Newsletters – Page 5 – Brad Jackson Racing

Champion Again!!

Written by on September 1, 2016. Posted in Blog, General Pages, Newsletters.

Open Sports Nationals 27th – 29th August 2016

Shakespeare County Raceway

Stratford upon Avon

Champion Again!!

After the long summer break Alison and I set off for Stratford in the RV and Brad was coming down later due to College commitments in Milton Keynes, Brad loves driving his pride & joy , his classic MX5, so was quite happy to join us later.

Last year Brad had won the APIRA championship but we were a lowly 6th in the championship and needed some of the contenders above us to exit early and Brad to win the meeting to have any chance of retaining his title.

The crew had worked on the car during the break and had changed the torque convertor in an effort to increase the cars consistency so we were eagerly waiting to see how the car would perform. We had also fitted a cross brace in the chassis to improve the car’s stability so the teams expectations’ were high.

Our first qualifying session went well and Brad was in 7th position, unfortunately it then rained and we didn’t get any further runs in on the day. We had the company of Lucas Oil UK’s MD Les Downey and his wife Mo with us for the weekend and Les kept us laughing (as always) with his wit and anecdotes

After studying the data we changed the launch chip and looked forward to Sunday, Sunday was a great day with really good weather, we had 5 qualifying runs, and Brad reported that the car was running “strong & straight”, we had a great day and Brad finished the day in 11th place.

Monday was again a great day with the weather being hot and sunny,

In the 1st round we were drawn against Jack Brewster, an ex Super Pro champion, Jack red lit and gifted us an easy win on what would have been a tough race, Jack was also one of the competitors in front of Brad and also Ian Powell went out in round 1, another competitor in front of Brad in the championship, so this helped Brad’s cause.

I would like say a huge thank you to Nick Good and Cristiann Carlo for their dedication in preparing a great car !!

Round 2 we were drawn against Pete Walters but unfortunately Pete had holed a piston so was a no show, we had an easy round, but hey, you have to take them especially after the bad luck the team has had this year!

The championship now looked a real possibility with Chris Parker leading and Rick Cook in front of Brad on points, Brad drew Rick Cook in the semi finals, Chris Parker was racing Bob Doyle.

In the semi’s Brad beat Rick Cook and Chris Parker red lit leaving the final between Brad and Bob Doyle, a quick calculation showed if Brad won the meeting he would also be the APIRA champion for the second time, if Bob won then Chris Parker would take the championship and Brad would be runner up!

Brad and I had a discussion and we decided on our dial in together. Brad cut a great 0.04 light to Bob’s 0.13 so Brad had the edge and drove a great race to take the win!

The calculations show that Brad winning the event had taken the championship by just 80 point’s, less than a round win!

So Brad Jackson Racing love “Shakey” with 2014 runner up spot in the championship and 2015 & 2016 winning the championship, this is now a track the team really have a handle on !

We had a great weekend with Les and Mo, and it was great to see them both enjoy a race meeting in a quieter venue where Les was able to relax and just be part of the team for the weekend.

We would like to thank Nick Good and Cristiann Carlo for their dedication in preparing a great car for Brad, and of course a big thank you to all our sponsors, we couldn’t do it without your support!

This picture shows the champion leaving the track in his pride and joy heading for College Milton Keynes for the rest of the week!

We are now looking forward to the European Finals at Santa Pod in 2 weeks time!

Summer Nationals Santa Pod 25th – 26th June 2016

Written by on June 30, 2016. Posted in Newsletters.

We were looking forward to the Summer Nationals, Brad had had 3 recent big slides in the car so we had taken the car to Hauser race cars for an additional cross brace welding in the chassis to see if this eliminated the loss of traction Brad had been experiencing.

We decided to test the car before the event so we headed to Santa Pod on Thursday night so we could get a full days testing Friday, we set up the awning and equipment and then we were ready to test the car, we also had Brad’s girlfriend Lizz standing in for Natalie as Brad’s back up girl so Lizz was a little bit nervous at first but took to her role really well.

Brad’s first run went very well and Brad reported that the car felt fine and ran down the track feeling a lot smoother, we did however find our recurring engine problem had returned, the data showed we had a poor cylinder on number 8 so Nick and Cristiann reset the injection system. Unfortunately it then decided to rain and it continued to rain all day so that was the extent of our test day.

Saturday morning brought qualifying and in round 1 Brad ran an 8.02 on a 7.70 dial so we knew we still had the gremlins! Again Nick and Cristiann work tirelessly to find a solution and after more adjustments we were ready for the 2nd round of qualifying.

We ran a 7.88 on a 7.70 dial so with the car still not quite right had to settle for 12th place from 19 qualifiers due to a rain shower earlier in the day causing us to run out of time with the noise curfew coming into play.
Sunday morning brought the first round of eliminations, we were still not sure if we had fixed the car and Wayne dialled a 7.78 to give Brad a chance to chase down the very experienced Tom Atkinson , the number 3 qualifier, this tactic worked and Brad took the win against the breakout time of Tom’s.

Brad reported the car the felt fine and the data showed that the car was now back on form.

Wayne was now able to dial a time that we knew the car would run, in the second round of eliminations Brad had his old junior dragster adversary Joe Kellett, Wayne dialled a 7.76 and the car ran a 7.77 but Brad had an uncharacteristic red light and we were out.

Brad was very disappointed with the red light but this is only the second red light he has pulled in competition in the last 3 years of racing so the team told Brad not to beat himself up about it.

We take some positives from the weekend that the car handles a lot better with the cross brace and the fact that we hopefully have eliminated the fuelling gremlins that we have had this year!

We now break for the summer but are already looking forward to the next meeting, the Open Sports Nationals at Shakespeare county raceway on the holiday weekend at the end of August, the car is ready,

Brad is ready and the team are ready!

Bring it on!

Santa Pod Video

See If you can Spot Us !!

The Main Event 2016

Written by on June 1, 2016. Posted in Newsletters.

We eagerly awaited this event following a poor start to the season, this event attracts racers from all over Europe and it is a meeting that Brad really enjoys. The weather forecast was great and it looked like we would have a full weekend of action.
We had some guests for the event and we also had 2 sponsors at the event, Les Downey and his wife Mo from Lucas Oil UK , and Keith West from Pentagon.
We arrived on Thursday and set up the pits, we had 3 Lucas Oil dragsters competing this weekend so it was going to be busy because all 3 dragsters were in the same class.
Friday qualifying showed us that we has 6 rounds of qualifying so we would get plenty of track time, our first run Wayne dialled 7.72 but Brad ran a 7.707 breaking out by just over 100th of a second, the second run the car ran slower, the data didn’t show anything wrong so we changed the fuel ratio, the third run was even slower so we realised we had a problem. We checked the car over and couldn’t find anything untoward so took the rocker covers off and found two tight rockers, we made a decision not to run the car but due to our other 2 cars qualifying, Nick Good and Chris Parker, the crew were busy servicing these cars.

At around 4pm we decided to investigate further, this resulted in the cylinder heads and the sump being removed and we found 2 pistons had broken rings. I went to see Goef Hauser from Hauser Race Cars, http://www.hauserracing.com , and Geof kindly offered to open his workshop for us, this is a great gesture for 2 reasons, we race against his son Scott and secondly it was already 7pm,

What a great sportsman and a great gentleman!

I got the parts back for the crew and Nick and Cristiann worked until the small hours getting the engine rebuilt, they finished about 0130 but due to the noise curfew we had to wait until 9 o’clock the following day before we could try the engine.
The next morning the engine ran perfectly and although we were on the back foot and in last place we thought we would be able to recover the situation. We were wrong, the car launched really well but then wouldn’t shift into 2nd gear, Brad aborted this run, back at the pit’s we found a wire has come loose on the shifter solenoid, not related at all to the engine problem just a real piece of bad luck. There was then a huge accident in Pro Mod which resulted in a 2 hour delay, pleased to say the driver wasn’t too badly injured, but again our day was done.
Here’s the video;-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqLlAY2-3lc

Sunday we realised we would only get 1 more qualifying chance, with no data yet Wayne had to take an educated guess and his stab was almost 2 tenths of a second over his dial in and this was only good enough for 28th place in the 32 car field, but at least the car was fine and we were in the show.
A little later in the day brought the first round of eliminations and we were against Wouter van Leersom from the Nederlands, this is where our weekend improved, he had some trouble and Brad was through the first round of eliminations.
Round 2 brought a little irony that we were drawn against team mate Nick Good, Nick prepares our car and this would be an interesting race, Nicks car is a blown alcohol car and reaches over 200mph in 6 seconds, however Nick still knew he needed a good light against Brad and tried too hard and red lit gifting the win to Brad! Our joy was short lived when we saw that Brad now had an oil leak that would be tricky to repair. Nick and Cristiann again worked hard to repair the car for Brad and once again we looked forward to the quarter finals.
Monday we woke up to a slight bit of moisture in the air, the track was dry and Santa Pod ran the pro cars first, our race took place around 1pm, Brad holeshot Ian Powell with a 0.053 reaction to Ian’s 0.105 giving Brad the advantage when the car lost traction and swerved to the right, Brad fought the car valiantly but had to lift gifting the race to Ian, congratulations to Ian. There is a short video on my (Wayne Jackson) timeline on facebook, if you look closely you can just see Brad getting out of shape as the video ends.

Summary, Nick always delivers Brad a great car but this weekend it decided to test our commitment, it lost!
We never give in until it’s over, and for Brad to reach the last 8 in this competitive FIA event was a great result for the team and keeps our championship aspirations alive!