Uk Nitro National Round 2 Kent
The second round of the 1/8th scale RallyX championship is over. This weekend we were at the KMRC track located in the picturesque garden of England county Kent. The KMRC track is a classic in the UK race scene with its iconic 3D layout. Upon arrival Friday afternoon the track was in great shape. After the E8 and Truck win, and the second win at the warm-up event just weeks before the team were keen to get racing.
Come Saturday morning the first two practise round were underway and all of the Agama A215SV’s were looking very settled on the track. Good pace was shown from Darren as well as the young guns. The first round of qualifying was soon upon us as the 139 drivers were quickly being run through. In the first round Darren had a very pleasing 2nd place followed up by Callum Niblett in 9th, Joni Skidmore 10th, Ollie Currie 13th and William Skidmore 14th. A special mention goes to Graeme Miller for his 19th in round, great driving Graeme. In the 2nd round, we had a superb run from Callum Niblett in 5th position, followed by Joni in 8th. The 3rd round was again a good one for the team with Darren in 3rd ,closely Followed by another great performance from Callum Niblett in 5th, Joni Skidmore 12th and Ollie Currie 18th. The final qualifying round from the Saturday was up, Darren just missed out on the top 3 in 4th place after an unfortunate encounter with a back marker, not showing his true pace but backed up by an 11th place for young William Skidmore and a 13th for Ollie Currie.
Onto the Sunday morning the 5th and final qualifier was on the line at 8am. Callum responded with a superb run to finish 6th followed by Darren in 8th, Will 10th and Joni 11th. With qualifying finished and 3 rounds counting the NEMO order stood as: Darren Bloomfield in 3rd place, Callum Niblett in 8th place, Joni Skidmore 12th, William Skidmore 15th, Ollie Currie 17th, Tony Truman 22nd and Graeme Miller 31st, super result for the team.
The finals were underway and with 27 Agama Drivers in the field there was a scattering of drivers in all finals, Mike Williams showed them how it was done bumping out of the 1/64, into the 1/32’s to then bump again into the 1/16ths, great job Mike ! Lewis Rushton after a bumpy qualifying also bumped out of his 1/64th final in the 1/32’s. In the 16th we had a bump up from both Josh Graham and Mark Boon, superb drives from both of them. Further up the field we had Tony Truman in the 1/4th winning his final to progress into the semi !
The semi final B was up and in this 20 minute final we had Tony Truman starting in 11th, Joni Skidmore 6th and Callum Niblett 4th. A great run from all meant we had Joni Skidmore finishing in 3rd, Callum 5th and Tony Truman taking the last bump up spot in 7th, a great start to the main final with 3 in, onto the semi final A. We had Darren and Ollie in this one, both of which would get off to a good start. Darren was looking superb and would finish in 2nd place, hot on the heels of 1st place driver Neil Cragg. Ollie Currie just missed out on the main final bump up.
The main final was up after a small break allowing drivers to ready their cars for the 45 minute race. All of the NEMO drivers lined up on the grid and the final was underway, a couple of minutes in disaster struck for darren as he held a strong pace over the field, a loose carburettor would end our chances of a very possible win, back to the pits to be secured and back out onto the field. Darren would continue running round to finish in 11th place a shame as his pace was superb and got quicker as the race went on, Callum Niblett had a clean and quick drive to finish in 6th place, great job Callum a superb result for the team and for the Junior driver, Tony Truman finished close behind in 7th place, well done Tony.
Some great results were had by the team this weekend, well done all and a huge thanks to the track workers for preparing a great circuit for us to race on.
This weekend the international team will be at the EURO A Warm-up race in Sweden and the support van will be at Westmill for their club meeting.