Clean Sweep for RCPB at the Shropshire Winter Indoor Series
Posted by Jules exall on
This weekend saw the last in the series of the SWIS (Shropshire Winter Indoor Series) at the Grange School in Shrewsbury and RCPB was once again represented by Team Bosses, Chris Ely and Matt Box, as well as Tommy and Jamie Hall and Felix de Hamel. Felix and his Schumacher were in the 2wd and the others all running Xray XB4’s in 4wd. The team at the SWIS all pictured below!
Felix impressed all day with his KF2, and after fantastic last round of qualifying, managed to get the TQ by nearly 4 seconds. The car looked very fast in his hands, and in a class of very good drivers he took the top time with ease.
In 4wd, Battle of the RCPB Xrays, more like battle of the generations. Young guns Tommy and Jamie against the “older” Matt and Chris. All the guys were on point, fighting each other for the TQ all day, but after all 4 rounds Chris was on top of the list, taking the TQ, with Tommy and Jamie just behind by only a few seconds, this meant Matt Box was back in 4th on the start line for the Final. The 4 RCPB drivers were hard to beat in qualifying and the top 3 were 2 laps up on the rest of the field another great achievement by the guys, especially the boys!
In the finals Felix had a great start, even after a small mistake in the race he managed to pull back the place and went on to win in style. After a few DNF’s a great drive by him to take a well deserved win.
In 4wd it was going to be a fight amongst the RCPB drivers for the podium places. Matt Box managed to get up to 2nd behind Chris with a few laps to go but a mistake meant that the brothers flew past him taking the remaining podium places on the day. An all RCPB podium - just what we like to see!!
As it was the last in the series it was Trophies time, and amazingly it was 1-2-3 in 4wd for Chris, Tommy then Jamie. Tommy managed to get 2nd and Top Jnr in 4wd just beating his big brother Jamie by only one point. Well done young Man! Matt Box once again took 4th.
All the XB4’s looks fantastic on the twisty track and the drivers all performed very well, and as always a great end to another good SWIS series. Big thanks to the East Shrewsbury Buggy Racing Club for a great track and a great Series.
On to Maritime Raceway and we had George Miller and his Sworkz at the last round of their series. He managed a good B Final qualification and finished 7th. In the series he managed a very impressive XX in 2/4wd overall.
Over at Ledbury Model car club it was the final round of the Astro Winter Series (AWS) and lots of RCPB drivers were there again. We had Andy Prosser returning after an operation on his arm, Simon White and his son Simeon White, new team member Rich Price, Ben Billing, Alex Page and Milan Dragojlovic, Jon Griffiths and Simon Davies.
After last week’s visit to the track Milan was unstoppable. He took TQ in every round. And had a lap on the rest of the field at the end of qualifying. Alex running his Kyosho MP9 and Simon White with his Mugen MBX7R also had some good qualifying and after the 4 rounds managed 12th and 14th respectively. Joining Alex and Simon in the B final was Jon Griffiths and his AE, he looked good and he managed to get 19thoverall, Simon Davies qualified just after him but just missing out on the B final and starting 2nd in the C Final. Rich and Simeon started 5th and 6th in the C after the 4 rounds and Ben Billing after several problems and Andy Prosser also started in the C further down the field.
The first final up was the C final and with 5 RCPB guys in it, it was all hands on deck, it was going to be a scrap for the bump. Ben and Rich had a great start and both went well for entirety of the Race going on to take 2 of the Bump up spots finishing 1st and 2nd. Simon Davies and Andy and their RR8’s were battling in the midfield and finished a respectable 7th and 10th. Simeon had a problem and had to retire but showed some good pace and I’m sure would have been mingling with the other guys. Bens car pictured below on the start line of one of the here finals he was in!
In the B final we had Ben get off to a flyer again, and flew through the field from 11th to 2nd. A great drive by Ben after a troubled days qualifying with his new SworkZ Evo 2 LE. So Ben managed to bump to the A – not often we get a double bumper – well done Ben. This time it was Simon W and Rich that were battling behind Ben, and after a great close race Simon narrowly got the last and final bump spot getting 4th and Rich 5th as the buzzer went, Jon finished 9th and Alex 11th after a tough final.
Onto the A main and Milan and Ben and Simon were in a very strong field of racers. Simon had another great start with his OS powered MBX7R and gain some early places, managing to go from 14th to 11th in the end. Great consistent driving once again from Simon! Ben was now in the groove with the track time from the previous 2 finals and all his problems now very much behind him. He stormed through the field, making some great passes and in the end finished a very good 6th. Milan once again was hard to catch with his Ninja powered MP9, managing to take the Win by half a lap or more – another fantastic drive, and the quickest lap to top it off. The A main rostrum is pictured below.
It was a very fine day for all of the RCPB drivers, the team is looking good going into the summer season both in 1/10th and 1/8th.
All of the kit the guys use is available from RCPB, and if you cant find what your looking for on the website please drop us a line – we will be happy to help.
EAT>SLEEP>RACE>REPEAT – see you all next time race folks!