BRCA Touring Car Nationals Rd1 – Report

Round one of this season’s BRCA Touring Car series saw a new revised format with the old 2-day event now condensed in to a 1-day meeting. The established Modified and 13.5 Boosted classes were also bolstered up by a 13.5 Blinky class and a full entry of 110 drivers made for a very competitive round one at the technical West London track. The new format meant less opportunity for mistakes and qualifying heats were very close, in Modified it was Xray’s Olly Jefferies that took three of the four rounds of qualifying to line up ahead of Schumacher’s Elliott Harper and defending champion, Team Associated’s Chris Grainger. In the 13.5 Boosted class Zak Finlay took TQ and looked to be on for another dominant win, Zak took the win in all four rounds of qualifying while in the new Blinky class Danny Booker took TQ.

The Modified class looked on paper to be a close run thing between Jefferies and Harper and so it proved with Jefferies having to work hard for the leg one win over Elliott. In leg two Harper looked quicker in the early laps but could not get close enough to Jefferies to attempt a move, then with Grainger closing in Elliott had to concentrate on defending his second place which allowed Jefferies to pull away and take a comfortable second leg win. Jefferies went in to the West London national with an unbeaten record in the UK so far in 2017, given how he struggled at this venue at the end of last season many were expecting that run to end here but Jefferies left West London with his unbeaten record still in place, a maximum haul of championship points and looking forward to round two next month at Adur.

Touring Modified top 5:
1. Olly Jefferies
2. Elliott Harper
3. Chris Grainger
4. Zak Smith
5. Harley Eldridge

A mistake for Zak Finlay these days is a rare thing but on this day clipping a kerb and rolling the Xray in leg one of the Boosted class proved costly, Darren Lee took advantage of the mistake and took leg one, but Zak bounced back with a win in leg two but as it was in a slower time so the overall win went to Lee with Zak having to settle for second ahead of James Hart.

Touring 13.5 Boosted top 5:
1. Darren Lee
2. Zak Finlay
3. James Hart
4. Marcus Askell
5. Damian Giddins

The new championship format means both finals scoring towards your championship points and Danny Booker was first to bag two wins in 2017, Booker looked untouchable as he took both legs of the Blinky A-final, two second places saw Colin Jackson finish second with Richard King completing the podium in third.

Touring 13.5 Blinky top 5:
1. Daniel Booker
2. Colin Jackson
3. Richard King
4. Chris Clark
5. Shaun Batt

Source: BRCA [brca.org]