Absima Summer Championship Rd1 – Report

The Absima Summer Championship was opened with brilliant sunshine and brilliant racing at the Coastal Model Car Club this weekend. A bumper entry rolled through the gates to fight it out for the first round. First up it was the touring cars, and after a scare with a breakage in practice Adrian Dew dominated the results by winning all the qualifiers and finals, although there was some great action for the lead with both Jason Scott and Attila Hadji.

Next up on the on-road track it was the Tamiyas. A stock class using Tamiya plastic chassis and brushed motors to keep the costs low and performance equal between chassis choices, the 2WD chassis are allowed to run a more powerful motor than the 4WD chassis to balance out the performance. In the basking sunshine the front wheel drive cars enjoyed having more grip than was found in the winter and made the most of it during the qualifiers, with Dan East with his M05 ling-up in pole followed up by John Green in 2nd. Leslie Woods was first 4WD in 3rd with his TT-01 lorry and an impressive return to racing after many years away from Matthew Gant who lined up 4th.

The first leg of the Tamiya final saw what could be the race of the season already between Dan East and Ken Harvey, 2WD Vs 4WD, straight line speed vs corner speed. Dan made a good start of the line and got away well, but ken made a flyer from further down the rear of the grid and was soon through to 2nd after the first few laps. A big slide for leader Dan down the hill between turns 1 and 2 allowed Ken to close right up onto the back of Dan and Ken put the pressure on Dan through the infield for a number of laps but everyone Dan lead onto the straight he used the power advantage to restore enough of a gap to keep the lead through the infield, but the pressure told and with a minute to go Dan lit up the front wheels just a bit to much as they exited the off camber hairpin and Ken didn’t need a second invitation to come through. It was a role reversal of cat and mouse and on the last lap ken got a bit to close to the track marker on the same corner he got past Dan, got up onto two wheels and Dan could not help but to collect the side of Ken’s Lorry and help him over, so Dan cruised the last series of corners to take leg one win.

In leg 2 there was more drama after Dan had built a decent lead, he then had another big moment coming down the hill through turns 1 and 2 but this time collected the wall which bought his race to an early end. Once again the eventual winner came from much further down the grid this time in the shape of Steven Vanhisbergh with John Green 2nd and Ken Harvey picking up 3rd.

Over onto the off-road track and first up were the 4WD. It was a top draw line up in the wheeler class and there were going to be good drivers in the the b with such a quality turn out. In qualifying it was new dad Chris Pennington who took the pole with his HB Racing D418 from Steve Biscoe with his Yokomo YZ-4SF, followed up by Danny Conway with his HB Racing D418.

In leg one it was a clean getaway from everyone but special mention goes out to Absima UK team manager Paul Bucking who went from 10th on the grid to 3rd with in the first lap, braving it out around the outside of turn on to set himself up on the inside of turn 2 before the huge table top. After a mistake from Chris it was Steve who didn’t look back to take the win in leg one.

However a scrappy leg 2 for Steve cost him dear in the overall and victory for Danny stuck him top of the pile after a leg 1 2nd place. Chris picked up a pair of podium finishes to end up 2nd overall with Steve 3rd.

With the biggest entry of the day it was the 2WD buggies, it was a hotly contested affair with very quick guys in the top 2 heats, and eventual pole sitter Jody Howard with his fresh Schumacher KC Laydown getting the pole from the second tier heat whilst trading places and times all race long with the yokomo YZ-2 of George Fairweather. There were many guys in the top heat but they couldn’t quite match the pace of Jody and George, although a series of mistakes and incidents from George cost him on the overall time, meaning Jody Howard lined up on Pole with Stuart Collard 2nd, Chris Pennington 3rd, George 4th and Kristian Gibbs in 5th.

The finals were a fast and frantic affair with Danny Conway taking the win in leg 1 after Jody made a big error at the crossover, then once George was leading he made an error at the huge tabletop.

Leg 2 was much the same but this time Jody held it steady from pole to take the win and with a mixed p set of results from everyone took the overall win.

In the junior class Sophie Evans was on top form picking up the win from Harry Burrows.

With a new points scoring system to put more emphasis on the final results rather than the qualifying and also a bonus point for the fastest lap in the finals, it is Adi Dew who leads TC, John Green leading Tamiya, Danny Conway in 4WD and Jody Howard in 2WD. Fastest laps went to Adi Dew in Touring Car who picked up the clean sweep with his Capricorn, Steven Vanhisbergh in Tamiya, John Myall his his Yokomo YZ4SF in 4WD and Danny Conway with his Team Associated B6.1.

With the BRCA East of England regional in two weeks time the club resumes the Absima Summer Championship in one month with fresh layouts for both tracks.

Thanks to George Fairweather for the report.