The Brits suffered mixed fortunes. Zack Humphries continued his winning streak with 1st place in 3.5cc after an incredible battle with Sebastien Videmont of France. He wasn’t unfortunately able to repeat the same heroics in the 15cc after a spin put paid to his chances. Fellow Brit Robert Daniel made the 3.5cc A final and finished 8th. Robert unluckily missed out on the 7.5cc A final after a penalty and transponder issues. David Humphries took a respectable 5th place in the 7.5cc A Final with the first race of his CMB 45 M-Line powered Drakkon. Dave Marles and Phill Fields were both out of luck this weekend.

Photos

3.5cc Final
7.5cc Final
15cc Final
27cc Final
Results
Podiums

GB Team Qualifiers for the iMBRA 2020 World Championships – Click for full-size

3.5cc – 5 places to eliminate

Zack Humphries has a place and doesn’t need to eliminate. (Current World Champ & European Champ). So 6 places in total available. (5 from Egletons – Zack and Dave got in the final plus an extra place due to Zack winning the league last year is 6 in total) less the place taken by Keith as NDC winner left 5 up for grabs.
With 5 up for grab, a non-stop run would probably be enough to qualify. Phill Fields sets the benchmark in Final 1 with an impressive 80 laps which proved enough to secure him top qualifying spot. 4 out of the 5 qualifiers secured their spot with their Final 1 scores. Final 2 was very low-scoring apart from Dave Marles, who made an excellent recovery from a troublesome first round to take overall 2nd qualifying place behind Phill. Julian Waumsley took 3rd and Robert Daniel 4th. Nigel Smith took the final qualifying spot in 5th place having bought Andy Payne’s 3.5 boat after damaging his own in Putten.

7.5cc – 3 places to eliminate

4 places available less the place taken by Julian as NDC winner left 3 places up for grabs
With only 3 places available and 10 boats entered, we were assured of some intense racing ending with both joy and heartbreak. It brought into focus just how important the Drivers Championship was this year, with a very relieved Julian Waumsley not needing to race. Martin Fields had obviously been weighing up the odds due to the continued inconsistency of his Jekyll and took the decision to buy Evert de Ronde’s 8-Ball in Putten. A wise choice as it propelled Martin to top qualifying spot on 86 laps, 2 ahead of Nigel Smith. Dave Humphries stoic first round drive with his Ikarus and OS .28 proved enough for the final qualifying spot, leaving usual suspects Ross Waumsley, Dave Marles and an incredibly unlucky Robert Daniel rueing the missed opportunity.

15cc – 4 places to eliminate

Zack Humphries has a place and doesn’t need to eliminate (Current European Champ) so 5 places available, less the place taken by James Taylor as NDC winner left 4 places up for grabs
A dominant 98 Lap 1st round drive by Phill Fields, assured him of the team place as top qualifier. The Fields brothers had now scored a hat-trick! – top qualifiers in all 3 classes entered. Sam Lincoln managed to solve his 1st round bogging and won the second final with 83 laps to take overall 3rd qualifying spot behind Ross Waumsley , with the final spot going to Mikey Hillstead, whose aggressive driving is very entertaining to watch but could easily have cost him his place.

27cc – 3 places to eliminate

4 places available, less the place taken by James Taylor as NDC winner left 3 places up for grabs.
No qualifying race was necessary after a withdrawal meant only 3 drivers needed a place.

35cc – 1 place to eliminate

4 places available, only 3 entries so far, 1 place up for grabs

Explanation of the places available for the GB Team at iMBRA 2020 World Championships.

3.5cc – 5 places to eliminate

Already qualified:

Zack has a place and doesn’t need to eliminate. (Current World Champ & European Champ). So 6 places in total available. (5 from Egletons – Zack and Dave got in the final plus an extra place due to Zack winning the league last year is 6 in total) less the place taken by Keith as NDC winner leaves 5 up for grabs.
Depending on the final results of this years league Phill may end up with the wild card. Zack has won the league and Phill is currently second. If Phill remains in second place the wildcard will pass to him because Zack doesn’t need it.

7.5cc – 3 places to eliminate

Already qualified:

4 places available less the place taken by Julian as NDC winner leaves 3 places up for grabs

15cc – 4 places to eliminate

Already qualified:

Zack has a place and doesn’t need to eliminate (Current European Champ) so 5 places available, less the place taken by James as NDC winner leaves 4 places up for grabs

27cc – 3 places to eliminate

Already qualified:

4 places available, less the place taken by James as NDC winner leaves 3 places up for grabs.

35cc – 2 places to eliminate

Already qualified:

4 places available, only 2 entries so far, 2 places up for grabs

3.5cc

Round 1 Heat 1
Unsurprisingly, the early 3.5 heats were relatively low-scoring as the windy conditions made life difficult for the small and lightweight boats. Richard den Hartog of the Netherlands lead the way in heat 1 with 49 laps with Dave Clay his only serious challenger. Best lap – Keith Burgess (GB) 21.023

3.5cc Final

A closely fought final saw Zack Humphries (GB) finish just 7 seconds in front of Christian Hof (DE), with Richard den Hartog (NL) in 3rd. Zack has pretty much dominated the 3.5cc class for the last 4 years and whilst the result was not really surprising, it was good to see him pushed by Chris right up to the final lap. Keith Burgess (GB) could only manage 5th place, but this is enough to assure him of the best 5 results in the Drivers Championship and a GB Team place for iMBRA 2020 in Italy, as Dave Hole trails Keith by 15 (Best 5) and can only make a 13 point net gain at Brentwood even if Keith has a DNS. A lesson to learn from this race is that fair communication of race position should be made available to all racers. Best lap – Zack Humphries 17.766

3.5cc podium – 1st Zack Humphries (GB), 2nd Christian Hof (DE), 3rd Richard den Hartog (NL)

Top Junior, Thomas

7.5cc

Round 1 Heat 1
Mick Fields (GB) brought along his new Jekyll, the 2nd version of the hull designed by son Martin, and just edged out Ludo Smeets from Belgium on the same lap for the heat win. Not bad for his first race with the new boat! Ludo drives his own design hull. Best lap – Andrew Aykroyd (GB) 18.370

7.5cc Final

A fast start from Dave Marles (GB) saw him lead the first 5 laps until he was passed by Martin Fields (GB). A good battle followed between Dave and Martin – Dave passed Martin at lap 23 but then had a spin, allowing Martin to extended his lead. Martin looked nailed on for the win until he stopped and was overtaken by eventual winner Mark van Ieperen (NL) on lap 72. Mark finished with 91 laps, 4 clear of Ludo Smeets (BE) in 2nd and 10 laps clear of Mick Fields (GB) in 3rd. A lot of attrition in the final meant only 4 boats finished the race. Julian Waumsley finished as 4th placed Brit, which gave him a net 17 point gain in the Drivers Championship over Robert Daniel, which means the GB Team Place is going down to the wire at Brentwood on 29th. Fastest lap – Dave Marles 17.048 | Positions by lap

7.5cc podium – 1st Mark van Ieperen, 2nd Ludo Smeets, 3rd Mick Fields

15cc

Round 1 Heat 1
Phill Fields (GB) got his usual lightning start and led from hooter to hooter, finishing on 66 laps which earned him top qualifying spot for the final. An unfortunate engine breakage for Dave Marles (GB) on lap 16 allowed Richard den Hartog to gain 2nd place and keep it to the end Richard would go on to improve his score by one lap in round 2. Best lap – Dave Marles 16.287

.

.

15cc Final

15cc podium – 1st Evert de Ronde Jr, 2nd Zack Humphries, 3rd Dieter Smeets

27cc

The 27cc class was run as 2 finals, best score to count.
Final 1
Mick Pain (GB) drove steadily in the windy conditions to win the first final with 80 laps, 2 in front of Mark van Ieperen (NL). Sunday was predicted to be much better weather and this score would most likely be beaten.
Best lap – James Taylor 15.881

.

Final 2
Christian Hof (DE) led the whole race almost from the start and only an agonisingly late stop on lap 96, handed James Taylor (GB) the win by 1 lap and the overall 27cc win. Christian was understandably upset, especially since this apparently wasn’t the first time this had happened. At least I had the opportunity to learn some new German swear words!
Best lap – Mark van Ieperen (NE) 16.067

.

27cc podium – 1st James Taylor, 2nd Christian Hof, 3rd Terry Holmes

Summary

We saw some great performances by MPBA members with 2 wins and 5 overall podium places out of a possible 12. The racing was excellent over the 2 days and was superbly organised by the committee.

See HERE for details (In Italian).

Related : Full Multi Calendar

Like this? Why not share it

So what do we have to look forward to in the 2019 domestic Circuit season?

3.5cc Hydro – 2018 winner Keith Burgess

As section chairman, Keith will normally be at all the Circuit races, which will give him an advantage in 3.5cc Hydro against the LM Racing crew of Martin and Phill Fields plus Leon Morgan (Maybe), who are all more focused on International competitions. Both Dave Marles and Dave Pillman occasionally run 3.5cc Hydro but have yet to get to grips with 3.5cc reliability-wise. Another win for Keith then.

7.5cc Hydro – 2018 winner Derek Owen

This is the one to watch! A big field for 2019 – Derek, Chas Tedder, Armen Boldy, Steve Clements, Martin Fields and newcomers Dave Pillman and Gary Wraight. No doubt, we’ll see some ‘thrills and spills’ from Dave and Gary whilst they try to get to grips with Hydro racing, so we’ll make sure to have the camera ready to capture those priceless disintegration moments! Any one of the other 4 could take the title in 2019, but Dereks consistency (And many spare boats) may edge it again.

15cc / 27cc Hydro – 2018 winner Armen Boldy

With Richard Harris now based in the Southwest, he’s unlikely to make it to Elmbridge much, so the 2019 field will comprise of Armen, Dave Marles (With his 27cc rigger) and Phill Fields. It was pretty close between Armen and Dave last year and could have gone either way. We expect a similar outcome in 2019, with Phill probably out of the picture by not attending all the races.

3.5cc Offshore – 2018 winner Miha Folkson

There are no separate junior classes in UK Circuit, and Miha beat all the seniors last year including his World Champion dad Ian. Our Juniors in fact, took the first 3 places in this class. We expect a fightback in 2019 from Ian and MPBA Chairman Mick Fields, but we predict another junior win.

7.5cc Offshore – 2018 winner Adrian Marshall

There’s a decent sized field in 7.5cc Offshore and we expect strong challenges from Mick Buonaiuto, Dave Marles, Julian Waumsley and Chas Tedder. Mick probably has the best boat if he can drive aggressively enough.

15cc Offshore – 2018 winner Les Wall

A fairly comfortable win in 2018 for Les, but Mick Buonaiuto has the speed to win it if he turns up to all the races. Dave Marles would also be in with a shout if he enters every race, but his 15cc boat has been a bit unreliable of late. We’d go for Les again.

35cc Offshore – 2018 winner Werner Bester

Werner is super consistent, and it’s hard to see him being beaten in 2019, especially while the usual suspects Mark Wraight, Dave Marles, Mark Rice and now Dave Pillman race each other full-on and inevitably take each other out. We’re looking forward to some spectacular action shots in this class!

Sport 60 – 2018 winner Les Wall

In the fun class, Les is quick and reliable. Probably only Thomas has the speed to beat Les, so uncle Steve Clements needs to make sure Thomas’ Silak is reliable if he is going to challenge Les in 2019

Some things to be aware of:

• All the photos are reduced in size for speed of access. The originals are 5472 x 3648 (20mp). For the most part, all these are 800 x 600
• None of the photos have been checked for quality or content. That means there may be some that are completely out of focus, too light or too dark, have an odd colour cast, have half the boat in the picture or some other quality issue
• If the photo(s) you are interested in are in focus but have some other quality issue, then it is probably possible to fix them to an acceptable level in photoshop – The blue colour cast on photos taking in early morning for example is easily fixed, as are overly dark or light images for the most part
• It is also easy to crop the images. For example if the boat is too small relative to the frame. The original image is much larger in size than the ones in these galleries, so you can cut a small section out without too much quality loss
• To request a hi-res version (Maximum 5 per person), please email webmaster@mpba.org.uk. You must quote the date(s) and image numbers. You can find these by clicking the “i” (info) icon in google photos. If you send a message saying “The blue boat in heat 5” or some other vague description, I cannot help you.

Here’s a couple of examples (click to enlarge):

Gallery image:

Photoshop image:

Gallery image:

Photoshop image:

Gallery image:

Photoshop image:

Galleries

Sunday 29th July
Monday 30th July
Tuesday 31st July
Wednesday 1st August
Thursday 2nd August
Friday 3rd August
Saturday 4th August H & O Finals
Saturday 4th August H & O Finals pt2
Monday 6th August
Tuesday 7th August
Wednesday 8th August
Thursday 9th August
Thursday 9th August pt2
Friday 10th August
Saturday 11th August Endurance Finals
Saturday 11th August Endurance Finals pt2