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Last weekend the BTCC rolled into Stafford for the second round of the Series. Once again many drivers were present on the Saturday for practice and this included many who were running their new Schumacher MI5's for the first time as this was the first big race event for many with the full production spec of car as it had been on sale to everyone just a few days before this event. Some were still assembling their cars trackside and doing some final touches.
The weather was once again fantastic as the Team had ordered another day of warm British sunshine and even some sun cream made an appearance for some on the Saturday!
We arrived at the race track early Sunday morning for race day and once again it was a little cloudy but warm, not bad though for 7AM! But the forecast was due to be even hotter than Saturday.

Practice got underway and many drivers were sounding very happy with the way their cars were performing and the track also, the lap times in qualifying were very close indeed so we knew we was set for some great close racing action once again.
After practice had finished, all the drivers were gathered for a drivers briefing by Stafford Race Director John Robson and also Schumacher's Mark Musgrove and Chris Ashton. The order of the day was explained and also the usual information that people need to know. The race schedule to be used was going to be 3 rounds of qualifying and then 2 finals, with FTD being the qualifying format due to the great weather we was experiencing.

So on to Qualifying we went, the cars were looking very fast around the Stafford circuit and one thing that was noticed was that there was very little difference in lap times between the Modified and 13.5 cars due to the layout and nature of the track, there were literally a few tenths between these cars.

In the 17.5 Blinky class it was Jason Butterfield who would line up on pole. After both A final legs the overall result was as follows:

17.5 Blinky A Final
1 Jason Butterfield
2 John Davie - Schumacher Mi5
3 James Stewart
4 Nigel shaw
5 Dominic Skinner
6 Bob Burr
7 Kris Kennedy - Schumacher Mi5
8 Kirk Beasley - Schumacher Mi5
9 Craig Williams
10 Adie Parkes


Moving onto 13.5 and this class saw some very close racing throughout the day once again.
Lining up on pole position by just snatching TQ in the last qualifier by 0.10 of a second was Zak Finlay, half a second covered the top 3 cars after qualifying so we knew the finals would be close. After both legs of the finals the result was:

13.5 A Final
1 Andrew Robson - Schumacher Mi5
2 Zak Finlay
3 Liam Brooks
4 Jimmy Maddison Schumacher Mi5
5 Lee Price - Schumacher Mi5
6 Mark Wallace - Schumacher Mi5
7 Matthew Lax - Schumacher Mi5
8 Mark Musgrove - Schumacher Mi5
9 Ben Butt
10 Chris Gunter


So finally onto the Modified class, this once again saw some great close racing throughout qualifying and all of the finals.
So lining up on pole was Chris Grainger, after both legs of the finals the result was:

Modified A Final
1 Chris Grainger Schumacher Mi5
2 James Hart
3 Olly Jefferies
4 Andy Moore
5 Alan Bickerstaff
6 Matthew White - Schumacher Mi5
7 Colin Price - Schumacher Mi5
8 Zak Smith
9 Sam Clifton - Schumacher Mi5
10 Brian Eldridge


Schumacher's Chris Grainger and Andrew Robson do the double with the new Schumacher MI5 showing that this new car is very fast and an awesome piece of kit in any class of racing.

After the racing was over the famous Schumacher BTCC raffle was drawn, several top prizes were won by the lucky winners so well done if you was one of them! After this, all of the trophies were handed out to the top 3 in each final.

Remember there will be a raffle at every event we hold as always in the BTCC, so stay until the end at each event to claim your prize if you are lucky.

Congratulations to all the Final winners and also to the raffle winners.

A huge thanks goes to John Robson and his team at the Stafford race track who put on a fantastic event which everyone enjoyed.