Rug Racers 2015-2016 Round 3 Race Report

Rug Racers Round 3 opened their doors to welcome people in from the rain and the excesses of Christmas, the pits were awash with shiny new toys that loved ones had bestowed upon them to spread some Christmas cheer and get them out the house for a few weekends racing a year.


Rug Racers it would seem had again splashed the cash with more audio equipment making the sounds coming through that little bit clearer and a fully booked meeting with reserves in every corner, class & crevice showing that they must be on the right track (no pun intended) while on the subject of the track it had a familiar ring to it as this layout made its debut at Rug Racers Reloaded supporting the Martin Laxton memorial cup.

Controlled practice was the starting order of the day, once all 11 practice heats had been completed it was onto driver briefing then game time.

GT12 Heat 1 another excellent showing of the young talent racing learning their trade as 7 kids took their place (with 4 big kids).  Racing at the top was dominated by Peter White, Stu Cartwright & Darcie Smith. Heat 2 had a different driver & a different 3 for every round Andrew Simpson & Richard Wright being in amongst it all. Heat 3 Tim Hancock, Ben Vincent & Chris “Mr Mardave” Wilkinson kept in touch with each other through out to setup a good looking Final.

17.5B Heat 4 Jak Sansom was the class apart setting fastest times in each round to surely move him up. Heat 5, Owen Carter kept himself near the top with Sam Jackson taking the last 2 rounds. Heat 6, Michael Ball topped the sheets for 3 of the 4 rounds with Dave Ringsell & Jan Pedersen in hot pursuit. Heat 7, Jimmy Maddison was keeping his car at the top being the only driver to break into 29 laps with close attention from defending champion Matt Worton and Colin Jackson keeping them all honest.

WGT Heat 8, Owen Smith & Martin Southall were the only drivers into 28 laps with Pierre Phaneuf keeping close tabs on them both, Remo “Mr MoodyFools” Casadei was the lasted driver to join the WGT brigade for this round.

Open Mod Heat 9, Matt Quinlisk was the only driver to stay in the top 3 for all 4 rounds with Matthew “lightning” White having the honour of being the 1st driver of the day to launch his car off the track into a wall.  Heat 10, Richard Thorpe kept himself near the top with Douglas Campbell & Terry Yarranton being the other drivers into 29 laps. Heat 11, Elliott Harper took 3 of the 4 rounds also being the only driver on the day to get into 31 laps with young Harley Eldridge taking Round 4 Kyle Branson being 2nd in every round.

Next out the bag was the usual raffle delivered with swift humour by the resident cash extractor known as Alan “Snippy” Chipolina & the man that puts it all together Vince Coleman. All the prizes donated by our fantastic sponsors who we cannot thank enough. Please do take the time to visit them for a great deal.

Finals time & straight into the GT12 C Final, Lance Walker headed off from pole taking both legs with a lap or 2 too spare. Once the dust had settled the top 3 were Lance Walker, Chris Pollard & Nigel Philpott. B Final, Russel Valiant took leg 1 with Stu Cartwright taking leg 2, top 3 of Russell Valiant, Dave Taylor & Bradley Dilworth. A Final Leg 1 was taken by Ben Vincent, the top 4 of Ben, Scott Morton, Tim Hancock & Chris Wilkinson all separated by 4 seconds, Leg 2 was won by Tim Hancock with a lights to flag drive with 2nd to 4th separated by 1.5secs. Podium, Ben Vincent, Tim Hancock, Scott Morton.

17.5 Blinky D Final, Lee Juniper took leg 1 with Hayley Barker taking leg 2 top 3 of Hayley Baker, Lee Juniper, Greg Roberts. C Final, Leg 1 Nick Upton came through the field to take the win, Leg 2 Jak Sansom took the lead on the opening lap and held on to the flag. Top 3 Jak Sansom, Ian Nicholson & Nick Upton. B Final, Nigel Shaw overcame an early blip to climb back to 1st to take Leg 1, Leg 2 Soteris Liasi took advantage of a 1st lap pile up to emerge near the front and drove on to victory. Top 3 David Usher, Nigel Shaw, Rob Brighton. A Final, Jimmy Maddison took leg 1 after a good early start fell back down to 3rd but fought back to reclaim the lead 3 laps from home with Matt Worton 2nd & Malc Hall 3rd, Leg 2 was a lights to flag drive from Jimmy but with Jamie Hickin & Malc Hall fighting over 2nd. Podium. Jimmy Maddison, Malc Hall, Michael RedShaw.

WGT A Final. Leg 1 & the battle at the front Between Martin Southall & Owen Smith continued through the race, with Martin Southall managing to open a gap to take the win from Owen. Leg 2 Owen set off at a furious pace and opened up a sizeable early lead. Martin fought back to close the gap back to 3 secs as Owen took the Win & FTF. Podium. Owen Smith, Martin Southall, James Garrett.

Mod C Final, leg 1 Matthew Wesley took the win up from 2nd, Leg 2 belonged to Simon Farrow up from 5th to take the win, Top 3 Dani Young, Chris Betts, Ben Pedersen. B Final, Leg 1 Brian Eldridge took the win from pole with a lap to spare, Leg 2 Richard Thorpe led them home from 2nd on the grid with Damian Giddins up from 4th & Brian down to 3rd, Top 3 Richard Thorpe, Brian Eldridge, Damian Giddins.

Mod A Final, leg 1 Elliott Harper led the early running with Kyle Branson & Harley Eldridge pressing hard. Harley moved upto 2nd with an audacious overtake on lap 6 and held onto Elliott forcing the mistake at Lap 19 from which Elliott would retire, Harley held of the advances of Chris Grainger to take leg 1 by .5 of a second. Leg 2 & a dominant drive from Elliott to the flag, Harley again made the pass on Kyle before retiring with a breakdown, Podium Chris Grainger, Paul Pinkney, Richard Barton.

A massive thank you to all our sponsors, team members & you the drivers for coming along and taking part, we wish you all a happy new year and may your trophy cabinets be full & your racing fun.

For all the photos & any videos please head over to our Facebook page “UK Rug Racers” & our website http://www.rugracers.co.uk/ for further information.

We look forward to seeing you all again on 7th February for the penultimate round 4.

Active Scale Models - http://www.activescalemodels.co.uk/
Mardave - http://mardave.co.uk/
Schumacher - http://www.racing-cars.com/
CML Distribution - http://www.cmldistribution.co.uk/
HPI Racing - http://www.hpiracing.co.uk/
Tonisport - http://www.fast-webshop.com/tonisport
Logic RC - http://www.logicrc.com/
RC Racing UK - http://www.rcracinguk.com/
MoodyFools - http://moodyfools.com/
Muchmore Racing UK - http://www.muchmoreracing.com/
Propel RC - http://www.propelrc.co.uk/
RC Racer Mag - http://www.rcracer.com/
The RC Racer - http://www.thercracer.com/

Full results from Round 3 can be found here: http://goo.gl/bUZhy8

Words - Martin Southall
Photos - Vince Coleman