We headed to Santa Pod on Thursday to set the pit up and prepare the cars and pit for the 4 day FIA/FIM meeting with over 270 drivers and riders for this prestigious event.
Brad is currently in second place in the UK Championship and was looking to score heavily at this event to keep his sights on the 2019 title, hopeful of retaining the no 1 on the car at the end of the season, a tall order at this event with 45 competitors in Brad’s class with many from various European countries, male and female, and a sport where women compete with men on a true equal footing!
Friday morning was a beautiful day with great weather forecast all day, there were 45 drivers qualifying for a 32 car field so the pressure was on to get in the show, Brad’s first run we dialled a 7.64 and Brad ran a 7.67, 3 hundredths of a second over dial was good enough for 8th place so safely in the field.
Brad’s second run we dialled the same 7.64 and ran 7.66, an improvement to 2 hundredths of a second over his dial in, other drivers had improved and Brad actually dropped a place to 9th.
Brad’s 3rd run he left the dial at 7.64 confident that the sun heating the track would bring the time he was looking for and actually ran 7.647, 7 thousandths of a second over dial, once again others improved so Brad had dropped to 15th but this time put him back up to 8th place!