Dartford Centralised Event – May 19th 2002

The 4^th Centralised event of the 2002 season was held at the Dartford site on May 19^th on a day that turned out to be warm and sunny with a light breeze (despite bad forecasts the previous day). Only seven teams turned up on the day - Smith/Brown having travelled to the Paris Competition and Fry/Whorton also missing - as a result the round had to be mixed up to keep to the three up race pattern.

The first race was a hard race with Langworth/Broadhead having engine problems (most likely caused by dirt in the needle area) but Ross/Turner recording a 3:21.8 and Fitzgerald/Thomason 3:31.2.

The second race saw Miles/Yeldham put in a 3:39.5 with Tribe/Bollen doing loads of pitstops to record 4:30.9 and Walker/Peart retiring after 25 laps.

The third race saw a good performance from Langworth/Broadhead - putting in a 3:25.4 with Fitzgerald/Thomason recording a 3:33.3 and Barker/Tompkins having overheating problems to record 3:54.9.

The fourth race was rather a mess when, at the second stop, Walker/Peart caught the lines of Miles/Yeldham leaving Ross/Turner to finish on there own with a time of 3:14.5

The fifth race was similar to the previous one with Barker/Tompkins hooking up the lines of Walker/Peart leaving Langworth/Broadhead to put in an easy 3:28.0 the motor sounding good for the whole race.

The sixth race saw Fitzgerald/Thomason get it together putting in a clean 3:23.6 while Malcolm Ross failed to get the model out to Brian Turner and had to retire at the second stop. The third team in the race was Tribe/Bollen who recorded a 3:57.8

The seventh race was rather "pedestrian" with Barker/Tompkins recording 3:46.2, Walker/Peart 4:06.7 and Miles/Yeldham 4:02.3

The eighth race was nearly a combat event with both Bernie Langworth and Ron Tribe refusing to give way and standing still while overtaking and flying against Dick Miles who is rather a giant in the middle. A tangle was the result and all of the teams were luck to escape with just undercarriage and propeller damage for the first two teams and Miles/Yeldham managing to cut and land safely.

The ninth race brought nothing special - Fitzgerald/Thomason trying out other equipment (non-Yugov) to record a 3:52.0, Walker/Peart recording a 4:21.9 and Miles/Yeldham retiring on 43 laps.

Tribe/Bollen and Langworth/Broadhead elected not to fly again (as they wanted to try other equipment out) so the final race was between Ross/Turner (recording a 3:21.7), Miles/Yeldham (recording a 3:45.5) and Barker/Tompkins (recording 4:28.9)

No Final was held with all of the racing completed by 4:00 pm and a number teams staying on to try out new gear.

Thanks again go to Dave Rudd for acting as CD on the Day

League Points were awarded as follows :-