Production Challenge 2008

The Production Challenge was held on Saturday 13th September. The event was open to 1/32 Super Production and Production cars. 41 drivers lined up for the one minute qualifying runs, with fastest single lap seeding the finals. No less than 40 of them ran Demon chassis, it'll be interesting to see how that pattern changes in the months to come once the new CMG chassis becomes eligible.
Notable performances in qualifying were Christopher Aldridge and John Gooding showing what the younger generation can do with Falcons. Charlie Gooding was 7th overall, by far the fasted Falcon propelled car though of course its driver was no novice! The latest version of the Falcon has an armature wind not unlike the Super Wasp / Hornet spec, but the other parts of the "super" technology produce a vastly higher revving motor. The top qualifying by a remarkable margin of over a third of a second was James Cleave, while Chris Thomas was second well over a tenth clear of Alan Lucas.

A final cars

Racing started with the E final, and included two premier grade drivers. The win from any final format means that a disastrous qualifying doesn't put you out of contention. Ross Grogan had a lead wire fall off before he'd done a representative lap, but once he got going in the final the reigning champion showed us he was a real contender to retain his title. Good job that lead wire didn't last a couple more minutes into the start of the race proper! Ross Grogan turned in 194 laps and Mark Harwood did 183, leaving Andy Worton the "non premier" E final winner on 161. Chris Frost and Keith Charles raised the "non premier" to the mid 160s in the D final. Nick Thrower was the convincing winner of the C final on 180, while Christopher Aldridge took the Novice Falcon powered crown with 162. Paul Austin and Neil Grogan took 1-2 in the B final, with what turned out to be the top main grade times, and beat everybody so far except Ross. In the A final James Cleave pulled away from Chris Thomas at about a lap per segment, James had shown such a speed advantage in qualifying that a dominant win was hardly a surprise. Charlie Gooding made the very best of his Falcon powered car to take third overall, ahead of Greg Harwood with Ross Grogan's E final time taking him to 5th overall.

Winning car

Winner James Cleave James Chris 2nd Chris Thomas

Driver	Qualifying Time (sec.)	Qualifying Position	Final	Total laps	Final Position
James Cleave	6.367	1	A	205.47	1
Chris Thomas	6.733	2	A	197.48	2
Charlie Gooding	6.959	7	A	196.98	3
Greg Harwood	6.958	6	A	195.47	4
Ross Grogan	8.483	34	E	194.70	5
Paul Harwood	6.934	5	A	194.43	6
Ian Fisher	7.042	8	A	193.98	7
Graham Woodward	6.889	4	A	193.46	8
Paul Austin	7.054	9	B	191.81	9
Neil Grogan	7.133	12	B	188.44	10
Alan Lucas	6.887	3	A	186.76	11
Paul Shepherd	7.232	13	B	185.06	12
Mark Harwood	9.391	38	E	183.50	13
Ian Barker	7.129	11	B	182.16	14
Nick Thrower	7.509	18	C	180.70	15
Steve Sargent	7.072	10	B	179.77	16
John Ovens	7.277	15	B	177.16	17
Franz	7.607	21	C	172.83	18
Stan Alton	7.517	19	C	170.98	19
Chris Frost	7.931	26	D	166.27	20
Ben Woodward	7.293	16	B	165.70	21
Keith Charles	8.158	29	D	165.37	22
Graham Thomas	8.381	31	D	164.21	23
Christopher Aldridge	7.748	24	C	162.53	24
Andy Wharton	8.568	35	E	161.54	25
Stephen Siddall	7.545	20	C	159.71	26
Trev Tennant	8.712	36	E	157.35	27
Tony Ryder	7.741	23	C	155.91	28
Phil Hemsley	8.200	30	C*	155.69	29
Chas Keeling	10.801	40	E	152.36	30
Colin Jackson	9.706	39	E	147.70	31
Kev Gray	8.430	32	D	146.21	32
Chris Green	8.092	28	D	138.82	33
John Gooding	7.861	25	D	132.14	34
David Sargent	7.255	14	B	107.49	35
Martin Ellis	7.350	17	C	88.00	36
Mike Gibbon	7.720	22	D*	82.00	37
Noddy Lockey	8.453	33	E	82.00	37
Graham Burke	8.746	37	E	81.00	39
Chris Aldridge	8.053	27	D	63.00	40
Mathew Siddall	10.801	40	E	47.00	41

Finals 8 x 3 min

* Mike Gibbon qualified for the C final but ran in the D: Phil Hemsley qualified for the D final but ran in the C: