For the last national of the outdoor series all three classes descended on the Cotswold Model car club, one of the biggest and fastest circuits of the national series. With both modified and 19 turn Championships both wrapped up by Chris Grainger (Yokomo) and Chris Kerswell (Corally) respectively, the fight was on for the second places.
In 19 turn the battle was between Corally driver Christopher Delves and Jonathan Dronfield of Schumacher. Going into this round Christopher was leading out of the two, but with Jonathan having not completed all the counting rounds second place remained very much available to them both.
The fight for second in the modified Championship was between teammates Olly Jefferies and Andy Moore. Olly having the slight home track advantage this weekend made him favourite to take the second place. Andy Childs and Glenn Doman were both in the top 10 for modified and were looking to improve upon eighth and seventh place respectively at this final national of the year.

Qualifying
The first round of qualifying was held on Saturday afternoon with practice in the morning. Despite it being the middle of the day the track was cool, the windy conditions making sure that any sun that beamed on the track never managed to heat it up. The first round of 19 turn was TQ’d by Christopher Delves, two seconds in front of fellow teammate Chris Kerswell. Despite both Chris’s cars looking loose they managed to keep them on track and out front and had pulled a significant lead on third place Jonathan Dronfield, putting themselves 5 seconds up and comfortably in the lead at this early stage of the meeting. Steve Lissamore had a reasonable first run placing him in the top 5, but there was more to come from Steve as his car at this point just wasn’t as quick as his fellow team-mates. Richard Thorpe had started his first qualifier well but small mistakes cost him big during the run dropping him down the qualifying list.
The second round was even faster than the first, with Christopher Delves breaking through to put in a seventeenth lap and really showing pace at this final meeting of the season. Steve Lissamore found some pace too and set a time that placed him second on the grid, just a little over one and a half seconds in front of fellow teammate Chris Kerswell. Corally then one, two and three at this stage in qualifying.
The final round of qualifying took place on Sunday morning and with the track being potentially faster it really was down to who could keep their nerve! As the drivers set off it was obvious that some were going faster but to start with the top four kept together. As the race progressed though they started to spread out, with Christopher Delves keeping out front and looking as if he was going to put in a seventeen lapper again. A small mistake through the chicane going onto the straight dropped him back though and at the end of the five minutes he only managed sixteen. Jonathan Dronfield managed to improve his time but despite this improvement ended up fifth on the grid as junior, Charel Goodwin, put his Mi3 fourth on the grid behind the Corally trio of Delves, Lissamore and Kerswell.

Modified proved to be a race of duration. With the long flowing corners and even longer straights of the Cotswold track the modified cars were hitting terminal velocity more often than usual. The first round saw some incredibly fast lap times with Olly Jefferies taking the FTD spot which he managed to keep, at least overnight. Andy Childs and Glenn Doman were both in the final after the first round, but there were still a few names missing from the usual top ten. Andy Moore had a bad first run but then went on to set a blistering pace in the second round, only to dump at the 4.30 mark! Olly had set a new track record making it through to the nineteenth lap, showing the incredibly fast pace of his car!
The last round on Sunday morning saw Andy put himself on pole, just a second in front of Olly and thus taking the new FTD. A clean run in which he managed to last the full 5 minutes. Olly lined up second on the grid for the finals, followed by 2007 Champion Chris Grainger. Glenn Doman managed to hold onto tenth and remained in the final, but even though Andy Childs had improved in the last qualifier it wouldn’t be enough to make the A and thus took the BQ (eleventh) spot

Finals – Leg 1
The first leg of the 19 turn A final was dominated from start to finish by Christopher Delves from his TQ spot. The real fight was further down the field – just a little - for second and third places. Steve Lissamore had made a good start and managed to pull out a lead on the pack after an accident involving Chris Kerswell, but at the half way stage Steve’s motor started to go off. Jonathan Dronfield going strong at this point now started reel Steve in. Slowly lap-by-lap Jonathan caught Steve, and it looked like he would find away past but the 5 minute buzzer proved to be the saviour of an ever slowing Lissamore car. Even though Steve came under immense pressure (which he was used to after his race with Delves the week before at the KO) he managed to keep his cool and bring his Corally home to second and one of his best finishes of the season. Chris Kerswell had a joyless race. Full of incidents and finding himself at one point practically last he managed to claw his way through to 6th place by the end of the race though. Man on the move in this final was Ian Southorn, who managed to fight his way through to a respectable fifth.

The modified final was a spectacular race between Andy and Olly, who raced from the minute the final started. The pair were nose to tail for the majority of the race, never being anymore than a car length apart. Glenn Doman having started at the back of the grid made a clean start. After the third corner made his way up to ninth and was chasing down eighth and seventh but a mistake through the chicane dropped him back and he ended up in eighth place in the final with a good drive. Throughout the five minuets Olly was constantly looking for a way past Andy, and his opportunity arose as they came across the line for the final lap. Andy clipped a curb and Olly was in front!. All the hard racing the pair had done though took its toll on both drivers battery packs. The top three made it across the line for the final lap, but with Andy and Olly both dumping, Chris Grainger now took full advantage of having power and sailed past them down the straight to take the victory on the last lap. As the saying goes, to finish first, first you must finish!

Finals – Leg 2
The second final saw Christopher get off to a clean start, as did the rest of the field this time. A mistake by Steve Lissamore dropped him down the pack from which he never recovered back to the front. A couple of minutes into the race, and fifth qualifier Dronfield had made his way up through into second and was catching lead man Delves. Eventually Dronfield caught up to Delves and pressure him into going wide, slipped throgh took the lead of the final. Delves tried to get back past but couldn’t and fell back to teammate Chris Kerswell after a few laps. Kerswell got past Delves on the hairpin in front of race control and despite his team-mates best efforts managed to stay there. The end of the race saw Dronfield take the win, closely followed by Kerswell and Delves. Lissamore took fifth in this final giving him third overall, and Ian Southorn who managed to get up to fifth in the last final, claimed sixth in this one, once again driving very well in his second national A final of the year. Dronfield and Delves were tied on points, but the win went to the latter as he had taken TQ, thus giving him his first national TQ and Win at the same event!
Chris Kerswell had already taken the overall Championship win, but with this TQ and win, Delves took second in the championship making it a Corally one-two. Dronfield topping up his points count in this last round took third place behind the two Corally drivers. Steve Lissamore finished fifth in the series with his Corally after a bad start to the year which seemed to pick up for him at Stafford. Richard Thorpe has had some brilliant results through the year and finished eighth, meaning there was 4 Corally Phi’s in the top ten of the championship this year, really showing the strength of this chassis in stock racing.

The second modified final was a similar story as the first. From the offset Andy and Olly fought hard and pulled away from the pack, building up a lead of around 3 or 4 seconds. Olly tried hard to pass Andy, but he just couldn’t find a way past. There were a few moments in the race that made the crowd gasp as Olly got very close to pass Andy. Chris Grainger was secure in second, with no one really looking like they were going to challenge him for position. Corally driver Glenn Doman had made a promising start and was slowly working his way through the field, taking advantage of those that had made mistakes and stranded themselves on the grass. As the race progressed, Andy and Olly continued to battle, but once again this hard racing had taken it toll on their batteries and as the race started to draw to to an end they found they were going flat. Chris Grainger once again passed the pair of them on the straight (with a rather large grin on his face I might add) to take the second leg win!
With the finals over and the points sorted, Andy Moore had beaten his team-mate Olly by a mere 2 points in the championship. Chris Grainger had taken the championship win a few meetings ago, much like Chris Kerswell in 19 turn. This modified championship has been incredibly tough this year, with a lot of top class racers participating and in the top ten there were two Corally Phi’s; Glenn Doman and Andy Childs made seventh and eighth respectively again showing the strength of the Phi.

And with that, ends the national season for 2007. Congratulations to Chris Grainger, Chris Kerswell and Adrian Bidewell in wining their respective classes.