Bloomfield on pole for Arena Buggy Main

Darren Bloomfield will start the main event of the 2011 Arena Offroad Meeting from pole position after the Top Qualifier won his Semi Final ahead of factory TLR team-mate Riccardo Rabitti who will start second on the grid.   Elliot Boots lines up third for the 45-minute encounter just in front of defending champion Yannick Aigoin who was second the young British driver in the 20-minute Semi B.

The first casualty of the Semis was Orion engines head of development Adrien Bertin.  Having struggled in qualifying to get a set-up to his liking resulting in him qualifying in the 1/4 finals, the Frenchman built a brand new Kyosho MP9 for the finals and immediately found his form.  Dominating his 1/4 final, Bertin quickly worked his way into the Top 5 of the opening Semi only for the lower right rear shock pin to come out.  Making it back to the pits a temporary fix was made but six laps later it broke and he called it a day.

Also exiting from the event in the Semi A but in the cruelest way possible was Agama/Novarossi driver Riccardo Perin.  Running in a comfortable bump up position the Italian’s buggy stopped less than half a lap from the finish dropping him to 7th in the final classification, one spot shy of progressing to the Main.  This allowed 1/4 finalist Federicio Sala to bump up for a second time as did Truggy Race of Champions winner Walter Floris who finished fifth in the Semi.

The main drama of the Semi B struck French National B Champion Guillaume Hebert. Having won his 1/4 Final, the Mugen backed driver was set to bump up to the Main but in almost identical fashion to Perin his Ninja powered MBX-6 stopped on the final lap.

In the F2 Buggy class Austrian Reinhold Gruber will start on pole for their Main ahead of defending champion Jon Howells.  Top Qualifier Ashlee Owen starts fifth behind last night’s Race of Champions finalists 12-year-old Alessandro Remia and Gerd Pfiefer.

Buggy Main Starting Grid
1. Darren Bloomfield – TLR/Nitrotec
2. Riccardo Rabitti – TLR/Picco
3. Elliot Boots – Kyosho/RB
4. Yannick Aigoin – TLR/nVision
5. Simon Willets – Mugen/Orion
6. Alex Zanchettin – TLR/BP
7. Valerio Bellano – Xray/RB
8. Alessandro Stocco – Hot Bodies/Alpha
9. Federico Ruggeri – Crono/OS
10.Walter Floris – TLR/Novarossi
11.Federico Sala – TLR/Novarossi
12.Daniele Chicca – JQ/Precirotate

View the event image gallery here.