At a very sunny Ledbury track it was the final round of the MKS sponsored winter Nitro X Cross Series – rescheduled from Nene Valley due to flooding. A field of over 50 drivers at this ever popular series, and finally some nice weather would mean it was going to be a great race day. It was the 6th and final round so series points and prizes were also up for grabs.
In Nitro Jon Howells was the front runner from Round one, the CML driver took the TQ in every round of qualifying with his AE – he dominated the qualifying and he was going to be hard to catch in the final – showing real pace and great consistency. Ben Billing, Chris Leighton and Lloyd Pit were fighting it out for the other top spaces, taking a 2nd place in each round each. Only separated by seconds these guys were scrapping on track all day and in the end Ben took the final round to take 2nd on the grid with Chris 3rd and Lloyd 4th.
In the electric class we had Chris Lovell take an easy TQ in the first 2 rounds with his RC Concepts powered MBX7r Eco, but Milan Dragojlovic took an impressive TQ in the final 2 rounds with his Tekin Powered MP9e. Mark Hicks and Rich Price showed good pace all day behind the top 2 and battled for 3rd with Mark managing it in the final round.
Onto finals – In the D final some unlucky qualifying put Josh Powney and Nathan Powney down the pecking order but putting the unfortunate qualifying behind them, they both showed there pace, with Josh taking a good win by a lap and Nathan taking 3rd. Young Simeon White finished in the middle of them – the young man taking a bump into the C final with ease.
In the C final – Josh once again showed his talent and he and his Sworkz Evo 2 took another win, Simon Davies and Colin Davies had a good on track battle over the 15min final and Simon just managed the 2nd place by only 5 seconds – all taking the bump up into the B.
In the B final there was some very close racing – all drivers very close in place, Gareth Oldfield and his Losi 4 took the win over Alex Page in second and a great drive by the AE of Mark Westwood took him from 8th to the final bump up place in 3rd.
In the A final it was all about Jon Howells – He lead from start to finish holding off the challenge from Sworkz driver Chris Leighton with fellow AE driver Jon Griffiths taking the final podium place of the day by just over a second from Matt Box and his Kyosho.
In the EBuggy final it was going to be between Chris Lovell and Milan, Chris had a great start and went on to take a fine win after an electrical problem meant Milan had to retire a few laps from the end. Rich Price and his XRAY took 2nd and Mark Hicks and his Techno took the 3rd spot.
Onto the series trophies and prizes they were very close. In the Nitro class it was Milan Dragojlovic that took the series by 1 point over Jon Howells and Chris Leighton with his great 2nd place at the final round had clinched 3rd in the championship.(Top 3 pictured below) Top Veteran was Jon Howells and Top Jnr was Aaron Ford.
In the electric class Chris Lovell (pictured below) with his TQ and win in the final round had secured the top spot and took the series overall from Stuart Harlow in 2nd and Huw Jenkins in 3rd. Top veteran was Tim Lucas. Top club in the series was Frankley.
A great end to a great series – thanks to all the NitroXcross guys and gals, the sponsors MKS for the great end of season prizes and of course all the clubs and competitors! And a big well done to Milan Dragojlovic and Chris Lovell on taking the respective series. For a full list of the results and all the series information go to http://nitroxcross.co.uk/