The final round of the 2008 BRCA Nationals was held at Halifax over the weekend of 16/17th August. The competition covered 2 classess and there are 3 formulas in each class.
In the 5 cell modified class Ben Cosgrove was topping the championship from the first 3 rounds and Elliott Harper lying in 4th overall position. Both XRAY drivers were in strong position to mount a challenge to the dominance of Chris Grainger and it was down to the final weekend. A significant element of the race at Halifax is the ability to judge overall run time as the track is so draining on power and this is the hardest test on durability in the UK Nationals.
The weather threatened a down pour on many occasions but this never really happened and in the end it was a great weekend for every one who attended with wet tyres used for only one of the round by round qualifiers.
Special guests Alex Hagberg and Niclas Nilsson made an extra effort to attend Halifax for the 2nd year in a row and joined the XRAY UK team for the weekend.
Qualification
From the first round team XRAY were off to a strong start, but it wasn't the usual drivers making headlines. Jonny Aird placed his car into 2nd position, Phil Chambers 3rd, Alex Hagberg took 5th, Ben Cosgrove 6th, Alistair Graham 7th and Sam Smith 10th. This was a strong start for the XRAY T2'008 with 6 cars in the top 10. Elliott was penalised early on for a clip and lost time after being marshall slipping back to 14th and Niclas in 15th.
Round 2 saw Phil Chambers take the top postion finishing 1st and moving up to 2nd place overall. Ali Graham again put in a good run to finish 4th with Jonny Aird 5th, Ben Cosgrove 6th and Niclas 8th. Elliott and Alex both had trouble during the round. Round 3 saw improvement for Elliott taking 3rd, Jonny Aird 4th, Alex 5th, Phil 7th an Ben 9th. It certainly started to look like track knowlwdge was paying off with Phil Chambers clearly the only driver with extended running capability.
In round 4 only ben put in a good run to take 3rd and it ws beginning to lok like Elliott was going to drop back and reliant on a good 5th and final round to stay in the running. Round 5 was always going to be tough and Ben secured the win with Elliott in 4th place changing the shape of th points table.
Top 10 Qualifiers
1. Chris Grainger
2. Olly Jefferies 3. Ben Cosgrove - XRAY T2'008
4. Phil Chambers - XRAY T2'008
5. Jonathan Aird - XRAY T2'008
6. Lee Woodhams 7. Elliott Harper - XRAY T2'008
8. Alistair Graham - XRAY T2'008
9. Glenn Doman
10.Andy Moore
(click to enlarge)
Finals
With 5 XRAY T2'008 cars in the finals there was a good opportunity to do well. All the finals were competatively fought. After the first final both Ben and Elliott were still in within with an overall podium position.
In the 2nd final Ben got away into the lead following an incident and this allowed Phil into 2nd and Elliott 3rd as others were cuaght up. It was looking good for XRAY with Elliott chalenging for 2nd place he saw the opportunity to take a wide move after Phil got caught on a corner, but the recovery didn't go well and both XRAY drivers ended up on the grass droping back to 9th and 10 places respectively. Ben went on and was now secure in the knowledge he had taken 2nd place in the championship.
The 3rd final saw some drivers using the last set of new tyres and this spread the race out well. Ben has a great race and it looked like Elliott had just done enough but was overtaken on the line by Ali. On the day Ben took 2nd, with Ali 4th and Elliott in 7th.
Top 10 overall position before disaggregation into Formulas
1. Chris Grainger 2. Ben Cosgrove - XRAY T2'008
3. Olly Jefferies 4. Elliott Harper - XRAY T2'008
5. Glenn Doman
6. Andy Moore 7. Phil Chambers - XRAY T2'008
8. Lee Woodhams
9. Matthew White
10.Colin Price
(click to enlarge)
Formula 1 - Final Positions - XRAY takes 2 top positions
1. Chris Grainger 2. Ben Cosgrove - XRAY T2'008
3. Elliott Harper - XRAY T2'008
4. Olly Jefferies
5. Glenn Doman
6. Andy Moore
7. Lee Woodhams
8. Matthew White
9. Colin Price 10.Jonathan Aird - XRAY T2'008
Formula 2 Table - top 2 positions
1. Phil Chambers - XRAY T2'008
2. Alistair Graham - XRAY T2'008
Well done to Phil Chambers who has followed Elliott's road to the F1 by winning F2 and will be in F1 next year. All eyes will be on Ali Graham for next year to see if he can also follow in the footsteps of Elliott and Phil to secure a 3rd F2 title in a row for XRAY.
A special mention goes to 2 young and up and coming Xray drivers in the pro-stock Class. Ayrton Anderson who took the win in F2 and Luke Thompson who took the win in F3.
