Sunday 9^th December was the date for the Hot Bodies Junior Championships, held at Don Valley Stadium, Sheffield. The Junior touring car event was run alongside 2wd and 4wd electric buggies to add to the excitement of the meeting. The touring car classes were 27t and 19t, with different age groups to make the racing fairer. 

Open practice was run first thing on Sunday morning, which for me was time to be spent readjusting back to 19t, having been driving 5 cell modified for the preceding 11 months. I found it more difficult than I imagined, as not only is a 19t motor much slower than a very fast brushless motor, it also has a lot more friction and as such, slows down harder into the corners. 

Qualifying was run to the FTD system, and with such a small and fast track layout, round 4 would be the rocket round. Rounds 1 and 2 were spent playing with setups on the car and motor, and eventually things started getting better. In round 3 I decided a complete car overhaul was required and completely copied teamate Elliott Harper’s setup. This was good but not quite perfect for both of us, and for round 4 we decided a change to the shocks was necessary. Round 4 was, as expected, the rocket round, and the pace had really heated up.  A mistake from Elliott handed me the lead in the run, a lead I would not relinquish until the very last lap, where a spun car collided with me, costing me 0.5 seconds. This ended up being critical regarding the qualifying order, as Eliott just managed to take TQ, 0.3 seconds ahead of myself in 2^nd.  

After this run, another change to the car was deemed necessary for the final. Into the first corner and a small slide followed by a tag saw me put into the barrier and dead last when I was marshalled, by which point Elliott was coming up to lap me! I put the hammer down and thanks to a very dialled car and supreme horsepower from the Muchmore cells, I managed to haul myself up to 2^nd place, where I would finish, only 5 seconds behind winner Elliott Harper.