Report by Ali Graham

The 2008 LRP TC Masters was held between 28th-30th March at the MSC Eppelheim venue in Germany, just outside the city of Heidelberg. The event kicked off on the Friday, with practice running from 4pm until 10pm, using a T-card system.

After only a few runs, the carpet came up to speed and the traction level became very high. By the end of the day, the Mirage team had got to grips with the track (although some found the tricky middle chicane harder than others) and Elliott Harper and Andy Moore were setting very fast lap times indeed.



Qualifying started on Saturday morning with 3 rounds to be held that day, with another round scheduled for Sunday morning. Qualifying was to be run to the "round by round" system, with each drivers best 2 individual scores to count towards their final qualifying position. In the 1st round things were mixed for the team. Whilst Elliott Harper put in a storming run to put him within the top 20, both Sam Smith and Phil Chambers suffered mechanical failures after acquainting themselves with the Wall Of Champions...several times. Stew Noble, Jonny Aird and myself put in steady runs, although I lost my time after being disqualified afterwards on a technicality.

In the 2nd round, good runs from both Andy and Elliott saw them in 5th and 11th places at this point, respectively. Once again Stew, Jonny and myself put in steady and fairly clean runs, with Phil Chambers also putting in a fast run. Unfortunately Sam Smith did not have similar luck, and suffered another mechanical issue.

In the 3rd round, another flying run from Elliott saw him comfortably within the top 20 once again, seemingly not succumbing to the pressure of such a huge international event, although Andy was struggling to keep his place in the A final at this point. Jonny also put in a fast and consistent run, with both myself and Stew getting our runs messed up due to traffic. Phil retired once again, and despite Sam finishing his run this time, it was well and truly spoilt by numerous off track excursions due to a number of reasons, spelling the end to any hope of him getting a good qualifying position after 3 poor rounds.



Sunday morning saw the final round of qualifying take place with a number of movers and shakers. Elliott finally gave in to the ever mounting pressure and made a small mistake in his run, which unfortunately cost him an A final position. Andy also had a similar story to tell, whilst Jonny and Phil suffered more bad luck, with Phil suffering another mechanical failure after greeting the Wall Of Champions, with Jonny suffering a similar fate. Both Stew and myself completed calm and steady runs to add to our points tally, whilst Sam had a mediocre run.

Once the finals had been sorted, Andy was 12th, Elliott 16th, Stew 61st, Jonny 64th, myself 67th, Sam 83rd and Phil 84th. Some were disappointed with their results, but considering the LRP TC Masters is known as the unofficial World Championships with drivers coming from all over the world, things could have been worse! In the "I" final, Sam stormed to an easy lead within the first lap and never looked back, winning by a country mile. In the G final, Stew got hit on the first corner, which resulted in Jonny leading home the first lap ahead of myself in 3rd having blasted past Joel Myrberg off the line. Jonny grip rolled shortly after along with the 2nd place man, leaving me in the lead ahead of 2wd World Champion Hayato Matsuzaki; I never relinquished the lead and won comfortably. Stew was unable to recover fully from his first corner incident, with Jonny struggling later on.



In the B final, Andy duked it out for most of the race with pole man Bastian, although in the end Bastian came of better. Elliott got up towards the front of the pack early on, but then caught up in a multi-car collision started by the 3rd place car after clipping a dot, dropping Elliott back to 7th place where he would finish.

Overall, the whole team enjoyed themselves, and despite some disappointing results for some, the event on the whole was fun, with much socialising going on between and after the races!