Graham North secures North West regional for Team Durango
 

Graham North sends us a report on the penultimate round of the 2010 North West regional 10th off road series. Graham took the eventual win for Team Durango and his new electrics sponsor Tekin.


Sunday the 25th of July was the 5rd round of the BRCA North West Regional Championships held at the Southport Radio Car Club.

The weather was good for the entire day with the odd threat of rain that never really came. The track was a similar layout to the National track run the week before so we were confidant we could achieve a good result.
As always in the dry at Southport the grip was immense, and the onus was on making the car easy to drive in practice as the track is very hard to go clean on for 5 minutes. Practice is always busy at the NW Regionals, but never the less we were happy with our cars heading into the first round.
Qualifying.

Graham North was pretty much “best of the rest” in qualifying all day, taking 2,3,2,2 in rounds, but closing the gap on pace to the very quick local driver Colin May every run, gridding up second behind him on the A main grid. Damian Whittle had a super consistent time in qualifying taking 4,4,5,3 in round to grid up 4th on the grid.

Just behind Damo on the grid lined up Anthony Steel in 5th (6,5,4,7 in rounds) and Paul Crawford (5,10,10,5 in rounds) in 6th with their Durangos, giving Team Durango 4 cars on the A main grid, but all in the top 6!
A Final.

The start was fairly regulation until half way around the lap, when Gareth Hill slipped up the inside of Graham, dropping him down to 3rd, but only a couple of corners latter Gareth made a mistake, allowing Graham back to chase Colin. It was on lap 2 that all hell broke loose. Colin May threw it off the track and at the same time there was a huge crash behind Graham, the outcome being Graham leading by about 8 seconds over Paul Crawford in second place who at this moment did his best wing man impression to keep the pack behind him, battling hard with local hero Colin May in the process to pull off an awesome move up the inside of him onto the center tabletop! From this point Graham didn’t really look back just regulating the gap and only doing what was needed and certainly not troubling many apexes!
The race finished with Graham North taking his first, and Durangos first, North West Regional win, with Damian Whittle 6th, Anthony Steel 7th and Paul Crawford 8th (still his best ever Regional finish).
Thanks to Paul Rotheram for the pictures.

Stagger ribs FTW!!!!!:thumbsup:

I assume it's safe to say Graham is happy with his new electronics package then :thumbsup: good job!

Tekin 1st & 3rd.

Good job dude, one day Staggers will rule the world.

But it is Colin May who is the overall champion in 4wd :p:p

Colin is a warrior, but it's good he's not had it all his own way.

Col's also a stunt god!
If anyones got a pic of Col and a couple of words - I'll gladly big him up :thumbsup:

I can have my poor abused spare RS Pro back, now he got new shinny stuff!!

"Colin May threw it off the track" ???? :confused:

Your having a laugh! How is a roll at the apex of the corner "throwing it off the track":thumbdown:

All that arse twitching's sent you delirious boss :lol:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evo_Snr (Post 397656) But it is Colin May who is the overall champion in 4wd :p:p

Cheers Eric.

It's ok, I've made up with Col :lol::lol: Apparently the marshals were doing some MILF spotting or something when he crashed - that's why it took so long! :woot::woot:

Congrats to Col on winning the championship though btw, couldn't touch him earlier in the year :(

And thanks everyone - it really made my birthday one I'll remember - well, the win and the pink cake I got :woot::woot::wub:wub:blush::drool:

G

I missed cake? :(

I did the same last year at Teesside regional! Made my birthday:wub

Well done graham! :thumbsup:

Ditto!!!!
Some ridiculous amount of grip came up for that final, nice write up but where are the write ups for every other north west round wins for Schumacher including my own ;0)

Are there photos from Sunday mr Rotherham?

Gaz

Did you do any? :woot::woot: - They don't happen by magic :lol::lol:

My last one was published here:

http://www.team-durango.com/blog/?p=969 ;)

Nowt wrong with Team Durango boys blowing their own trumpet, thats what being sponsored is all about - promoting the brand. Also nice to see they included the non-sponsored drivers too.

Race report is also good PR for the club and region :thumbsup:

Also good skills from young Arron with his CAT, qualifying A8 and finishing a very respectable A5 with a good consistent drive in the somewhat scrappy mid-field. Always good to see younger drivers progressing and mixing it with the more familiar A-final faces! :thumbsup:

Plus the Ansmann of Stu Wood taking 2WD.

CRAWFORD! :thumbsup: