Eleven drivers made it to the first round of the 2010 combined Area 6 and Area 10 Championships at Ipswich Slot Car Club. It was a cold morning and the heaters had to be turned on to full blast for most of the day! Early arrivals got to have a pit space near the heaters!

Production
With only one Novice from each area, the points were already decided, but it was good to have a race and gave Gavin Wills and John Careford more track time. This was the first time that Gavin had raced on another track other that Wellingborough and he soon got the hang of the short Ipswich track.

Racing a 4 x 3 minute segmented race, Gavin managed to pull a 2 lap lead in the first section over the Ipswich home driver. John got a lap back in the second section, but had a terrible run in the third section and dropped another couple laps. It looked like it was all over going into the final section, but John was finishing on the best lane, and Gavin had (arguably) the worst lane. John came back fast and provided a very close finish, only 13/100ths behind Gavin. Well done to Gavin on winning his first away race and withstanding the pressure in the last section.

Sports
This class is run to the same format as the Southern 32 series. This gives each driver 4 heats with the best single run to count which puts the top four drivers in the A-Final, the next four in the B-Final and so on.
The first heat was a complete nightmare. Paul Harwood came out on top with a 34.41, which was nowhere near the pace seen before in area rounds or the recent open meeting. Richard Mack showed what was possible in the next heat by breaking the 37 lap barrier. Greg showed that he was happy with Blue lane by managing a 36.31 in heat 3. He would better that in heat 8, from Red, with his best time of 37.57, but in heat 5, James had already stepped up the pace and achieved a 38.84 on Yellow. This was to be the best heat time of the day and left the qualifying order as: James, Greg, Ian, Mark, Paul H, Michael, Gavin and David. Gavin had been kindly given a proper sports car to drive for this class and was slowly coming to terms with the extra power. After receiving driving tips from David Farrow, he promptly went on to beat him!

So that left Paul H in the B-Final. The two FASTBRO’s had made it into the top final again, to challenge James and Ian. Paul H took an easy win his final to secure 5th spot overall. Michael was 6th and Gavin just beat David F to 7th in a very close race. With James on Red lane, it was going to be hard for anyone to do anything about stopping him win. Greg stayed in contention for the first minute, but James started to pull away and took victory. The rest of the finishing positions were the same as qualifying. An interesting point to note was that the A-Final had 4 different makes of chassis in it. A Mack, a Mossetti/Tragillio, a BSP and a Horky!

Richard secured a comfortable win over Paul A after John had to leave early.

Despite the cold weather and the long journey out to East Anglia, a good day was had by most drivers. The track took a while to warm up, but when it did, it was clear that Red lane was streets ahead of the others. That made qualifying very important and probably helped to decide at least two of the classes.

Some discussion also took place on the proposed BSCRA rule changes. Much humour was had over the proposals for Falcon motor racing! A vote will be taken at the 3rd Area Round on February 14th to ensure all voters are paid up members of BSCRA. If you do not intend racing at this round, please forward your vote to James Cleave (Area 6 Coordinator) so that you can have your say.

There has also been a request to swap the NLSME round with the WSC round. We will vote on this change at the next round in January at LSCC.

Thanks to the Ipswich club for hosting the area round.

James Cleave (Area 6 Coordinator)