Judgement Day… Round 6 2012 Final at Knockhill

As the year draws to a close, we find ourselves at Knockhill race circuit for what was sure to be the most challenging, action packed event of the year. The hill requires complete and utter dedication on the entry as you cannot see where the track goes, you just hope its still there when you take the leap of faith down the UK’s answer to Laguna Seca’s corkscrew.

Not everyone got it right every time, but the gravel trap is our friend, as most found out at some point of the weekend it will save you, but not necessarily your body panels.

Despite the cold, wet weather of Scotland and the lingering fact of this being the final round of the year, there were still plenty of smiles about, Super Pro driver Ian ‘Bizz’ Phillips in a t-shirt here which was pretty much the only one I saw all weekend.

And our legend start line man Malc doing his early morning warm up.

Also Steve Moore of SATS Motorsport was up and about bright and early on Saturday morning.

Signing on and the drivers briefing was business as usual, a lot of detailed instructions and very sound advice from Sweeps on how to handle and maybe even tame the extremely daunting hill.

Once everyone had been briefed, it was time to get some practice in on the track. We all knew people would end up going off the track, but what we didn’t think we’d see was so many people giving it 100% commitment on even the very early on runs. Naturally there was a few more offs…

David Waterworth had an awesome off in his Dodge Viper V10 powered S15, destroying a rear wheel and side exit exhaust in the process, but he was repaired and back out later that day.

After a while the off road action eased off and the drivers really started to show their talent. The sun was shining and the sky’s were clear for what was looking like a good weekend.

The semi-pro’s were on a different track for there practice session, I popped over there to see how they were getting on, with the pits on the way, I snapped a few shots too.

The smaller track was not quite as exciting as the main track but had a very tight hairpin which proved challenging, after their practice on this track, everyone was going over the hill on the main track.

With the Saturday coming to a close, one final grid line up saw everyone on the main track and over the hill. There were a few semi-pro off’s but this was their first run so they could be forgiven, but they soon got to grips with it.

Sunday morning greeted us with rain, there is a rule at Knockhill, if you can’t see the top of the big hill next to the track, rain is coming, and it did.

Then surprisingly, the sun came out and the track dried just in time for the main event… the battles, of which I will just mention the more memorable ones. Ian Waddington and Jo Ankers came flying out of the gates and were very much door to door.

Lee Barry and Jay Greene have an epic first battle, Jay took the win.

Jay White and Marcin Mucha also put in a good run.

Andy Stroud in the R32 Skyline had a good first run with Kyle Chisholm’s E36 convertible.

The Sinnot brothers in their S15′s gave a good show all weekend, to finish with one of the best battles of the weekend, getting extremely close.

David Waterworth and James Fuller had some contact just before the final corner, putting David’s car out of action, was a good run until that point.

Steve Moore chasing Ian Phillips down the hill.

One battle everyone was talking about was Marc Huxley’s 200BHP KE70 Corolla Vs Mark Luney’s 800BHP SATS Cosworth Supra, Luney span at the last corner giving the little corolla the win.

Huxley and Remmo have it out in this oldskool battle, Remmo took the win.

Pro driver James Fuller seemed to be picking off super pro drivers one by one as a guest in their championship, needless to say as his first year in the BDC, he was doing pretty well seen here taking on Shane Lynch in the mighty Japspeed V8 twin turbo S15, of which James took the win.

We were treated to an all Falken semi final with Matt Carter and guest driver Remmo Neizen in what has to be one of the widest bodies e30′s there is.

Unfortunately Matt pushed a little too hard and Remmo had to take evasive action and took the win.

The final saw James Fuller and Remmo Neizen, this was a pretty important super pro battle as Remmo was a guest driver to the BDC, but Fuller was a pro driver in the super pro final, you could cut the tension with a knife…