[woodcote]

Stage Four: Northdown Farm

Winner: Mike Dadson, NSR Abarth Punto S2000

   

Another brand new stage, designed at lunchtime and built at the Barn a few hours later. This takes as its starting point the roundabout at the north end of Titnore Lane, but then takes a sharp right to Northdown Farm. The Ninco tarmac is certainly more pristine than the real thing, but it gives drivers a succession of tight inner radius corners to tackle. The farm end of the stage has the second HobbyClassic return loop. As with the Titnore Lane stage, we can develop some elevation changes in the future...

   

In the battle for the rally win, this was the first stage for Andy's group and the penultimate stage for Mike. Would that have an impact on the results?

   

The club car runners had an SCX Renault Mégane for this stage and Kevin again showed excellent pace with RX-motored machinery. He beat James and Stephen for another club car stage win, but all three were covered by just over a second this time. After his brilliant showing on the Boulevard, James looked like he had bagged club car honours.

Jeremy's Scalextric and SCX challenge faltered on this stage, Steve's vintage Impreza the fastest Scalextric car and Andy's Fiat 124 topping the SCX times. John was second in both categories and Jeremy third - probably enough for a pair of 25 points, but we'd have to wait and see. Ollie had another solid run with his Subaru, six seconds ahead of fellow junior Isaac's Ninco Lancer EVO.

   

At the front, Mike finally hooked up an error-free run with his rapid NSR Abarth Punto S2000, finishing fourth hundredths of a second ahead of Oliver's SRC 914/6. Oliver grabbed third quickest time with the Scaleauto RS200, leaving the two rally-leading cars in fourth and fifth. Crucially, Andy's Impreza was ahead by 0.17 of a second...

   

All four groups finished in good time, leaving Ollie and Andy to enter the last of the data...