Elliott Boots had a mixed day in qualifying and a terrible start to the A final but pulled out a stunning win against the odds, at round 8 of the Herts Nitro Model Club winter series at Westmill.

Westmill Race Meeting – Sunday 6th March 2011
We arrived at Westmill feeling very confident with the car.  The track was in top condition, a little dusty but at least the sun was shining, or trying to.  It was still very cold, about 4 degrees centigrade.  We decided to leave the car very similar to how we left Frankley just to see how little amount of changes we had to make between Astro and Dirt, which is a good sign of a well balanced car where you can make little changes but still be able to run it at a good pace.  The only thing we decided to do was to lower it a little bit.  We went out in practice and immediately the car was looking very very good.  It was a very fast track so there was no room for error.  Elliott was looking super confident with the car, exactly how I like to see it as he has an aggressive driving style and the car needs to be fairly stable.  After practice Elliott said the car looked very good and we should leave it for the moment.

Round One
We were in a good race pace for this first round and also in good company with some good National drivers there, one in particular Darren Bloomfield, who is obviously the target for this year as he is usually very fast at this track.  Immediately Elliott was setting the pace and leading the heat quite comfortably when the car came to a stop and one of the pins on the centre drive had fallen out so we lost the front drive and had to retire from the race.

Round Two
Again Elliott was setting the pace leading the heat and due to an unfortunate error at the back of sthe track, which was not seen by the Marshall, which cost him TQ in the second round but the car was not quite as good as we tried some different tyres.

Round Three
Elliott decided to change our tyres back to the original ones from the start of the day and the car was much better.  The track had deteriorated slightly and was getting a bit bumpy and rutty in places.  The dust had disappeared so the track was getting very clean on the racing line and therefore getting slightly quicker.  Elliott was on target to TQ this round with a 9 lapper, which no-one was near, but unfortunately got held up badly by some back markers which allowed Darren to take the round and TQ the meeting.  Due to a few poroblems along the way in qualification we ended up 6th on the grid.

Main A Final
We decided that we would change the car slightly and decided to drop the front and rear camber links down one hole and move the rear camber link to the longest hole on the rear hub as I felt the car was looking a little unstable at some of the high speed corners due to the changing track conditions.  I also decided to refresh the shock oils and lower the car slightly.  At the start of the main final Elliott was unfortunately taken out and ended up last but the car was looking absolutely stunning around the track.  His speed was extremely impressive and the car looked very stable, the best it had looked all weekend, still using the same tyres as we started the day off with.  It wasn’t too long before Elliott had moved into third position, chasing Darren and Reece hard, and eventually passing Darren and catching Reece very quickly.  Eventually taking the lead and putting a substantial lead on the rest of the pack and after the fuel stop and a few hold ups with back markers Elliott won the meeting easily with Darren coming in second, which was in my opinion, a very impressive drive and Elliott was extremely happy with the car, saying it is probably the fastest he has ever been round the Westmill track.

Thanks to PirateRC for the photo :- http://www.piraterc.com