Chelmsford Carpet Oval Racing Club (CCORC) is a family friendly, radio controlled banger racing and stock car club.
I’ve had the pleasure of racing with them a few times over the past couple of years at their old venue in Hatfield Peveral. I always had a great time and the guys and gals there were always very welcoming.
Over the ‘off-season’ they’ve decided to move from their old location to Margaretting Village Hall.
Moving venue can be a daunting task for a club such as this one, and whilst the CCORC team want to make some changes going forward, I think they’ve picked a really nice little hall in which to host their events.
The main hall may not look particularly massive from this photo, but there are further side rooms to both the left and right of the main hall for pitting areas, so there will be ample space for everyone at the larger meetings that the club organises.
The track’s overall size is less than it was at Hatfield Peveral, but the smaller bone shape infield actually makes the track feel a bit wider. Which is great! I always struggled picking through the chaos on the Hatfield Peveral track as it was so narrow.
The straights on this track are also about the same length as Brentwood RC’s now as well. Again, I don’t think that shortening the track was a bad thing as my car was running out of gearing on the Hatfield Peveral track haha!
They will be shortening it again by a foot or so, to allow better foot access around the track. If I may offer a little constructive feedback, when that happens it may be worth running the stock car classes in groups of 5 or 6 to stop the track getting too crowded and allow some good racing to take place.
Speaking of stock cars, it is worth noting that the Hatifeld Peveral track is still in use. It’s run as Essex Stock Car Club now and features lots of Formulas including 1300cc and 2000cc stock cars, Formula 2 stockcars and Hotrods. They just don’t run bangers there.
The first meet at the Margaretting venue would be all Jaguar and Daimler bangers, supported by Street Stocks and Micra Stocks.
My choice of car for this meet was a Mk2 Jaguar. The Mk2 was a fast yet luxurious sports saloon car, which had a successful career in motorsport, as a getaway car and on the opposite side of the coin, as a police pursuit car.
They are really collectible now, and it’s not a car that I could ever bring myself to see destroyed in real life. That’s the beauty of RC though, you can build and race stuff that you would never be able to in real life.
Kamtec have recently remodeled their Mk2. Without sounding harsh, the old shell was more like a blob than the actual car. This new mold looks so much more like the real thing!
Before we get to the action in the bangers, lets take a lot at the support classes; Street Stocks and Micra Stocks.
As cars, Micra Stocks are basically bangers with bumpers. They have alloy chassis, mechanical speed controllers and are mechanically identical to the bangers, except they have big plastic bumpers at the front and rear.
All the cars run K11 Nissan Micra body shells.
The bubbly little Micra was a famous first or last car. They are starting to get a bit of a cool factor now; I know a couple that have been lowered and been put on wide wheels, and they look really nice. They were really undesirable for a very long time though and hundreds of thousands were scrapped or relegated to the ovals.
Street Stocks are a really good, cheap formula. They are extra short wheel based chassis’ sporting Mini or Hillman Imp/Sunbeam Stiletto shells.
This is ‘Koonta’s Stiletto.
Some more action shots of the different cars. Photographing RC is so difficult as they are so small and move so quickly. You can’t track them like a full size car.
Alec Quarman, from The Anarchists, with a blue and yellow Mini.
The bangers are divided into juniors and seniors. I managed to get a few pics from the junior heats.
It was a little bit harder to get pics from the senior heats, as I was driving in one heat, and getting my car ready in the other.
I’m a bit rusty on the old sticks to say the least. There were 19 cars in my heat and in the first two races I finsihed 13th. In the 3rd race I seemed to figure it out a little more and finished 7th.
It was of no fault of the car, though there are a couple of changes I want to make to it before the next time it take it out, I just haven’t driven in forever!
The final was “all in”, so both heats raced in one final. There were 32 cars in the final and I managed 17th, which wasn’t too bad going for me!
The Jag survived really well. With a couple of minor repairs it would most certainly go again.
Big thanks to team Chelmsford for a great night! If you are in the Ingatestone/Margaretting area and want to get involved with some cheap fun racing, join the CCORC Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/307966959378585/
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By Richard Francis
