I had the opportunity for a rare visit to Bayside yesterday – and enjoyed the day a great deal. I love visiting the club – an enjoyable track, good facilities and many friendly faces.  Some hot racing yesterday too….
In the gas tourer it was all John Taynton. John was quickest through qualifying by quite a margin before going on to a big win in the 10 minute final. Nigel Brokenshire was a good second, nearly a lap clear of Andrew Koerper.
In open nitro, John again picked up the silverware, but this time not without a big fight.  Deep into the final Nigel was serving it right up to John (in fact leading after the pit stop) before a mechanical failure put paid to the battle – and left John with another big lead. Jason Dorn came through for second in his mugen drift car (!) and Andy Gibson third.
Stock electric was as usual highly competitive – but also with a good bunch of newer drivers gradually getting to grips with the class.  All day it looked like a battle between the new Kyosho of Adrian Beggs and Damien Barnier (Cyclone).  The final was an awesome race with mistakes from the front two, and some great driving depositing Jason Wakefield (Tamiya) out in front. Jason drove a flawless defensive race to beat Beggs home by half a second, with Barnier, Bob Vardy and John Perkins all in close attendance.  Heavy flew the Schumacher flag with a very good 6th in such a competitive field, and Steve proved there is life in the old dog yet by making an A final appearance in his Mi2.
Modified for most of the day looked like being an Anthony Atack benefit (nothing unusual about that I hear you say). I was having some grip problems, and John was testing 5 cell batteries so was a little off his usual pace.  Finally we managed to get the Mi2-EC back on track (just by consigning some no longer functional tyres to the rubbish) and set off in the final.  Anthony led, I followed. We were fairly close for the first 3 minutes – at most around a second or so apart – and Anthony was milliseconds off track record pace.  Eventually i found the grass and dropped back, before Anthony also just drifted off the record pace slightly.  Chalk up another win for Anthony and another very fast 18 lapper.  I was happy to run 18:5.07 and could have probably gone about 5.04 or so (faster than I’ve ever gone at Bayside before) without the excursion – so pretty happy with the pace of the Mi2-EC. John finished 3rd, and the 5-cell/brushed motor combo looked good around the Bayside circuit – perhaps just lacking a little top end compared to Anthony and myself.  Shayne Pearce was a good fourth and looking forward to brushless ponies in a couple of weeks, while Steve Miller ran the whole day on the Team Orion lipo battery. One pack did the job for the day and had plenty of run time and plenty of rip.  Interesting.
Amazingly, Iain Schwartz 19 lap run still stands as the track record at Bayside in modified – and it’s now nearly 12 months old.  Just goes to show how well Iain drove and how well he had the Mi2 hooked up – we have more power and newer (better) chassis now and it still remains just elusively out of reach.  Stand by for all stops to come out in the attempt to reach that record over the next month or two!
Stand by too for a big horsepower display. I hear a rumour that the new Novak 3.5 brushless motor might just make an appearance at Logan this saturday night….