Olly Jeffries and Zak Smith dominate the Autosport GT Cup Race

 

The NEC Autosport Show was the venue for the BRCA promoted Autosport GT Cup, a chance to not only race in front of a motorsport based audience but also an opportunity to promote RC racing to a large number of the general public.

Along with a few demo classes the main event was the GT Cup race and despite only limited running, with a GT10, Associated team drivers Olly Jefferies and Zak Smith arrived as potential front runners. As racing got underway on Saturday morning it became clear early on these two were the pair to beat.
 
The GT Cup was based on a Reedy Race format so every driver raced the entire field at some point starting from various grid slots. This format makes for great racing and the public were soon two or three deep around the large carpet track watching the action. 

Olly and Zak started notching up wins right from the start and showed a clear performance advantage over the rest of the field.

Ending day one it was clear that if Olly and Zak carried with their winning ways on Sunday a tie break situation would arise, the tie break being based on fastest race time. This piled pressure on the Associated pair as now they would not just have to win their remaining races but win at very fast pace. As Sunday got underway this fastest race time would swap between Olly and Zak building up to last race shoot out for the pair.

Going in to the last race of the weekend Olly held the fastest time and he and Zak would end up in the last race together. You could not have manufactured a more dramatic conclusion. Both drivers started from mid-grid positions but were one-two at the end of lap one. Olly pulled a slight lead as both drivers got it to a race pace capable of taking the title. Fast lap after fast lap were clocked as Zak kept Olly in his sights, then as the race drew to a conclusion, Zak closed in on Olly. The crowd were on tip toe as the pair entered the last lap but Olly kept a cool head and brought his RC10R5 home to take the title on a tie break from Zak


Without doubt this was one of Zak's best weekends and he pushed his team leader all the way all weekend. Slightly disappointing result for Zak who so nearly stole the show but a great one – two for the Associated team, and an even better one - two - three for Reedy with Mark Stiles coming in third place.

The main reason for the event was to promote racing to a large public audience and the BRCA did a superb job at something they are well known for, a professional presentation of our sport to a captive audience. F1 cars and GT12 cars were being demonstrated and the public were offered a chance to join in. Full size car manufacture Ginetta got involved and provided some actual racing drivers for one demo race. In tribute to his Dad's winning TRC team Zak ran his car in the colours of Carl Breeze who his Dad steered to the Ginetta championship last season.


Well done to the Olly and Zak and particularly Zak who showed his true potential. Zak is having a great winter series at the 1:12 nationals and hopefully this performance will act a real confidence boost for round four of that series next month.
 

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