2013 BRCA Touring Car Series Rd3 – Report

This past weekend saw round three of the 2013 BRCA Touring Car Series held at the very popular West London circuit which is located only a stone’s throw away from Heathrow Airport. Going into this round both the Super Touring and Pro Stock championship could be decided with Team Durango’s Elliot Harper gunning for the ‘Super Touring’ title and Team Xray’s Zak Finlay going for the ‘Pro Stock’ title. As qualifying got under way Elliot Harper made his intentions very clear by securing TQ in the first three rounds of qualifying. Schumacher’s Chris Grainger driving the company’s Mi5 chassis was also going strong by securing two second place finishes in rounds one and two. Team Associated’s Olly Jefferies and Serpent’s Chris Kerswell were also in the mix but it was looking good for Elliot who seemed to have just that slight edge over the rest of the pack.

In the last qualifier of the day Olly really pressed Elliot and made him work hard for his third round TQ which was great to see on track. In the ‘Pro Stock’ class Zak Finlay drove his Xray T4 chassis to TQ after three rounds and was looking rather untouchable at the front. The Schumacher pairing of Mark Musgrove and Lee Price were next up in second and third respectively. This is the order in which they would line up for the finals.

After five rounds of qualifying Elliot was TQ with Chris Grainger second and Chris Kerswell third. In leg one Elliot led the way with Chris Grainger able to just keep in touch with Elliot, something that we haven’t seen at the previous rounds. Chris then started to decrease the gap significantly with Elliot slowing down at a dramatic rate. After another lap Elliot came to a complete stop with an unfortunate mechanical failure on his Durango prototype which meant Chris Grainger would take the leg one win. In leg two it was again Elliot who led the way and again the same problem happened at almost exactly the same time in the race. Chris Grainger was able to capitalise on Elliot’s unfortunate luck and take the leg two win meaning he took the overall victory. It’s never nice seeing a racer have a failure preventing him from winning, but what this does mean is that the championship is still wide open and will be taken to Aldershot next month.  Serpent driver Chris Kerswell was able to secure second place overall and the young Team Associated driver Zak Smith managed to secure a fantastic third overall.

In the Pro Stock class Zak Finlay won the first two A finals with wins meaning he was crowned 2013 BRCA Pro Stock champion. Mark Musgrove was able to drive to second overall with Lee Price taking third. The next round of the BRCA Championship is on the weekend of the 24th August at the Aldershot track.

Thanks to Stefan Chodzynski for sending the report.