Dowty Southern 32

Southern 32 - 2009 Series Round 3 - Dowty.

No floods this year, a nice day and 15 drivers for a good day’s racing at the Dowty S32 rounds. Not a huge number but up on last year. Dave Coward, Mike (Funky) Gibbon and Rob Harris kept the races rolling along all day.

Production races

Clubman

There were just 6 entrants Clubman eligible at this round, so that gave us 4 in the ‘A’ final and 2 in the ‘B’ final.

Scott Francis rather under performed in the heats but won the ‘B’ final fairly easily from Dowty member Tom Williams.

Simon Francis kept things all in the family by winning the very closely fought ‘A’ final just in front of Bournemouth clubmate Mark Hammond. Dowty drivers James Davey and Noddy Lockey filled the 3^rd and 4^th places. (Although it was later realized Noddy was in the Intermediate grade, so strictly speaking not eligible for this class)

Driver	Final	Laps
Simon Francis	A	23.03
Mark Hammond	A	22.67
James Davey	A	22.26
Noddy Lockey	A	20.67
Scott Francis	B	19?
Tom Williams	B	Not given

Overall and Falcon Masters

With 15 entries, three drivers raced for the ‘D final. Scott Francis won this one by half a lap from Rob Lees making a welcome first appearance in the series for some time.

In the ‘C’ final, Simon Francis made it 4 out 4 so far for the Francis family. This time, James Davey was right behind him and ahead of Mark Hammond with another returnee, Kev Gray fourth.

Onwards to the ‘B’ final. Stan Alton took this one, the closest so far, from Funky. 3^rd place was decided by about 30mm in favour of Noddy Lockey with Tony Condon the marginally unlucky 4^th. All four drivers covered by 0.24 lap.

Not unexpectedly, Dave Coward won the ‘A’ final just ahead of team mate Rob Harris, himself just in front of Ian Barker. Ian Fisher outfoxed himself on lane choice, fell off at the start and stayed a lap behind the others.

On the technical front, Area 7 and the Dowty club in particular is a stronghold of the CMG chassis with many in evidence including several of the latest solderable plating batch looking quick and shiny. Top 2 were CMG, next 2 JK.

Driver	Club	Final	Final F=Falcon	Points	Falcon Masters Points
Dave Coward	Dowty	A	26.05	60
Rob Harris	Dowty	A	25.92	57
Ian Barker	Roedale	A	25.77	55
Ian Fisher	NLSME	A	24.88	53
Stan Alton	Luton	B	23.53	51
Mike Gibbon	Dowty	B	23.35 F	49	60
Noddy Lockey	Dowty	B	23.29+ F	47	57
Tony Condon	Ind	B	23.29 F	45	55
Simon Francis	Bournemouth	C	23.69 F	43	53
James Davey	Dowty	C	23.50 F	41	51
Mark Hammond	Bournemouth	C	22.88 F	40	49
Kev Gray	Leicester	C	21.02 F	39	47
Scott Francis	Bournemouth	D	23.52 F	38	45
Rob Lees	4LBT	D	22.94 F	37	43
Tom Williams	Dowty	D	18.25 F	36	41

Clubs Championship

This is based on the best (up to) 4 drivers from each club on the day. Huge score for Dowty club of course, now will they go to other rounds and keep up the pace?

Club	Overall Points	Club Points
Dowty	60 + 57 + 49 + 47 =	213
Bournemouth	43 + 40 + 38 =	121
Roedale	55	55
North London SME	53	53
Luton	51	51
Leicester	39	39
4LBT	37	37

LM 32 Team Race

The Bournemouth trio skipped this race leaving 12 drivers and 6 teams for the LM32 race. This time a 48 minute race was agreed with 12 minutes on each lane.

'I squared' won the first section but were quite rightly worried they were going too slow. The impressive Funky Icemen won the next session from LSCC and I Squared as the fancied Heavy Penguins lost several laps early on with a controller problem.

Heavy Penguins set the best run of the day in their second run with the Icemen losing all their advantage and falling just behind. I Squared continued to struggle with their car and its tyres not being very well matched but plugged onwards.

Heavy Penguins were delayed again in their 3^rd run. Funky Icemen continued driving very consistently and reliably and ran out the deserving winners by just 0.36 laps after 48 minutes. Congratulations to these first time winners the hugely improved Noddy Lockey and Mike Gibbon. I Squared continued to 3^rd place 4 laps up on LSCC. Logs ran steadily to 5^th and Big Eaters with their Falcon car were 6^th.

Drivers	Team	Best Run	Total	Points
Noddy Lockey Mike Gibbon	Funky Icemen	128.04	502.82	60
Dave Coward Rob Harris	Heavy Penguins	131.98	502.46	57
Ian Barker Ian Fisher	I squared	125.17	491.68	55
Stan Alton Tony Condon	LSCC	125.94	487.56	53
Kev Gray Rob Lees	LOGS	118.66	450.23	51
James Davey Tom Williams	Big Eaters	108.26	417.95	49

So the first 3 rounds are showing attendances up a little this year.

There’s still plenty of rounds and good racing to go. See you at the next round on the Ipswich track? Bring some club mates with you.

Ian Fisher, 7 April 2009.