Dowty Southern 32 Meeting 2002

Links	Southern 32 Racing League 2002 Round 4 Dowty 18 August	Next Round Netley 1 Sept.
Slot Racing Web Site
BSCRA Web Site
Southern 32 Rules
Round 1 - Ipswich
Round 2 - Roedale
Round 3 - Timaru
Championship
Dowty web site

S32 goes West - Round 4 – Dowty

A change in track style as 20 drivers visited the long straights and varied corners at Dowty for Round 4 on 18 August. 12 drivers were at their first S32 race. Bath, Wellingborough, Luton, North London, Timaru, 4LBT(Swindon), Bournemouth, Crawley/Pinewood and Dowty were represented.

The track from the driver's rostrum - (picture assembled from several photos which gives a bit of distortion at the ends)

Falcons – Mike Gibbons in Command

The Falcon cars were 3-4 laps off the overall pace until Mike Gibbons joined in and qualified his car nearly 2 laps clear. Sandy Parker drove very neatly to win the B final from Adam Le Maistre, recovering from poor heats, then Bill Jenner taking 3^rd by 0.01 from Paul Stacey. Mike Gibbons won the A final as he pleased but the improving David and Davey Farrow ran a close race to 2^nd and 3^rd ahead of Eddie Grice.

The Falcons A final (l to r) Mike Gibbons (home driver of the day), Davey Farow, Eddie Grice and David Farrow

Production - Ian Fisher sneaks through again

Adam’s poor heats put him in the E final but he had an easy win from Jason King, Paul Stacey and Bill Jenner.

Davey Farrow retired in the D final with a lead wire off. Ian Barker took the win from David F just ahead of Sandy.

Vince Lee had his first win in the series in the C final, just ahead of Neal Callaghan, Paul Hefferman and Eddie Grice who retired.

There was another excellent B race, Chris Thomas coming out ahead near the end and Graham Thomas beating Chris Frost by 0.01. Mike G completed this set 4^th.

Ralph and Dave C made good starts in the A final while Ian F fell off. Ian then set to to try and catch up. Very gradually he caught and passed Paul Austin (in his first A final) and Dave then nipped past Ralph down the inside at the hairpin. That was the order until the end, exactly 2 laps covering the field.

FALCONS
1	Mike Gibbons
2	David Farrow
3	Davey Farrow
4	Eddie Grice
5	Sandy Parker
6	Adam Le Maistre
7	Bill Jenner
8	Paul Stacey

PRODUCTION
1	Ian Fisher	A
2	Ralph Parker	B
3	Dave Coward	B
4	Paul Austin	C
5	Chris Thomas	B
6	Graham Thomas	B
7	Chris Frost	B
8	Mike Gibbons	C
9	Vince Lee	B
10	Neal Callaghan	C
11	Paul Hefferman	C
12	Eddie Grice	C
13	Ian Barker	B
14	David Farrow	C
15	Sandy Parker	C
16	Davey Farrow	C
17	Adam Le Maistre	C
18	Jason King	C
19	Paul Stacey	C
20	Bill Jenner	C

The Production A final (l to r) Dave Coward, Paul Austin (visiting Driver of the Day), Ralph Parker and Ian Fisher. Fisher won to consolidate his championship lead.

Here are the A finalists cars on the start line, Ian's winning BMW at the right.

Le Mans 32 – Wellingborough Wizards cast their spell

Bill J decided to leave early for the trek back to Margate. His place was taken by local Hayden James who raced with Neal Callaghan in the Yer Maun team. Ian Fisher was co-opted into the Wizards this week and Sandy Parker became a Concrete Cow for the day. Both these drivers also provided the car for their teams and this was to have interesting results later in the race, run over 48 minutes per team.

There were several very fast and close runs early in the race. At half distance Aces Inc led by 3 laps from both Concrete Cows and Heavy Breathing. Wellingborough were a further 9 adrift at this stage after Adam decided to drive the first 2 sections. Paul Austin had also run both his sections for the Cows as he had to leave early. Oaklands were 5^th at this point although already in the pits.

Into the second half and the gremlins really set to work. First in trouble were Oaklands with gear and bearing failures that dropped them completely out of touch and heading for their 10^th place finish. Heavy Breathing had a bit of trouble with body mounts and braids falling out. For Wellingborough, Ian caught back 8 laps on Aces Inc in the 3^rd segment and a close final section was in prospect with the gap down to 4 laps. This particular close finish didn’t happen because Aces Inc had a back axle bearing drop out. They fell back to a 4^th place finish. Ian F and Chris Thomas had a close battle in section 4, showing what Oaklands might have done if only! In the very last run Dave C had to run at lap record pace to snatch back the win for the home team but alas he had more braid trouble and Heavy Breathing could only finish 3^rd. Sandy was unaffected by the mechanical calamities afflicting the other Birmingham cars and she ran the second half of the race only a little slower than Paul Austin had run. So the Concrete Cows came through to a wonderful and deserved 2^nd place only 5 laps behind the winners Wellingborough Wizards.

Bournemouth had a reliable run to 5^th. Impunity had a couple of pit stops on the way to 6^th. Team David in their first true G12 run were 7^th after a stop to re-attach a brush spring and Swindon newcomers JP Special ran steadily to 8^th. Yer Maun running an Int 32 car were 9^th.

Here are pictures of the cars and the results in full:

Here are all 10 team cars (photographed just before the start, several of them looked somewhat worse for wear by the end.) Note the interesting variety of bodies.

Top row (l to r) Bournemouth, Oaklands, Heavy Breathing,Aces Inc. and Yer Maun.

Second row Concrete Cows, Impunity, Team David, Wellinborough Wizards, and JP Special

An underside view of the cars (they are in the same order as the bodies above).

There are 9 different types of chassis, 3 of them scratch built.

Position	Team	Drivers	Body / Chassis
1	Wellingboro’ Wizards	A Le Maistre / I Fisher	Bentley/ Betta Mk2
2	Concrete Cows	P Austin / S Parker	Porsche GT1 LM/ 1-0-1
3	Heavy Breathing	D Coward / M Gibbons	Bentley/ Coward Black Arrow
4	Aces Inc.	R Parker / E Grice	O/S Merc/ Betta Mk2
5	Bournemouth	C Frost / P Stacey	Nissan R90/ Frost–1988
6	Impunity	V Lee / I Barker	Mclaren F1 GTR/ Radkovic
7	Team David	D Farrow / D Farrow jnr	Sauber C11/ Hallums copy
8	JP Special	J King / P Hefferman	Emca/ 1-0-1
9	Yer Maun	A Callaghan / H James	Marcos/ Int 32
10	Oaklands	G Thomas / C Thomas	O/S Merc/ 202C

Loose Ends

· · A warm welcome to all 12 new faces. The Swindon lads tell me they spent all last weekend building a new bridge there, so the 4LBT race should be good!

· Area 7 are using the S32 rounds in their Area to decide their BSCRA Nationals qualifiers in Production. Congratulations to Dave C, Sandy P, both Farrows, Ralph P, Chris T who were all considered for Drive of the Day.

Driver of the Day

Trophies for rounds 1–5 will be awarded at Netley. Here are the winners so far:

Round 1 – Ipswich

Home Driver; Neil Obee, for his dominant win in Production and fastest sections in the Team Race.

Visiting Driver; Paul Harwood, top visitor in Production and member of the winning Team.

Round 2 – Roedale

Home Driver; Graham Head, joint winner in Production and the fastest section in the Team Race.

Visiting Driver; Dick Smith, B final winner in Production and his drive in the top visiting Team.

Round 3 – Timaru

Home Driver; Alan Callaghan, for 1^st in Falcons, 2nd in Production and a fantastic 5 laps clear fastest section in the Team Race.

Visiting Driver; Mick Kerr, 2^nd in Falcons and 2^nd fastest section in the Team Race.

Round 4 – Dowty

Home Driver; Mike Gibbons, for his commanding 1^st in Falcons.

Visiting Driver; Paul Austin, for his A final in Production and fast Team Race runs on his first visit to the track.

Next 2 Races – Netley, 1 September 2002. Click here for report on the Netley round

Luton, 19 September 2002 Click here for the Luton web site

Any queries on the series, call me on 020 8866 8571

Ian Fisher

Southern 32 – The series for you!