1/24 Nationals 2009

BOC Final round at Newcastle's Raceway 81 - Race report by Andy Brown Searle

James Cleave is 2009 Champion - Final Championship Postions

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2009 1/24 Nationals

Production Saloon | Open Group 12 | Eurosport

The track

The 2009 Nats was held in the the Thornton Little Theatre, Thornton Cleveleys, Lancs. It's the venue we have used for the 1/24 Nats in 2001, that was on the UK8 track, the new Nats track is quite a bit larger and fits the space as if it was made for it! The Fylde club members had been hard at work since early Friday to get everything ready for the start of Friday practice.

Saloons John Wells' saloon

The saloon field and the best presented body winning car from John Wells

Racing started as always with Production Saloon on Saturday. The first time this track was used, at last year's 1/24 Nats, James Cleave was top with 5.952. Ross Grogan was the first to top that with 5.881, Lee Parsons and Graeme Stephenson got under the old record before the last to run, James Cleave, demoted Ross to second with a new record of 5.827. This year much of the field have replaced their Champion chassis with the newly approved JK, the new chassis allowed James to go 0.125 seconds quicker and 3 other drivers to get under the Turbo Flex record.

The qualifying divided the competitors into 5 finals, each driver getting a 3 min run on each lane with the quickest qualifiers racing last. The first final had two father/daughter pairings (Ralph and Sandy Parker ; Norman and Katy Fawcett) - is that a Nat's first? The race was won by Chris Frost, a time which Bob Hallums eclipsed in the D final by some 15 laps. The first of our overseas visitors Pedro Mizarela won the C from John Wells. Richard Mack won the B with 219, some 5 laps clear of Ian Barker and Brian Saunders. The A finalist were running ahead of Richard's pace to produce a final result with A finalists Chris Thomas in 5th, Ross Grogan 4th, Graeme Stephenson 3rd and the World Championship winning team finishing 1-2 , James winning on 231, some 2 laps clear of Antonin Vojtik.

A final James

Above - Lee Parsons, Antonin Vojtik, Ross Grogan, James Cleave, Chris Thomas, Graeme Stephenson and Paul Shepherd - the A final; Chas Keeling presents James with the winner's trophy.
Below - the winning car - JK chassis and Pro Slot motor, note the one piece front axle. The close up shows the piano wire bracing of the back axle bearings

Winning salonn Rear bracing

			Q time	Q pos	final	laps
1	James	Cleave	5.827	1	A	231.90
2	Antonin	Vojtik	6.010	6	A	229.05
3	Graeme	Stephenson	5.894	3	A	227.22
4	Ross	Grogan	5.881	2	A	226.21
5	Chris	Thomas	6.056	7	A	221.44
6	Richard	Mack	6.215	11	B	219.12
7	Ian	Barker	6.119	9	B	214.35
8	Brian	Saunders	6.252	12	B	213.24
9	Paul	Shepherd	5.988	5	A	212.45
10	Lee	Parsons	5.929	4	A	208.57
11	Pedro	Mizarela	6.302	16	C	207.69
12	Graham	Woodward	6.269	14	B	207.42
13	Pat	Skene	6.255	13	B	205.49
14	John	Wells	6.287	15	C	204.05
15	Bob	Hallums	6.569	24	D	202.69
16	Franz	Barrillaro	6.428	20	C	201.57
17	Ben	Woodward	6.945	30	D	198.88
18	Chris	Green	6.612	25	D	198.05
19	Neil	Grogan	6.482	21	C	197.70
20	Steve	Sargent	6.553	23	D	195.58
21	Chris	Frost	7.102	32	E	187.50
22	Paul	Austin	6.395	17	C	185.37
23	Andy	Brown-Searle	6.515	22	C	184.19
24	Stephen	Siddall	6.416	19	C	183.83
25	Mike	Read	6.929	28	D	181.52
26	Matthew	Siddall	6.689	26	D	178.20
27	Alan	Lucas	6.122	10	B	178.17
28	Sandy	Parker	7.184	33	E	176.18
29	Martin	Ellis	6.114	8	B	174.19
30	Dave	Homer	6.993	31	E	167.13
31	Norman	Fawcett	8.066	37	E	162.50
32	Pete	Clarkson	7.496	35	E	160.21
33	Charlie	Gooding	6.400	18	C	156.00
34	Glyn	Taylor	6.902	27	D	145.69
35	Ralph	Parker	7.961	36	E	145.50
36	Katy	Fawcett	8.443	38	E	130.99
37	Bob	Budge	7.228	34	E	129.16
38	David	Sargent	6.937	29	D	77.00

Production Saloon | Open Group 12 | Eurosport