Durham Outdoor Regional 4 Wheel Drive - Round 1 of 4.
Report by Graham North and Brian Hopps.

Race Data
Championship Tables (2wd) (4wd)

The first round of the 2004 4WD series was held at Nissan Sports and Social Club, the home of Durham City Model Car Club.  Unlike the previous 2wd round held at the same venue a few weeks earlier it was a wonderful sunny day, with many people pitting outside with only a couple of tents in use.

Which with hindsight probably wasn’t a very clever thing to do, as by the end of the day a few people were complaining of sunburn!  Who would have thought you would need sun block in this Country in May, and in Durham of all places!!!

Due to the fantastic weather, Tony Snee asked the drivers to vote for the type of qualifying they wanted.  The outcome was that TQ qualifying would be used.  This turned out to be a good decision, with the weather staying dry throughout the day, even though the sun disappeared a few times and the black clouds loomed.

While the track was still damp from the mornings dew, people were trying various compound tires, but by the time qualifying started the track was dry and most people ran Schumacher Yellow Mini-spikes on what was essentially a flat grass surface with a couple of man made jumps.  The track itself was challenging with some very technical sections, and by the end of the day there were some ‘worn’ areas that made racing the finals a little more interesting.

On a lighter note, I noticed a worrying trend among the ‘younger’ racers at the meeting.  It appears they have all become allergic to the hairdressers!  I urge the parents of these people (you know who you are!) to take your sons to get their hair cut!  Having hair in front of your eyes can’t be good for your racing can it?  And as for the body piercing………… 

This meetings “Driver of the Day” goes to Damian Whittle.  After breaking his car in all four qualifying rounds (while being on A Final pace) he qualified 2^nd in the E Final.  In the finals he was on an absolute mission!  In the first leg, he even had time to stop (three times!) to take on liquid refreshment and still win it !.

Dan Greenwood is enjoying his first year racing in the North East.

David Snee takes an interesting line through the first corner.

Carl Hopps pushing hard on his way to a win in the B final
(Despite having an awful injury to his lip !)

Probably not the best line over this jump !
Keep em coming though, it makes the photos more interesting !

Thanks to Bill Allison, Tony Snee, Derek Bradby (who turned up especially to help out) and the rest of the Durham crew for an excellent meeting!

Apologies for the absence of a report for the first round of the 2WD series. In contrast to this event, the weather was so cold the battery in my camera refused to supply power, and the event organiser had a major "moment" when copying the events data to disk. Credit must go to Bill though as he managed to rescue the finals data so the 2WD Championship survives for round two in a few weeks time in Harrogate.

PLEASE NOTE: THE NEXT REGIONAL EVENT AT HARROGATE WILL TAKE PLACE AT ST. JOHN FISHER SCHOOL - OUTDOOR, BUT AT THE INDOOR VENUE.

If anyone needs directions, please email me.

Thanks to Graham for the report of this event, if you would like to contribute to the report of the next regional or national event, please let me know.

2004 Outdoor Calendar
4th April - Durham 2WD Round 1
2nd May - Durham 4WD Round 1
23rd May - Harrogate 2WD Round 2
5th June - Batley 4WD Round 2
6th June - Batley 2WD Round 3
27th June - Teesside 4WD Round 3
10th July - York 2WD Round 4
11th July - York 4WD Round 4
22nd August - Teesside 2WD Round 5