
9. Darren Tickner – HB – 13 points
10.Ricky Copsey – Xray – 15 points

The event was also supported by a Formula 1 class, running for the first time at an EWS event. With the cars running to the well-proved ETS spec, they produced close racing as expected, and it was Spencer Jones who secured the pole position after the four qualifying rounds, Martin Hofer lined up second after a consistent string of results and early pace setter Richard Brown would start third on the grid. The A Finals again produced close racing, but it was Spencer who emerged victorious after taking the win in legs one and two. Richard Brown took the final leg, but that wasn’t quite enough to get him onto the podium after good runs from Martin Hofer and Damian Giddins allowed them to take home the trophies.

Formula 1 A-Final Overall results
1 Spencer Jones – Xray – 2 points
2 Martin Hofer – Yokomo – 4 points
3 Damian Giddins – Xray – 5 points
4 Richard Brown – Xray – 6 points
5 Darren Tickner – Xray – 6 points
6 Remo Casadei – Xray – 11 points

The organisers would like to thank the Adur club for hosting the event, and HPI, Balls Out, Xray, Zen Racing and Schumacher for supporting the event. They would of course like to thank all the racers for attending and contributing to a fantastic atmosphere, and look forward to welcoming everyone back to one of their events in the near future.

Thanks to Oli Meggitt for the report.