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E2K Britisch Nationals 2011:


This year twenty one competitors, sixteen C2000 and five E2K pilots including two very experienced Dutch pilots, made the journey to breezy Barkston to fly on the small course to battle it out for the title of British Champion.
Racing for this group traditionally begins on the Saturday morning but before any racing takes place it is all hands on deck to assemble the course which normally takes about twenty minutes of work that is ably co-ordinated by Graham Clark, the Competition Director for the weekend.
With an expectation to fly fourteen qualifying heats there was no time to waste and the racing was underway by ten o’ clock.
The object of the qualifying races is to gather enough times to qualify for the all-important final on Monday.
At the end of the first day of racing there were only five racers who had a full set of times most of whom were all running in the low seventy second bracket with Justin O’ Dell being the fastest of them all with a blistering 68 second run in the fourth heat.
Meanwhile in E2K, the electric version of C2000, it was newcomer Ian Smith who was the only racer with a full set of times.
The quickest time of the day in this class going to Stuart Mc Farlane with a time of 75.67 seconds.
Sunday sees the FAI racers miss out on the Sunday swap meet to fly in the morning whilst the C2000 competitors can take it easy over a leisurely breakfast and a stroll round the trade area before committing to the skies at around one o’ clock in the afternoon.
Although the wind was a bit stronger than that of the Saturday it seemed to have little effect on the results, but the pressure of trying to amass enough qualifying times was beginning to take its toll on some. Wubbo Loning, last year’s E2K winner was beginning to show his form as he worked his way down to a 77.64, just a few hundredths of a second shy of the quickest E2K time of the day, once again set by Mc Farlane.
By the end of Sunday it was the usual suspects finding their way to the top of the leaderboard, some had already done enough to qualify for their final and would sleep easy; for others it was all still in the balance with some unfortunately requiring three times from three races on the Monday morning.
Having run the remainder of the heats on Monday morning it was time to run the semi finals and finals.
With the finalists decided the scene was set for the cut and thrust of the finals that would decide the champions for the following year. The biggest disappointment must have been felt by Steve Toyer who flew a very tidy 76.41 in his semi, only to find himself missing out on a place in the final by a mere three hundredths of a second!!
The first final to be run was C2000 Group 2 which saw Pete O’ Dell turn in a very credible 82.64 to take the title form Frank Fletcher (92.11) and Roger Watson (93.57).
The C2000 Group 1 final was to have been a race between Martin Newis, Mick Illingworth and Neil Gill.
At the first attempt an unfortunate midair saw the demise of Neil Gill who stood a very good chance of taking the win but with no spare model his race was run and he would ultimately finish third.
The re-run was a very interesting battle with Mick Illingworth having to carry a 10% cut penalty from the first run.
Newis flew a steady course as Illingworth pulled out all the stops in his attempt to effectively unlap himself, a task that he would fail to achieve by just two seconds giving a delighted Newis the 2011 British Championship.
In E2K the top qualifier was Mc Farlane followed by Thorpe and Loning.
This promised to be a close race with all three racers being capable of winning the title.
From the off Mc Farlane took the lead and was pulling away until he cut number two pylon, however at the end his time of 73.7 plus the added 10% penalty for the cut was still sufficient for him to be crowned the 2011 E2K National Champion.




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