Stafford once again kicked off the national season. This season the rules are that we have to run 5 cells instead of 6, we have a single compound of pre-glued tyres and we can only use a maximum of 2 sets per race day.
Team XRAY UK cars (click to enlarge)
Saturday saw the track open for practice and team XRAY UK drivers Ben Cosgrove, Mark Gilliland and Darren Styles all were on hand with the new T2 007 chassis. This was the first time the UK team had met up together and it was apparent early on the cars were very good.
Saturday went ok for the team. Darren had an ok balance to start with and worked on fine tuning the car for his driving style, Mark was finding it difficult to find a balance on the new RP30 control tyres and Ben was happy with the balance and was working on tyre strategy and additive combinations.
All three drivers were running a good pace on Saturday and were confident of a strong meeting on the Sunday and went away with some good data and a better idea of chassis balance with 5 cell racing.
XRAY tent (click to enlarge)
Sunday saw mixed fortunes for the team. Round 1 was the fastest round as every body used fresh tyres on a cool freshly sugar watered track. Ben had a safe run to qualify 4th overall 4 seconds off pole. Darren had a back marker issue and was close to the top 10 and Mark again was in the top 20 after having battery problems.
Round 2 was no faster fro Ben or any of the top runners. Darren had a much better round and pushed himself in to the top 10. Mark had a better run but ended up just outside the top 10 positions.
Round 3 again saw no improvements in the top 6 but a few drivers gambled on fresh tyres and made it in to the final pushing Darren to 12th and Mark to 16th. Darren was very unlucky as his heat had a brief shower which lost them grip and then it dried up completely for the remaining couple of heats!
Overall qualifying positions
1. Andy Moore
2. Chris Grainger
3. Craig Drescher 4. Ben Cosgrove XRAY T2'007
5. Olly Jefferies
6. Lee Woodhams
7. Adam Rogers
8. Chris Ashton
9. Andy Childs
10. Sam Smith 12. Darren Styles XRAY T2'007
16. Mark Gilliland XRAY T2'007
The finals were going to be very close with the top 5 drivers covered by a few seconds it was going to be tight. In leg 1 Andy got away clean and Ben managed to get past Craig and Chris in to turn 1. Chris put Ben under pressure at the start whilst Andy pulled a 3 second lead. Ben then pulled away from Chris and closed in on Andy to within a second and ran out of time before he could do anything about the lead Andy had pulled.
Top 3 (click to enlarge)
In leg 2 the top 5 cars all pulled away from the other cars and had some close racing. Chris hit Andy which allowed Craig to close in with Ben hot on the heels. Chris recovered and then hit Ben dropping them back and letting Olly take third. Andy then had a problem and retired allowing Craig to take the win followed by Chris, Olly and Ben.
Overall standings below
1. Chris Grainger 2. Ben Cosgrove XRAY T2'007
3. Olly Jefferies
4. Andy Moore
5. Craig Drescher
6. Lee Woodhams
7. Chris Ashton
8. Adam Rogers
9. Sam Smith
10. Andy Childs 11. Darren Styles XRAY T2'007
18. Mark Gilliland XRAY T2'007
Team XRAY UK (click to enlarge)
Thanks go to Stafford and the BRCA for making the series fun again. XRAY have done a fantastic job on the 007 and Nosram equally have awesome performance.
Bring on the next meeting on the 20th May at Aldershot.
