National Finals Meeting Report 2017

National Finals Meeting
Santa Pod Raceway
23rd – 24th September 2017

We headed to Santa Pod for the last meeting of the year, this meeting would settle who would be the UK National Super Pro Champion, the championship points

before the last meeting were :-

This means that Scott has a 150 point lead over Brad so effectively Brad will have to go 2 rounds further than Scott to win the championship, the qualifying points will also affect the points difference, if Brad can qualify 6 places in front of Scott then this would mean Brad would only have to go 1 round further than Scott to take the title.
If Brad and Scott have a bad meeting then with 960 points available the next 3 would also have a mathematical shot at the title.
Wayne checked the data for Qualifier No 1 and dialled a 7.72 on the car , Brad had a great start with a 0.09 reaction time and a run of 7.742, 2 hundredths of a second over dial in was good enough for 2nd place and Scott was 6th 600 hundredths of his dial.
Q2 Wayne dialled 7.72 and Brad pulled an 0.04 reaction and ran 7.724, four thousandths over dial was now only good enough for 4th place, 2nd, 3rd & 4th were all 4 thousandths off and the timing had to go to the 10 thousandths of a second to separate the 3 drivers, so Brad was 4th with 5 ten thousandths, the other 2 were 4 ten thousandths over dial! Scott slipped to 9th so things were getting tight!

In Q3 Wayne dialled 7.71, Brad pulled another great 0.05 light but at half track lost traction and had a moment and had to lift so qualifying was over, Brad remained in 4th but Scott had slipped to 10th, this was great for Brad and Brad only needed to go further than 1 round more than Scott to take the title!

When the qualifying results were finalised Brad would face Chris Parker in the first round of eliminations, Chris was down in an uncharacteristic 14th place, Chris is the other Nick Good Motorsport driver so both Brad and Chris know each other very well and of course we know each other’s car very well, this was probably the worst scenario for the team, Brad chasing the Title and Chris retiring after this meeting and wanting to end his career with a win! There are no team orders and Brad wouldn’t want any “help” if you are going to win then you have to beat everyone!

When the qualifying results were finalised Brad would face Chris Parker in the first round of eliminations, Chris was down in an uncharacteristic 14th place, Chris is the other Nick Good Motorsport driver so both Brad and Chris know each other very well and of course we know each other’s car very well, this was probably the worst scenario for the team, Brad chasing the Title and Chris retiring after this meeting and wanting to end his career with a win! There are no team orders and Brad wouldn’t want any “help” if you are going to win then you have to beat everyone!

Sunday morning was a glorious day and both drivers were eager to get this one over, when the times were revealed both drivers had dialled the same 7.73 so this would be a straight heads up race.

When the lights went down Brad pulled a 0.05 reaction to Chris’s 0.09 so Brad had the edge, unfortunately both cars broke out and Brad was first over the line but Brad had a bigger breakout by 23 thousandths of a second and that was our championship aspirations over!

Scott won his race and was now the champion for the 3rd time in the last 4 years, we are really pleased for Scott and Geof, they are really good people and put a huge amount of work into the sport so the victory is well deserved.

With the other 3 drivers behind Brad all still in the meeting Brad and Wayne were set for a tense afternoon to see if they could overhaul Brad’s points tally and take the runner up spot from Brad.

In round 2 of eliminations John Przybyl, Joe Kellett and Chris Parker all went through, this was getting tense! John couldn’t take the title but if he won the event could take the 2nd spot from Brad, If Joe won the event he would tie on the same points as Brad and would take the 2nd spot from Brad on count back, Chris was now out of the chase with a poor qualifying position.

In round 3 of eliminations, Chris Parker fouled against John Przybal and Scott beat Joe Kellett so now there was only John that could deny Brad his second place.

In the semi final John red lit against Scott so that was it! Brad was 2nd in the UK Super Pro National Championship, in the 4 years Brad has been in this class he has been 3rd, 2nd, 5th and 2nd, an amazing achievement in this most competitive of classes, and with a total of 53 drivers, many from various European countries this success is a fantastic testament to Brad’s driving and to Wayne’s technical assessments of the dial inn’s.

Brad was also in second place in the overall qualifying statistics for the whole year with an average qualifying position of 5.4, Scott’s was 3.2.

The main factor that Brad and Wayne have this success is down to the preparation of the car By Nick Good and Cristiann Carlo, they are truly fantastic members of Brad Jackson racing and deserve to share in Brad’s success, Dave Catton has also helped service the car and helped Wayne with accurate weather predictions, a skill he learnt as an airline pilot!

Brad and Wayne would like to thank all our sponsors; we couldn’t race without all of your support, and really appreciate your involvement supporting Brad in his racing career.