Round 2 - Netley - 15 February                        Club web site

Southern 32 - 2015

The series for you!

It was good to see a much larger entry for this year’s Netely round, and in particular a much larger entry in clubman’s grade.  Thanks to Dick, Mark, Murray and all at Netley for organising an excellent day’s racing.

Clubman Falcon

With 9 clubman entries, there was one unlucky racer missing the finals, that was Terry Blackmore.    Mick Metcalfe and Richard Hills both qualified on 22.04, so  4th qualifying for the A final was decided by their second fastest runs - Mick getting the verdict by just  0.12 laps.

Richard was top qualifier for the clubman B final, but it was Steve Rhodes from Oaklands on his first visit to the track who came through to win from Keith Edgar, Richard and Cliff Bicknell.

Simon Francis was newly eligible for clubman again thanks to a BSCRA rule change, his 23.44 top qualified over a lap clear.  Just as in the B, the top qualifier fared badly in the A final, and it was Ted French who won, and just as in the B an Oaklands driver did much better than in qualifying, Mick Metcalfe came second and took the championship lead.  Simon took 3rd ahead of Mac Miles.

Super Production & Falcon Masters.

Murray Tucker was firmly in top qualifying spot with 26.44, over a lap clear of Stan Alton.

Keith Edgar won the E final by 2 laps.  Terry Blackmore got a run this time, and made good use of it beating Cliff Bicknell for second.

The D final proved to be the day’s closest  Mac Miles won by quarter of a lap from Mick Metcalfe.  Steve Rhodes finished 2 cars lengths ahead of Richard Hills for 3rd.

In the C final Mark Witham recovered from various qualifying woes to win, while Simon Francis had a much better run that in clubman to take second ahead of John Ovens and Ted French.

Paul Harwood missed out on qualifying for the A final by just one hundredth of a lap, but won the B final.    Will Stemman’s super prod narrowly took second ahead of Chris Frost with the top placed Falcon. Scott Francis made one of his occasional 1/32 racing appearances to take second in Falcon Masters and 4th in the B.

Murray Tucker had an untroubled run to win the A final ahead of Dick Smith (who’s qualifying runs were not untroubled.)   The Luton pairing of Stan Alton and Nick Thrower took 3rd and 4th.

Le Mans 32

Eight teams took the start, seven with group 12 power.

Cliff and Terry used a prototype of the new BSCRA production car to win the Falcon powered sub class  won tjust as at North London, although this time they were the only entry.

The top 4 teams were reasonably well matched, Luton taking an early lead from Netley, GT and Harwood Racing.  Several teams  ran through on one set of tyres, and were getting significantly quicker in the later segments.  It’s interesting to wonder how starting on smaller tyres and making a pit stop to change would have compared.  Luton’s 3rd segment was the fastest time so far with Nick setting 129.   Netley looked to be on schedule to top that until their gears went.  In the final segment Murray set 137, Will set 131 and Stan did Luton’s second 129 - curiously all those quick times were on outside lanes on a track where most prefer the middle lanes.   At the end Luton won having led all the way, GT closed to just 2 1/2 laps behind to take second. Harwood racing took third with Oaklands moving ahead of Netley to take 4th With Gumbo Slot and IDK not far behind.

Thanks again to all at Netley.  

See you all at Coulsdon for the next round.

Chris

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