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Flash news: XRAY UK team did an excellent racing show case at the second round of UK Off-road National Championship by placing two of the XRAY XB8-TQ at the podium. Detailed report with photos and set-up sheet will be posted soon.
Final results
1. David Crompton
2. Jon Hazlewood - XRAY XB8-TQ
3. Ryan Donovan - XRAY XB8-TQ
4. Mike Cradock
5. Dave Bailey
6. Stewart Wilcox
7. Karl Jackson
8. Jaimie Booth
9. Matt Perry - XRAY XB8-TQ
10. Graham Alsop |
| Race report by Ryan Donovan |
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The second round of the brca national rally x championship took place at mold (north wales) on the 23rd of april,the weather was dry with occasional sunny spells throughout the day and thankfully stayed that way all day,the track was large and open but at the same time technical with a number of quick direction changes and a tabletop jump in front of the rostrum,the ground was reasonably flat with the exception of 1 or 2 bumps and the grip looked very high and later proved difficult to stay on all 4 wheels.
The procedure would be 1 round of 5 minutes practice then 3 rounds of 5 minutes qualifying with the best 2 to count and then the finals which would allow the top 4 from each final to progress to the next,making it a 14 car final. |
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Practice was underway and we predicted right,the grip was immensely high and therefore made some last minute changes to the car before we were due to hit the track in the very last heat,it seemed that the changes we made were in the right direction but just a little too much as we found we didnâ™t have enough grip on the rear (believe it or not),with that in mind some slight alterations were made to the car before the first round of qualifying.
Round 1 of qualifying and the car felt good,we had changed the wheelbase,rear shock oil and spring from the run we got in practice which gave us the rear grip we was missing but now lacked a little on power steering and change of direction,our new engine and fuel combination (nosram/tornado) was working well too and with the great fuel consumption we would have to wait and see what fuel strategy we would take in the finals,unfortunately due to too many errors it was a disastrous run and only managed to get 15th in the round. |
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It was fellow team mate matt perry to get the xray in the highest position qualifying in 8th with other fellow team mate jon hazlewood qualifying in 12th.
Round 2 of qualifying and we had changed the front roll centre and rear anti squat,the car felt much better and balanced now and with only 1 or 2 errors in this run i managed to qualify 7th in the round,jon hazlewood qualified 12th again and matt perry qualified 19th,everyone seemed to be getting to grips with the track now and with only 3 seconds separating the top 7 in this round an error free run was needed in the last round to secure a place in the main final. |
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Round 3 of qualifying and after feeling much more confident with the car in round 2 we left it the same and just changed the tyres,with an error free run needed i decided to steady my pace and guarantee a place in the main final,which i did and qualified 4th in the round just .20 of a second from qualifying 2nd behind fellow team mate jon hazlewood who set tq in the round and setting the fastest time of the day,talk about leaving it to the last minute,unfortunately matt perry couldnâ™t repeat his round 1 performance and only managed a 15th in the round,again a very close round at the top with just .20 seperating 2nd,3rd and 4th,with everyone being on a similar pace the final would surely prove to be a close one and with that in mind the 10 minute fuel strategy that we were capable of and knowing that most if not all were struggling for fuel on this track that might just give us the edge we need in the 30 minute final.
End of qualifying and this is how it ended :
1 â“ David Crompton
2 â“ Dave Bailey
3 â“ Graham Alsop
4 â“ Jamie Booth
5 â“ Ryan Donovan (XRAY XB8TQ)
6 â“ John Holmes
7 â“ Jon Hazlewood (XRAY XB8TQ)
8 â“ Mike Cradock
9 â“ Darren Cole
10 â“ Stewart Wilcox |
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Finals time and the top 4 out of the b final that would progress to the main final was karl Jackson who would start the main final from 11th,sam taylor from 12th,tommy chung from 13th and fellow team mate matt perry would join us from 14th.
Main final and tyre choice was the question on everyones mind,after careful thought i decided not to put new tyres on as this would prove very difficult in the early stages of the final,to the start and myself and fellow team mate jon hazlewood got off to a clean start,david crompton lead the field away and stayed there for the remaining of the final,jon hazlewood got himself into 2nd place early on and maintained that for the majority of the race,myself had a few little mistakes and then to suffer from a broken aerial tube which caused my car to runaway for a moment,once i held my radio further in front of me it was fine so thatâ™s how i had to finish the race which can prove difficult at times. |
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Despite that i pulled the time back very quickly and kept in touch with the leaders now very close in front of me,with the leading pack in my sights for the majority of the race i knew if we could pull the 10 minute fuel stops off we would be in a much better position to fight for a podium finish and we did with ease,which meant i did 1 less stop than everybody else in the final and that brought me much closer to the top 2 who were still david crompton 1st and fellow team mate jon hazlewood 2nd,with about 5 minutes to go i had closed the gap up considerably and as i approached a slower car from the back of the field we got tangled and that cost me a good few seconds,i finished the race in 3rd position 9 seconds behind fellow team mate jon hazlewood in 2nd who was a further 10 seconds behind david crompton who took the win,other fellow team mate matt perry finished in a strong 9th place making it 3 xrays in the top 10,another great result for the mirage/xray team.
Heres how the final finished :
1 â“ David Crompton
2 â“ Jon Hazlewood (XRAY XB8TQ)
3 â“ Ryan Donovan (XRAY XB8TQ)
4 â“ Mike Cradock
5 â“ Dave Bailey
6 â“ Stewart Wilcox
7 â“ Karl Jackson
8 â“ Jamie Booth
9 â“ Matthew Perry (XRAY XB8TQ)
10 â“ Graham Alsop
11 â“ Darren Cole
12 â“ Sam Taylor
13 â“ Tommy Chung
14 â“ John Holmes
Ryan Donovan |
| Race report by Jon Hazlewood |
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Just one week after our last big meeting (Proline Indoor 2006) we were off racing again, this time for round 2 of the UK Championship.
Mold is an all grass flat track, so completely different from the last few race meetings. This was to be our first time on a National level flat grass surface with the Xray. |
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| After practice we needed to make some changes to the car, we were suffering with to much grip all round making it hard to get a clean run. The changes we made helped a little but I still needed a lot less grip overall, so we continued to change quite a few things. In both round 1 and 2 I had finished 12th overall, so going into round 3 I knew I need a great run to secure a direct A final start. |
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| We finally started to go the right way with the set-up and I got a clean run and took TQ for the round with the fastest time of the day. Lining up 7th on the grid. I still wanted a little more from the car and after much thought we made more changes in time for the final. |
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| The Main started and I managed to move up the field slowly. By the time of the first fuel stops I had got into 2nd position, and set about chasing 1st place. I managed to close the gap, but didn't quite have enough speed to mount a serious effort to challenge for 1st. I cross the line at the end 10 seconds behind 1st and 9 seconds in front of team mate Ryan. |
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The changes we made for the final didn't work as well as hoped for, we had taken too much grip away from the rear of the car. I was still pleased to have come away with 2nd and we now have a good starting point with the car for grass surfaces.
It was a great weekend for Xray with 2 cars on the podium and 3 in total in the main.
Jon Hazlewood |
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