The fourth and final round of the Pro-trak On-road Club Challenge was held by us at  the Warehouse on Teesside on Sunday 24th February   2001.

The turnout for this round was rather disappointing. Longbenton and South Shields could not send a team and Durham had a much weakened team. Teesside were missing some drivers but had some "extras" to make up part of a fourth team.  Teesside A and Durham came into the event tied for first and although everyone was pleased to see David Snee back from his hand injury, Teesside A were the favorites.
The track had been redesigned by Adam Darcy, although he was unable to race himself The track was our usual large fast layout totally on carpet. Grip would be the deciding factor again, but for totally different reasons. It would take a brave man to go flat out with a serious wind of motor. Some tried but for most a reasonable motor was in the realms of 14 turns or more.

The format of the racing was the same as before, with 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.

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 usual first corner crashes were still in evidence but fortunately did not become too troublesome. At times the drivers had to be reminded that it is a non-contact sport as passing became a dangerous maneuver at times.
After that things did settle down but the racing was very close.

This time Teesside "A" were showing their familiarity with the surface and were hardly out of the first 2 places for the first 3 rounds. Durham were keeping in touch but their overall points lead was being whittled away. 10 points went in the first round, 6 in the second and by the time the last round started the lead was only 2 points.
Longbenton A were having a close race with Teesside B, aided extremely well by their new driver Chris Clarke who must have eventually got his new on road car, having been waiting most of 2000 for it. He was a clear TQ leader, eventually ending with a 24/310.66, a lap ahead of Chris Roe on 23/311.05.
However Teesside B were slightly more consistent and ended 30 points ahead of Longbenton A, and indeed finished strongly to overtake Durham on the day.
Longbenton B, South Shields and Teesside C  were also close with Longbenton B just ahead of Teesside C with South Shields in 7th.

Teesside drivers:-Anthony Anderson 23, John Anderton 24, Chris Bakos 17, Colin Blades 8, Peter Bradley 22, Ian Craig 5, Peter Craig 6, Alan Curry 16, Liam Davies 15, Alfie del Aquilla 15, Iain Downie 17, Tony Doyle 14, Mick Harris 19,  Jason Harrison-Young 16, Alex Inglis 13, Ian Johnston 14, James Johnston 23, Cameron Maclean 18, Richard Norris 5, Dimitris Katsanis 6, Chris Roe 5

I had booked each driver in separately instead of as a team. This helped keep FTQ more reliable but with drivers still moving around it was not foolproof. However again it was points at stake and some drivers had easier races than others, just doing enough for the points. (That's their excuse anyway). The points table is on the points page.

We again arranged fun finals after the main event and most drivers stayed. The format was for straight finals from FTQ rather than 1st in each team in one final, all 2nds in another etc. I think this made for better racing.