Here come the girls!… and a few lads!

So this was it.. the weekend we had been waiting for as a family and all the ladies and juniors had been building up to. This year, it was hosted by Radford Autograss, a track we visit regularly. They put on a superb venue and track to race on and it produced some interesting and brilliant finals!

After making his first big final at UKAC round 1 earlier this year, 11 year old Cory Mumford ended his first Saturday of nationals joint top qualifier alongside another team mate Tia Rees both on two wins. The pressure can get to you at a nationals, but we had never seen such a cool and calm driver as Cory was. Cory sailed through the heats taking a win in each one which put him into the quarter finals and the superstar won that too! On to the semi finals, this was a hugely difficult race where 16 of the best cars battled it out for that all important place in the final, Cory had a largely difficult semi final, but again took the win! So now it was finals time for this 11 year old who is now the youngest ever person to make a national final, some achievement! After having a good start, unfortunately Cory hit a wet patch and put him to the back of the pack, but he never stopped trying to catch up and gradually decreased the gap between him and the cars in front and had a brilliant experience of his first national final!

Also making her first big final at BAS round 1 this year, 14 year old Tia Rees also had an extremely good run through 2 heats, winning both leaving her top qualifier alongside Cory over night. Tia made the quarter final and finished second to Cory in her semi final. She remained calm and focused as she entered the final and enjoyed her racing in a class that she only has a year left of! Tia got up to third in her final sitting there comfortably for the duration of the race.

With 85 Junior Specials signed on, we were thrilled to have 3 of our juniors make the very nerve racking national final. The 3rd was Adam Robinson. Adam had a brilliant set of results in the heats and sailed through to the final keeping his composure and realising you really don’t have to push hard if you are already in the top 4 of the quarters and semi finals.. this is where the experience came in as Adam is now in his final year of juniors. Adam had a very mature and focussed head on at the nationals and we are grateful to have him on the team! Adam finished a brilliant 2nd in the national final! this is an amazing achievement!

We are hugely proud of our juniors this weekend, they’ve shown such maturity and skill and we cant wait to see what else they have to offer!

Next we move on to the ladies!

We had a great little team of ladies class 8s heading for the national title this year with Emma Shell, Sue Nicholls, Aby Bennett and Terri Mumford

Sue Nicholls car has had a change of backend after son Liam rolled the car just a week before the previous BAS round. Since then she has had a bigger steering wheel fitted and is now feeling more comfortable being behind the wheel of the car. Sue has plenty of experience and definitely knows how to drive. Unfortunately, Sue had a coming together with another driver in heat 3 and a black flag in heat 2, which meant her nationals was over and the luck of the nationals had struck again.

Emma Shell races on a polished surface regularly down at her local of Invicta Kent, so this surface was nothing new for her. She was very nervous on the day, but pulled it out of the bag having excellent results in the heats putting her just a few places off her first ever national final. Emma was pleased with the progress she made this weekend and we are sure we will see Emma in that final very soon!

Terri Mumford had a brilliant weekend in her class 8, she was a absolutely flying in some heats and had excellent results but unfortunately was just a few places from the big final, out of 45 ladies, finishing in the top 8 is extremely difficult to do. Terri knew the nationals was all about luck on the day but she kept going and was battling everyone she was thrown in with and dealing with contact along the way!

Our very own Aby Bennett never really got on with Radford since making the jump into class 8, but being joint top qualifier over night meant everything to her and the family in what was an extremely competitive class. Having a 4th in the 3rd heat just scrapped her into the final which shows the competitiveness in itself! After a few changes and many re -runs over the weekend, we were delighted to be awarded the second place trophy and to stand on the podium next to some brilliant ladies, and the highlight of the weekend was being the given the trophy by Graham who makes it all happen!

Ladies class 10 also produced some brilliant racing for the amount there were. We are thrilled to say that we have a national champion in the frame of Aly Ashmore who took a clean sweep of wins all through the weekend, as well as this Jodie Paskell finished an excellent 3rd in the final and picked up a pot to take home! A huge congratulations to both of you on these fantastic achievements.

We also had a finalist in class 7. Chloe Bishop fought all weekend for her place in the final and qualified a brilliant 5th for the biggest final of the year! Congratulations Chloe!

We would like to congratulate all of Team BB on their achievements and results over the men’s and Ladies and Junior nationals. The team has so much potential.. now lets finish BAS and UKAC off in style!!

2 more rounds to go… but who will be in that top 4???