The 13^th annual KO Grand Prix was held over the August Bank Holiday as usual at the tight and technical West London track. The single biggest change to this year’s event from previous ones was the introduction of round by round qualifying, with a drivers best two scores from five qualifying rounds to count. 

Saturday was set aside for practice, and with the sun out and a sugar-watered track, grip was at a premium. However, Sunday dawned very wet with little sign of the track drying up. Fortunately, the track was only wet for the first two rounds of qualifying, and after these two rounds, the Modified pack was headed by Muchmore UK driver Chris Grainger, with other Muchmore UK drivers Ben Cosgrove in 2^nd and Ali Graham in 4^th.  

The third and fourth rounds of qualifying on Saturday were both fast, furious and, most importantly, dry. The third round was won by Chris Grainger, with Ben Cosgrove topping the timesheets in round four. After the drama of Sunday, the overnight top 10 had a number of Muchmore UK drivers in the mix, with Chris Grainger 1^st, Ben Cosgrove 2^nd, Olly Jefferies 3^rd, Ali Graham 4^th, Elliott Harpet 8^th and Stew Noble 10^th. With one more round of qualifying left to run on the Monday morning, it was do or die time for many drivers towards the back of the top ten. 

Monday morning saw many drivers try everything they could to stay inside the top ten, but for the majority it paid off. A fantastic run from Stew Noble saw him take 2^nd place in the round, with Chris Grainger getting 3^rd and Elliott Harper claiming 4^th position. With qualifying done and dusted, there were six Muchmore UK drivers in the Modified A Final. Chris Grainger took TQ, closely followed by Ben Cosgrove in 2^nd, Olly Jefferies 3^rd, Ali Graham 5^th, Stew Noble 6^th and Elliott Harper 7^th. 

The first leg of the A Final saw a fantastic race develop between Chris and Olly, whilst Ben was forced to retire with a tyre problem. At the end of the five minutes, Chris crossed the line just three tenths of a second ahead of Olly, a fantastic race. 

The second leg saw another close race between Chris and Ben, with Chris taking the victory by just over a second, and claiming the overall victory in the Modified class. An eventful race saw Olly and Elliott retire early on. 

Despite having already won the meeting, Chris went out in the third leg to see if he could get a clean sweep across all three legs. However, after a first lap incident, it was Ben that took the victory, with Chris just one tenth behind. Elliott Harper had a steady run to finish third, although Ben and Chris finished way ahead of the entire pack. Overall, the overall result saw Chris take the TQ and win, with Ben 2^nd, Olly 3^rd, Elliott 5^th, Ali 7^th and Stew 10^th.

A great result for the Muchmore UK team, and with the outdoor season pretty much finished, it’s time to look forward to the Muchmore UK sponsored Rug Racers series to provide some close racing over the winter.

Muchmore drivers were well represented: 

Stew Noble's shell

Much-More Power:

Many thanks to Ali Graham for the report and pictures.