2016 Brabham Trophy

[Mark Fox]

Well the Brabham (Sir Jack Brabham thank you very much) Trophy was up for grabs at Raceworld on Saturday 23 July and a talented field were out to get their name on it.
After my car being destroyed in 2014 where Cody won and being well beaten into 2nd by Lindsay in 2015 I wanted to be that person. Interestingly Cody and Lindsay used the same car (built by USA racer Tommy Flyth) to win in both years.

After the previous year’s placing I built a new F1 based on Tommy’s build (an obviously successful design) and up to race day it held the track record at 3.9710, the total laps record at 336 and in fact had never been beaten on Raceworlds' King.

Having ‘smashed’ the field in the June round of the F1 at Raceworld I felt my form was good was very keen to be the one.

The three main obstacles I saw were that - as they say wrt the stock market - past performance is not necessarily an indication of future performance; an additional hurdle in my mind was that one of the previous 2 winners; Cody Bramble; was not part of the ‘smashed’ field from the previous month! Of course there were another 8 hurdles being the remainder of the field of 10 starters that eventually lined up for the honour of getting their name on the trophy.

The proceedings started off with a CanAm race to get everybody warmed up, 9 entries for this and a round robin event was the format.

CanAm
Qualifying
Only me with sub 4 sec laps with 4.951 the best to take TQ.

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The Race
Cars L-R
Brad, Bob, Mark, Lindsay, Darryl, Phill, Jake, Neil and Cody at the rear

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Racers
R-L
Brad, Bob, Mark, Lindsay, Darryl, Phill, Jake, Neil and Cody in Front

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An all the way win for me with Cody 5 laps down followed by Lindsay 13 laps further back closely followed by Bob.

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The CanAm Podium cars
L-R
Cody, Mark and Lindsay.

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My Chassis @ 103 gms

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Cody and Lindsay ran these @ 100 gms

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Now for the reason we were here – The Brabham F1 Trophy race.

F1 Brabham Trophy
With 10 starters there was to be two sit-outs for the main for TQ and runner-up and a semi to decide the other 6 main entries.
Qualifying
Well Cody set the track on fire here with a fast lap of 3.8996 to blow my old record of 3.9710 by 0.0714 whilst I could not break 4 secs and finished on 4.0555 closely followed by Wayne on 4.0991.

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The Race
Cody and I had earned the two sit-outs for the Main whilst the remaining 8 had a shoot-out Semi with the top 6 spots going to the Main.
The Semi
Cars L-R
Brad, Wayne, Phill, Neil, Bob, Lindsay, Jake, Darryl (with Mark and Cody at the rear)

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Racers R-L
Brad, Wayne, Phill, Neil, Bob, Lindsay, Jake and Darryl

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Lindsay, Wayne and Phill had a great battle for the first 3 spots and in fact finished on the same lap with Lindsay prevailing over Wayne by 0.932 of a sec who finished 0.274 ahead of Phill.

Brad ran into awful trouble and did not proceed after the 2nd bracket whilst Darryl who was looking good going into the last bracket only to fade and finish 7th only 0.211 secs behind Jake who grabbed the last move-up only a lap ahead of Neil. Bob just cruised around and basically held down 4th all the way to secure his spot in the main.

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The Main
Cars L-R
Wayne, Mark, Phill, Lindsay, Cody, Jake, Bob and Neil

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Racers R-L
Wayne, Mark, Phill, Lindsay, Cody, Jake, Bob and Neil

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Cody took off like a bat out of hell (thanks Meatloaf) and set a new bracket record of 45 laps including a hot lap of 3.957 to leave Lindsay and myself adrift by 3 laps after 1 bracket. My dream of being ‘the one’ faded further after collecting a little traffic on Red to be in 4th and 6 laps adrift of Cody at the end of the 2nd bracket

The 3rd bracket saw Jake and Neil retire whilst I clawed back to 3rd; one lap behind Lindsay; now only 5 behind Cody. At this stage I thought there was hope as Cody was very importantly NOT getting further ahead. Bracket 4 saw Phill retire leaving only 5 racers whilst I got the jump on Lindsay to take 2nd by 2 laps. Lindsay was ahead of Wayne by 2 who lead Bob by 11. More importantly (for me though) was that I was only 3 laps off the leader.

Things stayed pretty much the same for the next 2 brackets until the 7th where I did a really solid 44 laps to be on the same lap as Cody but about 2 secs behind. We were both finishing on good lanes adjacent to each other and so it was anybody’s race although I felt I had momentum on my side.

Sure enough I caught Cody after about a minute and in a passing move; around the outside on the finger no less; took the lead and then added another lap to take the flag and Brabham Trophy with a new laps record of 337. Lindsay held down 3rd with Wayne only 2 laps down in 4th whilst Bob nursed his slowing car across the line for 5th.

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The F1 Podium Cars L-R
Cody, Mark and Lindsay

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Racers Podium - Both Races - L-R
Cody, Mark and Lindsay

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Neils' cars - beautiful as always

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Mid-Race action from the Race Control

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To say I was stoked would definitely be an understatement.

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[SlotBaker]

Well done Mark, congratulations.

Thanks for the photo's and report.

[neiljb]

Ditto Slot Baker Mark. Thanks for your passion.