Newsletters – Page 7 – Brad Jackson Racing

Autosport International, The Racing Car Show

Written by on January 20, 2016. Posted in General Pages, In The Press, Newsletters.

Autosport International, The Racing Car show

Brad Jackson Racing had Brad’s car on display at the NEC 14th-17th January 2016. Lucas Oil had teamed up with Santa Pod Raceway and shared a stand which worked out really well with both parties gaining lots of crossover between product and display.

It was a really positive event, the response the general public had to Brad’s car with many people saying that they knew what a Dragster was but had never seen one in “real life”, many people were really impressed with the look and quality of the dragster and they particularly liked the statistics of 0-60 mph in 0.87 of a second and 0-175 mph in 7.6 seconds.

Brad’s race suit sponsor’s HRX are from Italy, Ago Alberghino, HRX’s owner had never seen a dragster before and want us to take the car to Turin in October for a motor show, we will keep you posted on that, I’m just trying to arrange the transport logistics of the trip at the moment!
Torq racewear, HRX’s UK distributor are just working on some custom underwear and some custom gloves for Brad, HRX have a new range of gloves which can be personalised at a reasonable cost, checkout the website at http://torq-racewear.com

We are now busy preparing the car for the new season with a new wrap and team wear to be announced soon when the final design is agreed upon ! Watch this space for news.

Brad’s Roller Coaster Ride !!

Written by on September 21, 2015. Posted in Blog, General Pages, Newsletters, Racing News.

UK Drag Racing National Finals Santa Pod 19th - 20th September 2015

We arrived at Santa Pod with high hopes for the weekend, the weather forecast was really good for the last meeting of the season with sunshine and no rain forecast for the whole event.

The championship was very close with Simon Gough on 3010 points, Brad on 2990, Scott Hauser 2720, Ian Powell 2690 and Rick Cook on 2330, all of these drivers in reach of winning this close battle for the title, and with 1010 points available it was going to be exciting !

First qualifying run we dialled 7.72 and ran a breakout 7.708 and started the day in 17^th place. Brad’s second run was an identical 7.708 and this moved Brad up to 11^th.

The weather changed for the third and final run so I dialled a 7.68 and the car ran another 7.70 but with a 4 this time, the first three contenders were very close in qualifying with them all qualifying within 70 points of each other, this still made it a whoever went the most rounds would win the title, and I guess the car was telling me what to dial in eliminations 1 on Sunday.

Sunday morning we found that our E1 competitor, Steve Kellett had an engine issue so they pulled out of the race to prevent any damage. This is not the way we wanted to progress but it made our first round more comfortable.

We were called to the start line, Brad started the car and there wasn’t any oil pressure !

We shut the car off and made the decision to tow the car to the start and then just start the car on tick over and break the beams for the run, this is what we did and towed the car back to the pits, but with only 1.5 hours before eliminations 2 the pressure was on to find and fix the issue. Nick Good and Cristiann Carlo stripped the engine to find that the plunger had stuck in the oil pump. This was a real shock to the team because Nick and Cristiann always prepared our car to the highest standards. The guys put the car back together and we just started the car and had oil pressure when we were called for eliminations 2, an absolutely fantastic job by the team!

We were very nervous what to dial because we hadn’t any data for Sunday but the weather was very similar to Saturday so Brad wanted a 7.70 but with low air density I wanted 7.68, Brad won the discussion and we dialled 7.70 but we ran a 7.78 and lost the race to Dan Giles by 0.009, this was the closest race of the day and 9 thousands of a second equated to 27.59 inches at 175 mph !

So we were out, we knew that if we had gone only one more round Brad could have either won or finished runner up, we waited for the class to finish and both Ian Powell and Scott Hauser were also eliminated, this made for a nervous wait to see what Rick Cook and Simon Gough would do.

Eliminations 3 saw Dan Giles knock out Simon Gough so we had to wait and see what Rick Cook would do! This was a repeat of last year when Rick just passed Brad in this meeting in 2014 to demote Brad to third, Rick carried and went all the way to the final, the maths were simple, if Rick won were demoted to third (again !), Dan Giles had a different idea and beat Rick to secure his first Super Pro victory so a big congratulations to Dan on his first win !

This meant Brad was second in the National UK championship, this was a great result for the team, 2014 was Brad’s first year in Super Pro and he finished 3^rd, 2015 brought the runner up spot ! this is a great achievement in the toughest sportsman class in Europe.

The whole team a have made this possible but the effort that Nick and Cristiann put into the engine work made this dream a reality!

I would like to thank Nick Good and Cristiann Carlo for their mechanical knowledge, Natalie Cooper our back up girl, and Dave Catton for the occasional verbal input he enthuses and the loan of the tow car! Of course I must mention what a great job by Brad with many 0.0- reaction times and great skill as a young driver,I must also give myself a pat on the back for my (mostly ) dial in times, a job I have found fairly stressful in our ever changing climate !

I would like to say a big thank you to all our sponsors, Lucas Oil both in the UK and the USA, Pentagon Corporate Fleet, D & S signs, Martin Williams Hull, Torq/HRX Race wear, our associates Pete Walters race design last but not least Six B Apparel in the USA.

2015 has been a Fantastic Year

Winning the APIRA Championship

Finishing 2^nd in the UK National championship

what a roller coaster ride !!

Bring on 2016 !

FIA Main Event Santa Pod May 2015

Written by on May 28, 2015. Posted in Newsletters, Racing News.

Brad Jackson Racing headed for the 4 day FIA Main Event at Santa Pod this weekend and with a large number of European racers entered and a rain free weather forecast

Brad Jackson racing headed for the 4 day FIA Main Event at Santa Pod this weekend and with a large number of European racers entered and a rain free weather forecast this was promising to be a great event. Brad was the leading the UK National Super Pro Championship so Crew Chief Wayne Jackson was feeling the pressure!

The 35 competitors had to be on their game to make the 32 car fields and with 10 qualifying rounds it was going to be tight. One round was bumped so after 9 rounds Brad ended up in 19th place on a 0.0226, in fact 25th place was a 2 hundredths time, 0.0291 with ex Junior Champion Joe Kellett , a measure of the competitive nature of this class of racing, 10th place was an incredible 0.0077 from Tom Atkinson.

Eliminations Round 1 saw Brad facing Mick Howling in the Paul Marston Racing School’s Monza, Mick red light gifting the win to Brad however Brads 0.07 reaction with a 7.68 dial and running 7.684 would have been very hard to overcome.

Eliminations Round 2 saw Brad racing the Top Methanol Dragster of Martyn Jones, this car often runs in the 5 second bracket so this was another stern test for Brad, Brad won the round with another great reaction of 0.0494 and running 7.72 against a dial in of 7.68, this gave Brad the win over the red lighting Martyn Jones.

Eliminations Round 3 Brad was against Barry Giles, a very good 15 time event winner, Brad had beaten Barry at the last meeting so knew that Barry would be chasing revenge, Barry took the win with a great dial in of 7.45 and ran 7.454 with a reaction time of 0.08, Brad’s reaction 0f 0.09 and a dial in of 7.71, breaking out on 7.68 wasn’t good enough and a very well deserved win for Barry Giles.

It was also a great event win for Ian Powell who beat Wouter Van Leersum from the Netherlands in the final.

Brad’s season is still going very well with semi final place at the Festival of Power, an event win at the Springspeed Nationals and a last 8 place at the FIA Main Event leaves Brad still leading the championship, these points are subject to ratification :-

Brad Jackson 1770
Ian Powell 1720
Simon Gough 1530
Scott Hauser 1400
Brian Pateman 1360