Jemison claims 2WD oOple Invernational win with his RC10B5M

This weekend was the oOple Invernational race held on the Robin Hood Raceway clay track in Nottinghamshire, UK. The event has become very popular in its short time on the race calendar with racers and their families, and it's easy to see why! The race finds the perfect balance of serious racing on the track but lots of fun off the track on Friday and Saturday evenings.

Friday consisted of open practice starting at 11:30am which went well on the perfectly presented track -- until around 4pm when the rain arrived! The covers were pulled over the track Wimbledon-style fashion whilst the torrential rain passed over. Unfortunately, the water managed to find its way onto the track in a few places and ruined the hard work that had been put in. The track team and several racers worked hard to get practice re-started, only for the rain to return, so they called it a day.

Expecting rain on Sunday, the organisers ran four rounds of qualifying and a final for each class on Saturday. In 2WD, Neil repeated his 4WD TQ but driving the RC10B5, with Ben Jemison choosing to run the RC10B5M and lining up a close second; Tom Cockerill ran in third. A clean start to the final had Neil leading the way with Ben on his tail. An error on lap 2 let Ben through to the lead and Neil had some work to do. Over the next few laps Neil stuck to the rear bumper of Jemison and struggled to find a way through. An overshoot over the small doubles let Cragg through to the lead with Ben now having the work to do, but an error on the next lap by Neil let Ben back through to the lead with one minute to go. Ben managed to hold his nerve to take leg 1 and with it the win!

A big thanks to all the organisers and everyone involved for making the event continue even with the uncooperative weather throughout the weekend.

Thanks to Ben Jemison for this report.