Full results can be seen on the B.I.W.S. website here.

The Finals are on 28th February - entry form here.  We will be running F1s and Mini (210w/b) cars too, so watch this space for more news!

MMRUK TOP PHOTON TEAM REPORT JANUARY 31^ST BIWS:

PREVIEW:

Sheffield district and model car club hosted the fourth and final qualifying round of the British Indoor Winter Series at the spectacular Don Valley stadium. There were 100 drivers at this round calling on a packed pitting area and a organised day would definately be needed. The sheffield and district model car club put on a quite fast and flowing track that tested drivers abillity at high speed. Representing Muchmore Racing and Top Photon was Brian Eldridge, Adam Howe, Jordan Howe, Richard King, Craig Morgan and Thomas Knight. Adam and Jordan both had previous running at the track so as a team we all developed a base set up through that. The layout of the racing was the same as usual timed 5 min practices, 3 qualifyers and 2 legged finals.

PRACTICE:

All team drivers managed to get out at practice testing a number of different set ups throughout the session, however all the team noticed a lack of grip on the ruberised floor but as they day went along the grip increased and the team was gradualy getting faster and faster. We all tested a number of parts different springs, top decks, using anti squat as well as raising turnbuckle height so we could make the cars go as fast as possible. It was apparent that some cars were performing better than others, Brian Eldridge, Richard King, Adam Howe and Jordan Howe were showing some fast lap times with other team drivers struggling on the difficult surface but back to the pits we all went and helped each other out.

QUALIFYING ROUND 1:

Thomas Knight was the first TOP driver out in the first heat after struggling in practice Tom was optimistic going into round 1 not being seated in the championship he was placed in the bottem heat. Thomas had a difficult time with the grip not quite there Thomas had a breakage and only managed 13 laps.

The rest of the MMRUK TOP Photon team Brian Eldridge, Adam Howe, Jordan Howe, Richard King and Craig Morgan were placed in the second to top heat in heat 3. Each driver had slightly different set ups for this run but nothing too major. Craig Morgan MMRUK TOP Photon driver from wales who is more use to the tarmac stuff had a disaster switching to pro stock from his usual modified motors and pulled off after 5 laps after a electric failure. Richard King travelled a long way from down south where he usually challenges the top runners in the STTC championship pulled off 10 seconds before the end of the race but still managed 17 laps putting him in the top 15 after round 1. Jordan Howe BRCA A finalist will admit he isnt best on the Don Valley surface but you can never count Jordan Howe out he managed 18 laps in 5min7sec putting him in the top 10 after round 1. Second highest place team driver was Adam Howe who is pushing for a top ten place in the championship although this round Adams diff seemed to come loose but Adam still drove well managing 18laps in 5min4sec this put Adam 6^th overall after round one. Next up was Top Photons Top Gun Brian Eldridge who was fastest out of the blocks and just missed out on 19 laps by 1 second and managed 4^th overall.

So after round 1 a real mix of results for the team Craig morgan and Thomas Knight were really down the results due to not finishing, Richard King was in the top 15, Jordan Howe was in the top 10, Adam Howe managed 6^th overall and Brian Eldridge was 4^th. There were 5 Top Photons in the top 15 proving how fast the cars were and had the most amount of cars out of all the manufactors in the top 15.

QUALIFYING ROUND 2:

Qualifying in round 2 saw Craig Morgan and Thomas Knight hoping for there luck to change so they could get back up the results and push for a top 10 position, Thomas was back out again in heat 1 and had another disaster pulling off after 6 laps after a breakage, maybe being placed in the bottem heat made him struggle with other not as experianced drivers.  Back in heat 3 it was a disaster for all of MMRUK Top Photon drivers with the timming loop at race control going down on all the team race control decided not to rerun the race and worked out our results on our average lap before the timer went down which proved to be totally inaccurate giving drivers times of 5min58sec +, this meant anyone who did 19 laps or more would be placed in front of all the drivers in that heat as it was impossible for anyone to get more than a time of 5min58sec. We worked our results out properly and the MMRUK Top Photon team would have had 4 cars in the top ten which would have been a fantastic round except for the loop going down.

QUALIFYING ROUND 3:

Thomas was back out again in heat one again and didnt manage to get past 7 laps due to another breakage, Tom had a really unlucky day in qualifying but was well up for getting a good performance in his final. Craig got his best run in of the day this round managing 16 laps but he would still be way down the overall list. It was a improve or be way down for the rest of the team in heat 3 due to the times being so wrong from a failure in the previous round,  all of the team failed to improve and put all the team below 10^th position overall due to the times in rnd 2 being so high. Jordon Howe managed to put his car on pole in the B final with Adam Howe and Richard King.  Brian had just scraped the A final in 10^th. The team had been really hard done by we should have had 4 cars in the A final were we were all fast enough for but due to our times being worked out wrong we were all put way down.

Overall Qualifying.

Due to the timer going down this is where we all finished.

A final -10^th Brian Eldridge

B final- 1^st Jordon Howe, 6^th Richard King and 9^th Adam Howe

C final- 9^th Craig Morgan

D final- 6^th Thomas Knight

If the timer didnt break in round 2 Brian Eldridge, Adam Howe, Richard King and Jordon Howe would all have been in the A final.

FINALS:

Thomas Knight was first up in the D final and was hoping for a nice clean run and in the first round Tom dominated his race from start to finish to take victory but in the second leg he had a bit of a hard time and managed 7^th putting him 4^th in his heat overall.

Craig Morgan was next up in the C final he too was hoping to finish this run and have no electrical problems, in the first leg he managed to jump 4 places and finished 5^th but in the second leg his bad luck continued and he finished 10 putting him 9^th overall.

In to the B final Jordon Howe was on pole, Richard was on 6^th and Adam was on 9^th. The team was aiming for a 123 in this heat but disaster struck early for Jordon Howe who’s spur gear stripped on the warmup lap. It was up to Adam and Richard now to wave the flag for MMRUK and Top Photon. Richard had a storming start and destroyed the opposition winning leg 1, Adam got clattered by another car at the start and didnt have the best of starts but showed his speed and consistency by getting back up to third a good result in this race showed by the TOP photon drivers. In leg two disaster struck again for Jordon Howe his tyre came off the rim ending his race. Richard and Adam Howe spent the rest of the race chopping and changing 2^nd and 3rd posistions in a superb race but Richard eventually came through and won the race. Richard finished 1^st overall with Adam Howe in 2^nd overall.

In the A final Brian Eldridge started 10^th on the grid and showed how fast he was from the start getting upto 5^th where he stayed.  In the second leg Brian just clipped a board going on to the straight and broke the car but he was pushing the car really hard. Brian managed 5^th overall a excellent result.

So overall 4 Top Photon cars in the top 20 and 3 cars in the top 12 a excellent result for the top photon team but we would have done so much better if the heat where the timing loop went down would have been re-run. The team worked really well together and got the cars going really well. Watch out for the TOP PHOTON MUCHMORE TEAM at this years BRCA CONSTRUCTORS CHAMPIONSHIP