Fueltopia Barrel Sprint Round 1 took place at Santa Pod Raceway on the 7th March. Its a cross between drag racing, gymkhana and drifting, cars line up side by side and wait for the christmas tree to show green. Then its a 20 metre dash to the first barrel, round it and onto the next two barrels taking one the opposite way round to the rest.
37 cars turned up to enter into the three classes, 4 wheel drive was where the quickest times would be seen, Dmitrij Sribnyj would set the fastest run of the day at 18 seconds.
Rear wheel drive has the majority of the entries and the most varied cars, from Luke Woodham and his S14…
to a KitCar and a Bowler Wildcat.
Car control was key as hitting any barrel would result in a 3 second penalty, when tenths of a second could lose the race it was the last thing anyone wanted to do.
The top 16 in each class lined up for the battles, with only one run the drivers were under pressure to set a clean run. In the 4 wheel drive class Dmitrij Sribnyj would take the win ahead of Jake Archer and Daniel Smith.
The rear wheel drive class ended in a battle between Luke Woodham and Richard Dalby-Smith. Both drivers had been fast all day but Richard would take the win with Hadley Fullbrook in third place on the podium. This is the small margin of victory as they rounded the second barrel.
The front wheel drive class only had one entry for this round but Sean Franklin in his Civic made a big statement by going faster than some of the rear wheel drive cars.
If this looks like something you would enjoy then there is no excuse not to enter, its cheap, fun and you can enter almost anything into one of the classes.
