At the front of the 16th 4wd C final was Mark Dicks, followed by Rych Brind and John Howe. There was some very close racing throughout this final, but it was Paul Hammond who claimed first spot, after an impressive drive moving up from 6th on the grid, John Howe followed with Mark Dicks finishing in third position.
The B final saw Andy Vincent in pole, with BRCA Micro Chairman Cris Oxley in 2nd, with Carl "frogger" Venter and his Carisma in third place. An error from Andy Vincent let Cris Oxley past on the first lap, a position which Cris managed to keep until the final lap. 2nd place was taken by Morgan Rham, who had an incredible drive from 9th on the grid, third place was Gavin Stephenson, who appeared to have issues with his Shark throughout the day. Hopefully Gavin will get on better with his new Carisma which he was seen leaving with at the end of the meeting.
16th B Final
The last final of the day was the one we had all been waiting for, with Craig Harris leading Phil Sleigh and Danny Conway for the first three spots on the grid. Danny was followed by Tony Bishop, Andy Jones, Dan Osborne, Steve Biscoe, Dan Harding, Dave "Nuclear RC" Belsten, and Chris Bottle. Craig Harris absolutely dominated the race, putting in some of the most consistent driving I've ever witnessed, it's safe to say his eyes were on stalks throughout the whole final, and it wasn't until the final lap where he finally decoded to bring them back from being stuck against the back wall. Craigs win in this round means he only needs one more win to take first place for the whole championship. Danny Conway ended up in second, giving him three second place trophies for the day.
16th A Final
Overall the meeting was a roaring success, seeing 36 entries in 16th 4wd, 8 in 16th 2wd, 5 in 18th 4wd, and 3 in 18th 2wd. It would be nice to see some more 18th scale drivers, but with the popularity of the larger scales it's easy to see why people stick to the 16th. Something that was nice to see was a number of the new Carisma GT14B buggies, although they had only been in the country a few weeks, there were 6 being driven in total, 4 by "regular" drivers, and 2 by Carisma team drivers Phil Sleigh and Cris Oxley. They certainly showed that they're up to the task of fighting for the top spot, and hopefully there will be more appearing at the next national rounds.
Thanks go out to Caldicot RC club for proving an absolutely awesome track which saw some of the best racing I've seen this season, also Paul at Trackside Spares for bringing his shop along, although I only saw one GT14B going out the door I'm sure after the performances of the drivers at the round he'll be getting plenty more orders for them, also a big thanks to Jamie on race control, and the rest of the MRCA Micro Section Committee that work hard to bring everyone these races that we all enjoy, so to Cris Oxley, Ursula Wilson, Andy Jones, Mat North, Stu MacDonald, Chris Bottle and Steve Davies, we all thank you very much.
Photos by Dan O, Videos by Andy N.