Just.....wow.

A knackering but thoroughly enjoyable 4-day championship. Congratulations to Learo/Team Beast for the 1-2 finish and to Jonno & Will on their driving exploits. I also thought that Beauty 8 would take 1st place but the curse of Potter struck again :P
But for a robot to not only win the championship for a third time, but to do so five years after its last one is no mean feat. Thought we'd seen the end of Beauty 2 when Toonimator smashed it up in 2010 but there's no keeping the old girl down. Well done

Massive congrats to Ellis for taking 3rd spot too, Rango was incredible! It was all the sweeter considering the problems you had with it just before coming over, but your dedication and perspiration in keeping it running fight after fight meant that it was well worthy of a podium finish and I hope it goes further next year!

Big well done to Gareth and Defector too. It was definitely the dark horse, quietly making its way through all the rounds to get into the top four. It's annoying to fall just short of the podium at the final hurdle but you can be proud of how well it did.

And of course well done to Alex (again!) and Tom for winning the Annihilator and Gladiator events respectively.

On a personal level, Drumroll placed 5th which, considering I thought it was out of the running after the first fight, is a very good outcome. Many thanks to the Coopers/Dave and Ed for the use of their fly-presses over the weekend to keep it going. Carcinus was completely wrecked by the end of the event but is still running and took whatever the spinners could throw at it, and it even managed to amass 9 points in the qualifiers :P

Huge thanks go to James, Grant, Nick and the rest of the Robo Challenge team for putting on another fantastic event, Pete, Kane and Ed for taking on the unenviable task of judging and to everyone who rallied around to help get Drumroll running after the d̶r̶u̶m̶-̶o̶f̶f̶ losers’ meleé. Great to see everyone again, and great to meet all the new faces. Special mention to Nick for having the dedication to come all the way from Australia!

See you next year!