Dartford F2C Centralised Event - April 24th 1999

    This was the third Centralised Meeting of 1999 for the F2C teams and took place at the Lakeside Coack Park. Unfortunately, due to site maintenance, no cars were able to access the site and competitors had to carry their kit over from the nearby Safeways supermarket. The weather was warm and dry with just a light breeze. Flying got underway at noon but a shortage of entries caused 1/2A and British Goodyear to be cancelled thus making F2C the only event of the day.

    The first round was full of incidents including run-ins, line-snags and poor engine settings etc... and, as a result, many of the top teams were prevented from recording times. The only teams to record sub 3:40's were Hill/Metcalfe with a 3:31 and Smith/Brown flying a new Mazniak powered model and putting in a 3:39.

    The second round showed improvements by a couple of the top teams with Ross/Turner putting in a 3:27.1 and Fitzgerald/Thomason with 3:37.6 - Smith/Brown also managed to chop off two and a half seconds putting in a 3:36.4 but other teams were still suffering with poor engine settings and, at the half way stage, the times were generally rather slow.

    The third round brought the fastest time of the day with Ross/Turner recording a 3:20.2 well ahead of the competition (and much more in line with their ability) but apart from this time there was nothing else worth mentioning in this round.

    In the fourth round Smith/Brown managed to chop another fraction off their time with a 3:35.7 and held 3rd spot for the final until Langworth/Campbell managed (at last) to put a time in and pipped them for 3rd final place by just 0.3 seconds with 3:35.4.

    The final, therefore, should have been Ross/Turner, Hill/Metcalfe and Langworth/Campbell but the second placed team were unable to fly as they had no model due to motor problems. Smith/Brown therefore took the third slot into the final.

    All teams got away ok at the start but both Ross/Turner and Smith/Brown suffered early overheating problems and several adjustments. Langworth/Campbell also needed a compression change at the half distance but ran on to win with a time of 7:14.2. The other teams were close throughout with Ross/Turner taking second place just over 2 laps ahead of Smith/Brown at the end of the 200 laps. The final was flown very cleanly and only two warnings were given in the whole race.

    Thanks again go to Gordon Yeldham for organising provision of the site (how about a courtesy bus from Safeways next time Gordon ?) and for Dave Rudd for running the competition.

Heat 1

Heat 2

Heat 3

Heat 4

Final

1

Langworth/Campbell

ret

67.0

3

55.0

ret

32.0

3

35.4

7

14.2

2

Ross/Turner

3

59.3

3

27.1

3

20.2

3

43.5

7

43.6

3

Smith/Brown

3

39.0

3

36.4

ret

57.0

3

35.7

7

48.7

4

Hill/Metcalfe

3

31.0

3

31.4

ret

63.0

3

27.7

5

Fitzgerald/Thomason

ret

50.0

3

37.6

4

29.7

ret

10.0

6

Barker/Bollen

3

46.8

4

03.0

4

27.4

ret

50.0

7

Radcliffe/Yeldham

3

53.8

3

55.8

3

49.1

ret

34.0

8

Miles Banks

ret

98.0

3

48.6

3

52.8

ret

34.0

9

Walker/Peart

dnf

ret

26.0

4

37.1

ret

11.0

    League Points from this Competition were awarded as follow :-

Ent

Plc

Fin

Imp

Tot

Langworth/Campbell

1

5

2

0

8

Ross/Turner

1

4

2

0

7

Smith/Brown

1

2

2

0

5

Hill/Metcalfe

1

3

0

0

4

Fitzgerald/Thomason

1

1

0

0

2

Barker/Bollen

1

0

0

2

3

Radcliffe/Yeldham

1

0

0

0

1

Miles Banks

1

0

0

0

1

Walker/Peart

1

0

0

0

1

    note :- Hill/Metcalfe were awarded 3rd place points for league purposes but Smith/Brown were awarded the final points having taken the empty slot.