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What a fantastic end to our first AFX Endurance Championship! It was close race and
ended up a battle between two teams with captains who were racing at the Barn for
the first time. And the championship went to a junior racer -
You can study the results by clicking on the tables to the right. All the pictures,
tables and diagrams enlarge if you click on them. Plus there are loads more pictures
on Flickr and a video of the night’s action is on YouTube -
Race Report
The fourth and final race of our inaugural AFX Endurance Championship would see our first WHO AFX Endurance champion crowned. Ryan had won the first three races, captaining his teams to impressive victories in his debut season at WHO. That left the youngster in a commanding position in the AFX standings.
The title was effectively sealed when Ryan turned up and second-
We welcomed Reuben, Owen and Aidan to the Barn for their first taste of WHO action.
Jerome and Peter made their AFX Endurance debuts, making it a grand total of forty-
Segment one
The drivers were seeded from positions in the championship table and fairly equal
teams selected. Every team had a junior racer as their captain, including newcomers
Aidan and Owen. The first group of three teams to race had the teams led by Ryan,
Alex and Oliver -
Pretty much everyone expected the second group of teams to take time to get up to
pace. The Silverstone track was fast, but could easily catch you out and it was steep
learning curve for the new drivers -
Segment two
Those impressive first round results proved no flash in the pan. The group of experienced
captains upped their game in the second fifteen minutes, with Ryan's Flaming Trax
again top scoring with 159 laps in blue. Again, all three teams in the second group
went better. This time it was Owen's 'Team Zombie' that set a huge 175 laps score
in blue to win the segment and go into the lead of the race, leap-
Sometimes in these team races there can be a big difference between performance and scores in different lanes. Yellow did have a couple of particularly tricky corners, the blue car was really fast (as usual) and the white car was down on power. However, most teams were setting pretty consistent scores and it suddenly looked like it would be a challenge to close some of those gaps.
Segment three
The white car was becoming an issue. Alex's 'Beyond Cool' noticed a drop in performance,
but set a decent score due to having no crashes. When 'The Monsters' took over the
car for its sixth and final run, the lap times were three seconds off the pace and
slowing, so we decided to swap it for the spare car. That car was much quicker, but
more crashy. And The Monsters did crash a lot, getting a less than ideal score and
dropping them to third place overall. Tough luck, but that's the sometimes heart-
Elsewhere in this third segment, Oliver's 'Let's Turn Left' suddenly found some form
-
Segment four
By now Ryan had pretty much accepted he wouldn't get his clean sweep of four race
win plus the championship. He wasn't too upset though. In fact he was rather pleased
with the prospect of being crowned champion. Along with John and Reuben, Flaming
Trax managed an okay score in yellow to finish off the evening for them. That first
group were having their own battle for fourth place and it was 'Beyond Cool' -
So it was all down to the final three teams. The maths was fairly straightforward.
If Aidan's Aces (in red lane) could beat The Zombies (in yellow) by a smidgeon under
eight laps, they would win the race. The Monsters needed a miracle -
The team captains were up first and Jerome was off like a shot for The Monsters. A car issue for Aidan meant the race was paused, the car fixed and we were off again with the Aces dropping a couple of laps. Owen was driving superbly in yellow, really piling the pressure on his pursuers and handing over to Andy with a two laps lead over the Aces. Simon tried to take the fight to Team Zombie, but Andy was driving smoothly, keeping the yellow car on the track and successfully defending that two lap lead. Ahead of them both, Peter was busy building a handy lead. At the final driver change of the race, The Monsters led by twelve laps and Team Zombie held a three lap lead over Aiden's Aces.
Duncan needed to turn the three lap deficit into an eight lap lead to win the race. He had five minutes to do it. Ash would need all his experience and his famous nerves of steel to hold him off. Meanwhile Terry was building a bigger lead and closing the overall gap. The room stayed hushed as the three drivers concentrated fully on their task at hand.
Duncan was driving beautifully, caught Ash and passed him. Ash didn't panic and stayed
focused. With the clock running down, Duncan needed to push harder and a couple of
errors slightly eased the pressure for Ash. Duncan had managed to stretch out a small
gap and Terry was piling on the laps. As we passed thirty seconds to go, none of
those gaps was anywhere near enough -
As the chequered flag finally fell, The Monsters had set by far the best score of
the night -
After the traditional team photographs and medal presentation to the race winners,
it was time to congratulate Ryan on his championship win. It has been a remarkable
story -
A big thank you goes to everyone who has helped make this inaugural AFX season so
excellent -
Our 2018 AFX Endurance Championship starts in the Easter holidays on Wednesday 11 April.
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<< Back to AFX 2017 season page
