Hi reader
We arrived at Santa Pod for the season opener for the test day on Thursday, the weather was extremely cold with Easter falling so early this year.
Over the winter the team had a change of colour and the car had a full engine and gearbox refresh and we also made some geometry changes to the car so Brad did 3 checkout passes with the car to confirm the changes we had made were positive.
Friday was another very cold day and the rain came so eventually after only one class had been down the track the day was called due to the weather.
Saturday ;- it became clear that we would probably only get one or two qualifiers at best with the cold and with so many classes to qualify. Brads first run on a cold track resulted if a loss of traction at half track with a severe slide to the right, Brad controlled the car very well as this was his first big "moment" at high speed ! Brad pedalled to the line to to get a time but at three seconds off the pace we were not hopeful, however many other teams had the similar problems and Brad was in 16th place from a 32 car field. We had a second qualifying run and the track had warmed up and the weather improved but we were on the back foot and dialled a 7.73, the car ran 7.69 ( 2nd fastest time the car has ever run) so Brad broke out and fortunatley we only dropped to 19th place due to other teams having the similar issues, but at last we had a solid run we could use the data from.
In round one Brad raced Roy Wilding a 38 year drag racing veteren but Brad's 0.04 light helped secure the win. In round two Brad was racing Brian Pateman, a very experienced Super Comp three time champion and 13 event wins, Brian red lit against Brad but Brad's 7.69 dial in and a run of 7.70 would have taken the win without the red. In the quarter finals Brad's opponent was Roy Walker, Brad's 0.04 light to Roy's far too safe 0.265 secured the win for Brad. The semi final opponent was Scott Hauser who has won the Super Pro title for the last two years so Brad needed to be on heis game, he certainly was with a 0.003 reaction time , Brad had the race in his grasp but unfortunatley I had dialled a time of 7.72 and Brad lifted but still ran a 7.704 so broke out and lost, Dad's fault !
This was still a great weekend for the team, the car and Brad are going to be really competitive package this year ! Brad drove really well all weekend and his competitive reaction times were all between 0.003 and the highest 0.074 a great achievement for Brad and the whole team.
We are looking forward to the next round at Shakespeare County raceway in Stratford upon Avon on the 2nd May.
I
