The first running of Phil Haines' brain child - the Pro-trak On-road Club Challenge - had its opening round through the Durham MCCC at the Nissan Sports Hall, Washington on Sunday 26th November 2000.

It had been hoped that we would get entries from Carlisle and Darlington, but they withdrew for some reason. This left just 4 clubs with entries. Durham, Teesside, Long Benton and South Shields. Teesside were able to put together 3 teams so there were 6 teams competing.
The track was a wide, well balanced one laid on polished wood. Durham, Long Benton and South Shields were well used to racing on this surface but most of the Teesside drivers had never raced on anything slippier than carpet. It certainly took some learning and meant that racing would be spectacular if not always enjoyable for the drivers.

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Teesside pits during practice

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Teesside pits during racing

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Someone should tell Race control how to get sound out of the computer.

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Dimitris, Paul, Ian and Dave from Teesside

The format of the racing was to be 5 rounds of racing, not qualifying. Each team would have one driver in each race and it was up to the team captain who to put in each race. The only stipulation was that no driver could race in more than one heat per round. Crystals could have been a problem but only 2 times was there a slight difficulty.

First round was run staggered starts to give everyone a better chance of settling in better. Then the following rounds were run with line starts, as proper races.  The system worked well although some first corner accidents were still evident. Things got better in later rounds.

It soon became clear that there were 2 groups of 3 teams. Durham went into an early lead which they never looked likely to loose, followed by Teesside "A" and Long Benton who were never more than a few points apart. 2 breakages in the early heats of round 2 gave Long Benton the advantage and these points were vital.

Durham had taken the decision to rotate their drivers every round. Whether this made any difference to the results it certainly made racing more unpredictable. David Snee, as expected, was early TQ (of academic interest only) with Phil Haines not too far behind. heat_4.jpg (77552 bytes) Heat 4 drivers (round 5?)

Heat 5 drivers (round 5?)heat_5.JPG (78947 bytes)

Because of the setup it was almost impossible to keep track of individual racers. However it was points at stake and that was clear enough. Instead of the usual "10 for first etc" system it was 1 for first, 2 for 2nd to 6 for sixth. This made scoring very easy. The points table is on the points page.

I obviously was taking most interest in Teesside "A" and Ian and Peter. It was evident that some of the regular drivers knew exactly how to ruin another drivers race without being too obvious. Because of the nature of the surface and the track marking, a slight "lean" was all that was necessary to get another car in the ropes. I hope this was not too intentional. It certainly became less obvious after it was remarked upon.

That aside the racing was great fun and very competitive. Peter was adapting well and gave Phil Haines a good race in an early round, but it was very difficult to pass if the car infront was anywhere near as quick. It wasn't until the 5th round that he managed to get into the lead at the start and pulled away to a very pleasing 2nd on FTQ, just ahead of Phil but almost a lap down on David.

Ian was also suffering from an over zealous left thumb but in round 5 had a great race behind Phil to record a time 10th in the "A". We do learn eventually.

There was much discussion about the next round. Teesside should have been holding it on 17th December but Durham had already got Nissan booked for that date so it was decided to have the first two rounds at Nissan and the next 2 at Teesside in the New Year. See you there, dates to be decided.