oOple Invitational 2014

This weekend was the 5th running of the oOple Invernational at the RobinHood Raceway Dirt track. The event could be seen as a pre-warmup for both drivers and organisers for the upcoming 2015 European Championships that the club will host. The club had worked exceptionally hard to have a perfectly prepared track for racers arriving for Friday practice. As with most oOple events, there is a very relaxed atmosphere and the organisers had put on many off-track activates for racers, spectators and families alike so everyone could enjoy themselves.

On track, the great British weather made things difficult with a large downpour Friday evening. The club were out in force on  Saturday morning to make sure the track was ready for action, just 15 minutes behind schedule, a great job by all involved. Saturday would see 4 rounds of qualifying, followed by 1 leg of finals for everyone. As it turned out, the weather on Sunday would see just Saturdays single leg count for the overall meeting.

Qualifying was dominated by one man, Neil Cragg. He took TQ in both 2wd and 4wd, but not by margins that he was used to. He had close competition in both classes and as the track evolved over the day it set up the racers and spectators for some good racing in the finals.

4wd was up first, and Tom Cockerill took the race to Neil Cragg, closely following him for the first 4 minutes until Neil made a small error. This let Tom through and he was able to keep the lead until the end, taking the win. 2wd was the final race of the day and a similar story unfolded. This time it was Ben Jemison who followed Neil, and capitalised on a rare mistake from him, allowing Ben to take the win, followed by Neil and Tom. In Short Course, Adam Skelding successfully defended his 2013 title taking the win once again.