Radical racers join the fight for Driver Challenge standings

April 22, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The competition heats up in the Rolex 24 At Daytona Driver Challenge presented
by Sunoco as the Radical UK Cup contenders join in.
Last weekend the first round of this year’s Radical UK Cup was held at Rockingham and the
leading runners joined battle with the British GT and British F3 drivers in the chase for the
Rolex 24 At Daytona Driver Challenge presented by Sunoco.
Derek Johnston was perhaps the pre-event favourite as the defending champion. Sure
enough, he and last year’s winner of the Autosport Golden Helmet for the most club race
wins in 2008, Jonathan Wright, took the win in their works SR8 after Johnston snatched the
lead from Roger Bromiley, sharing with Rob Wheldon, with three laps to go, but neither of
them took pole position – that went to Ross Kaiser, who with Terrance Woodward could do
no better than 9th in the race after their R8 expired with 5 minutes to go.
The points for fastest lap went to Rob Wheldon, which was some consolation for his car
losing the lead so close to the end and means that he scored only 5 points less than the
winners. The latest point table is here:
http://www.aaoil.co.uk/assets/Rolex_24_challenge_standings_22nd_april.pdf. Please note
that at this stage the average points to date are the ones that are being taken into account.
A guest celebrity for this meeting was none other than three-time Daytona winner, Andy
Wallace. “It was a very late deal but fantastic fun,” Andy explained. “I know Roger [Green]
from years back and we keep in contact. The opportunity came up for him to drive the car
and he offered me the second seat".
“It was a difficult learning curve because I had never been to Rockingham before and I
missed the majority of testing so only got about six laps before the race". “The Radicals are
great to drive. The acceleration is akin to an LMP1 car and if they had carbon brakes, the
cornering speed wouldn’t be far off either. The aero is good but the car moves around much
more because it’s so light. It was a one-off outing but if the opportunity arises again I would
love another go.” Wallace and the evo magazine journalist qualified 8th and finished 7th,
thus emphasising the strength of competition in the series.