| Race Report From Ryan Donovan |
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The second round of the Xray off-road challenge took place on the 24th of april at Mold (North Wales). First note, well done and thank you to all race organisers who had done a fantastic job on running the meeting. There were a total of 56 drivers booked in for this event. The weather was good,the sun was out,the grass was in good condition and with 40% of the track being on astroturf this was a reasonably flat track,with the exception of a double jump,mound and a section of ripples.
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| Practise got underway on time and bearing in mind that the morning dew was still about,the track still had a huge amount of grip,this proving to be too much for some and therefore leading a lot to suffer from grip roll,taking this into consideration myself and my fellow Xray drivers decided to make a couple of minor adjustments and also run on slightly worn tyres,as i was watching my fellow Xray drivers run there 5 minute practise it seemed that it was only those who was not suffering from grip roll. |
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| Therefore felt quite confident that the minor changes we had made was definitely the way to go whilst the grip was still high,it was now the last heat of the round and time for myself to hit the track to see if my car would suffer from this grip roll factor everyone seemed to be having,within the first three laps I had settled into a rhythm and the car felt awesome,very stable and solid but just didnâ™t feel 100% happy on the exit speed out of a corner,other than that the car felt good and was to leave the setup the same for round 1 of qualifying. |
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| Round 1 of qualifying was now underway and with the morning dew slowly disappearing the grip was increasing even more,with this in mind I had decided to stick with the slightly worn tyres,it was now time for my first qualifying run and all was going well until half way through the 5 mins I rolled it on the rippleâ™s section and snapped off the front of my bodyshell,from there on everytime down the main straight the bodyshell lifted and caused the front wheels to leave the ground,ending in a wheelie half way down the straight,it was also making it very difficult to keep the car level on the jumps,therefore decided to take the jumps slowly and back off half way down the straight,even though this was entertaining for the crowds this wasnâ™t good as far as the lap times were concerned and with that in mind I was curious to were that would position me in that round,with great surprise to find that the time was still good enough to get me TQ in the first round. |
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| Round 2 of qualifying and having made repairs to the bodyshell there should be no reason to not improve on my first round qualifying time,by the time the later heats had arrived the grip had decreased slightly and the track was a little more forgiving and obviously getting quicker and now I thought was time for new tyres,with one slight error costing me around 2 seconds the second qualifying run went well and thought this would secure me with another TQ but just to keep me on my toes out of nowhere Lee Taylor put a storming run in just 4 thousands of a second behind in second place, apart from lee there wasnâ™t anybody else in touch of these times and that therefore secured me with TQ in the second round. |
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| Third round of qualifying and having secured TQ overall I had nothing to lose,therefore I made a few alterations 1 being higher tension clutch springs to try and give me that little extra speed I seemed to be missing in between corners,the sun was still out and getting quite warm now,to the extent of me having to take some layers off,as I was beginning to get a sweat on (which is unusual for me),anyway back to the qualifying and to the final heat of the day and as soon as I hit the track I knew the car was much quicker in between corners and later proved to be significantly quicker from the time put in,bearing in mind I had nothing to lose and therfore began to push the car,unfortunately pushed that little too hard and over it went costing me 3 seconds but never the less it was still an awesome run putting in a time just 3 ½ seconds off a ten lapper,this also give me TQ in that round with second place 7 seconds behind. |
| Top ten qualifying results after round 3 |
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1. Ryan Donovan XRAY XB8
2. Tom Reynolds XRAY XB8
3. Lee Taylor
4. David Blakley
5. John Skidmore
6. Richard Johnson
7. John Langiey
8. Wayne Parker
9. Paul Smith XRAY XB8
10. John Howells |
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With qualifying over and with myself setting TQ in every round this had secured me with TQ overall and put me in a good position for the final.
Tom Reynolds had improved his position in each round and secured himself with second spot, this made it Xray 1st and 2nd in qualifying.
Lee Taylor had also backed up his awesome run in the second round with a 4th in the last round to secure him 3rd overall but with David Blakley very closely behind in 4th on the same points,it had to come down to their fastest time with Lee Taylor putting in a time just under a second quicker than that of David Blakleyâ™s. |
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To the main final of the day and with myself on pole position and a clear track in front I managed to pull a 3 second lead by the first lap and continue extending my lead to a lap and half by the end of the 20 minute final from 2nd place Xray driver Tom Reynolds,then it was Dave Blakley finishing in 3rd place a further lap behind 2nd place
Paul Smith was the next highest xray driver finishing in 7th place moving up 2 positions from his qualifying spot in 9th,after winning and moving up from the B-final Andrew Price was the next highest Xray driver finishing in 9th place. |
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This was a much better result than that from the first round at Slough for the Xray drivers, as at Slough there was only myself that had managed to place an Xray in the main final. This time we had 3 Xrayâ™s qualify straight into the main final and with Andrew Price winning and moving up from the B final this now made it 4 Xrays in the top 12,finishing 1st,2nd,7th and 9th
We have been already looking for the next round of the XRAY Challenge. |
| A Final Results |
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1. Ryan Donovan XRAY XB8
2. Tom Reynolds XRAY XB8
3. David Blakley
4. Lee Taylor
5. John Howells
6. Wayne Parker
7. Paul Smith XRAY XB8
8. Richard Johnson
9. Andrew Price XRAY XB8
10. Andrew Nicholas
11. John Langiey
12. John Skidmore
Setup of Ryan Donovan is available for download here.
More info about the XRAY Challenge - UK you can find on the Customer Service Forum. |
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