Mark Green gave Team Serpent UK their third win of the season in the British 1:10 200mm Nationals when he took his Mega powered 720 ‘08 to victory in Round 4 at Snetterton over the weekend.

Running to the EFRA Grand Prix format for the first time, the event would see drivers Bump-up finals and feature a 45-minute Main Final. Unfortunately rain washed out the Saturday practice day but race organisers gave competitors a 10-minute free practice session before the serious action got underway on Sunday morning.

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Aldershot hosted the first round of the BRCA touring car nationals this year, which would see many new changes to the format. With the number of rounds being lowered to four, the racing has been spread over both days of the weekend, with qualifying on the Saturday and Sunday morning, before three-leg finals for all on Sunday afternoon. The control tyre had also changed, and only time would tell if there would be an improvement over the tyre used last year. Possibly the biggest change to the national series was the discontinuation of the 27t stock class. The pro-stock class was instead created to cater for drivers that did not want to enter the immensely powerful modified class.

Qualifying started with clear skies and a fully dry track, and the pro-stock drivers were the first to take to the track. At the end of the first round, local drivers Glen and Jay Westwood had taken the first two positions, but Xray driver Luke Hobson was close behind in fourth at the end of the round. The modified drivers were next onto the track and reigning national champion took the round win, followed closely by Olly Jefferies and his Hot Bodies Cyclone. Olly will be aiming for the championship win this year after finishing so close in last year’s series. Young Xray driver Elliot Harper continued his form from the winter to finish the round in third place, with another Xray driver in the form of Ben Cosgrove taking fourth.

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Richard Hicklin kept Team Serpent UK’s impressive run of national championship race victories going over the weekend when he TQ’d and won Round 3 of the BRCA run series at Cotswold.

Running his 960 ‘08 powered by a Mega MF engine, former British Champion Hicklin claimed the TQ as when he was the only driver to record a 20 lap run in the qualifying heat giving Serpent their 3rd straight pole of the season.

Starting from No.1 position on the grid Hicklin continued to set the pace recording the fastest lap of the race enroute to his first win of the season. Joining him on the podium was team-mate and Round 1 winner Neil Diver.

The win moves Hicklin to the top of the points table and Team Serpent, the defending champions, will be looking to continue their winning run at Round 4 which takes place at Mendip on June 15th.

BRCA British National Championships
Round 3, Cotswold

1.(1)Richard Hicklin (Serpent 960/Mega) - 108 laps in 1804.43
2.(7)Christopher Heath - 108 laps in 1812.70
3.(4)Neil Diver (Serpent 960) - 107 laps in 1810.57
4.(6)Jason Frost - 106 laps in 1803.18
5.(9)Andrew Hastings - 100 laps in 1808.95
6.(5)Pete Hastings (Serpent 960) - 81 laps in 1806.70
7.(2)Andrew North - 64 laps in 1070.75
8.(8)John Carr (Serpent 960/Mega) - 59 laps in 1073.20
9.(10)Rob Colman - 44 laps in 798.04
10.(3)Tim Wood (Serpent 960/Mega) - 34 laps in 1233.75

Source : Serpent

Last weekend we had the 3rd National round of the 200mm IC touring championship, held at the fabulous Mendip race track. 52 drivers booked in for the race, fortunately the weather was kind to us, it stayed dry and sunny all weekend.

After 4 hard fought qualifying rounds in strangely low grip conditions we had 4 XRAY NT1’s in the main A final.

Mark Gilliland XRAY NT1 5th on 18/ 14.45
Robin Hammett XRAY NT1 6th on 18/ 14.98
Darren Johnson XRAY NT1 7th on 18/ 16.28
Gareth Bell XRAY NT1 9th on 18/ 301.41

With the FTD time set a 18/10.30 the times were incredibly close with one small mistake losing you several positions.

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Yokomo/CML driver Chris Grainger got off to a fantastic start to the defence of his BRCA National Touring Car title with a win at round one.

This year sees a number of changes to the format of BRCA touring nationals the biggest of these being less meetings but a two day format. There is also a new Pro Stock class.

Round one took place at one of Chris’ favorite tracks Aldershot and he was the early pace setter in the modified class. Overnight Chris held top spot in qualifying but was pipped to FTD by Olly Jefferies in the last round of wet qualifying. Lee Woodhams also secured an A final place with his Yokomo and he lined up seventh for the A final.

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Team Serpent UK got their National EP Championship campaign off to the perfect start over the weekend when the S400 filled the podium in Pro Stock at Round 1 of the BRCA Touring Car Nationals at Aldershot.

With 56 cars competing in the Pro Stock class it was Glen Westwood who TQ’d for the event ahead of team-mate Jay Westwood. In Leg 1 of the finals Jay got the best run to take the victory as Glen managed only 4th place. For Leg 2 and 3 the latter came good on his pole position and took both victories to claim the overall win from Jay while Mark Sadler took third for a superb Serpent S400 1-2-3 result.

Source : Serpent

Round 2 of the BRCA British 1:8 Nationals took place at Halifax yesterday were Team Serpent UK controlled proceedings to take the 960 ‘08 to a 1-2-3 result.

Having won the opening round of the championship at Brookland with Neil Diver, the team resumed as they had left off. In qualifying defending champion Mark Green took the TQ in the wet conditions and was joined by four other Serpent drivers on the grid for the Main Final.

With the track starting to dry during the final it was Tim Wood who made the most of the conditions to take the win ahead of team-mates Green and Pete Hastings.

Team Serpent UK will go for the hat trick of 1:8 wins on May 18th when the BRCA Nationals travels to Cotsworld for round 3.

Source : Serpent

The Second round of the BRCA 200mm Touring series took place at the fast flowing Brooklands track in south east England over the weekend. Once again the British weather was not looking good for the weekend, and Saturday proved a washout, on a very cold day, just as the track started to dry it rained again! It did give a chance for some more wet weather testing, which again showed the NT1 is awesome on rubber tyres!

Final results:

1 Darren Johnson XRAY NT1
2 Robin Hammet XRAY NT1
3 Gareth Bell XRAY NT1
4 Kyle Branson
5 Neal King
6 Stephen Brown
7 Aaron Wearn XRAY NT1
8 Adam Walker Catchpole
9 Mark Gilliland XRAY NT1
10 Jonathan Dobney

Darren Johnson Winning Set-up sheet.

Mark Gilliland Set-up sheet.

Source : XRAY

The first round of the BRCA Nationals for 1/5th bikes took place this weekend at Skipton, the weather was variable but generally cold and dry, another good test for the new experimental GRP bike tyres. After the wet testing at Cotswolds it was nice to finally get some dry track time in, and the abrasive Skipton Surface was a durability test into the bargain.

The new GRP stood up very well, in use on several bikes throughout the weekend. Drivers reported more stability than their current race tyres, and more grip all round, wet or dry than the current GRP tyres, by at least three fold. Yet at the end of the meeting the tyres looked like new with barely a mark on them.

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