Only two weeks after being confirmed as Rug Racers modified champion Muchmore team driver Olly Jefferies added the modified Carpet Wars title to his impressive list of winter successes. 

From round one the modified class of the Carpet Wars series has been dominated by Olly and his Orion powered Hot Bodies Cyclone taking FTD at every round he contested, despite pressure from a whole multitude of top drivers. 

Round five of the series saw Olly only needing only a good A final place to secure the title, this turned out to be fortunate for Olly as round five did not really go to plan, problems left him needing a good last run in qualifying to get a good A final grid slot, Olly hauled himself up the order only to miss out on FTD by 100^th of a second. 

Lining up behind pole man Andy Childs the two pulled away from third placed Kevin Brunsden but then Olly tapped Andy coming out of one of the slow hairpins, as they recovered the following cars played pinball with Olly’s Cyclone leaving him dead last, he fought his way back up to sixth which with Glen Doman finishing second and Kevin taking the win was enough points for Olly to be uncatchable with one round to go.  

Olly will have very little time to reflect on his championship wins as he prepares for this weekends two day Carpet Wars World Cup, a two day meeting which is the jewel in the crown of the carpet wars series, although not counting towards the series the World Cup is seen as prestigious one off meeting and is with out doubt the biggest indoor carpet meeting of the winter, adding some international flavour to the meeting will be Germany’s Marc Fischer and Simo Ahoniemi from Finland.

Muchmore team driver Olly Jefferies has enjoyed a remarkable run of success over this winter taking two major carpet titles and whole host of wins and FTD’s at other meetings, as the Hot Bodies driver prepares for the 2008 touring car nationals Muchmore caught up with Olly to reflect on his winter campaign. 

MM.  So Olly you must be very pleased with your performance over the winter months, an impressive set of results from someone who openly admits to not liking carpet racing all that much. 

Olly.  I was delighted with how the winter went, you are right I am not a big lover of racing on carpet but the Hot Bodies Cyclone is very good on carpet, out of the box it is quick and takes very little driver input to get a good carpet set up. 

MM.  Carpet Wars and Rug Racers are both well supported championships and attract top drivers, winning the modified class at both championships must have been very rewarding. 

Olly.  Sure thing, I had to beat a quality field of regular national A finalists at almost every meeting, the most rewarding part of it was I was able to find consistency and dominate, apart from the last round of Carpet Wars which was a bit of disaster for me.  

MM.  Contesting both championships must have been a big commitment for you for you, surely it would have been easier just to go and contest a local championship like the Carpet Thrashnals which is based in the West Country.. 

Olly.  I have contested the Thrashnals for a few years now but it does not have a strong modified field and I wanted to push myself, Carpet Masters is also reasonably close but they do not run a modified class, so it had to be Carpet Wars or Rug Racer (or both as it turned out), Carpet Wars means a three hour drive home and Rug Racers just over two and half  hours, the M25 on Sunday night in winter can be a pretty crap place to be, but its made easier if you feel you have performed well and have come away with the right result 

MM. What about other meetings you raced at over the winter... 

Olly. I did run at a couple of rounds of the Carpet Thrashnals and won those as well, this was good as it was on a different tyre to those raced at Carpet Wars and Rug Racers and I had to play with the set up of the Cyclone, I also contested the HPI Orion Classic meeting in France and took FTD in front of Steve Weiss, I learnt a lot at this meeting as it was there for the winning, Steve won one final and I won another,  then I lost it over the fact I misinterpreted the rules on tie breaks, I’ve learnt my lesson and I am now  taking French lessons !! 

MM. You have already said your Cyclone is good on carpet but is there anything else that contributed to your fine run of form. 

Olly. Following on from last years nationals I sat down and had a good hard think about what I was doing, I was very honest with myself and self critical, I then set about sorting my head out, last year I was not as focused as I could have been, new team, new car, world champion team mate, it was a lot to take on board and I became distracted, I now feel I am better prepared mentally, I am a lot more focused and I feel I prepare much better for meetings, this puts me in a better position to handle what ever gets thrown at me. You also have to strike that fine  balance of enjoying yourself and performing to your full potential, I feel its important  to leave every meeting feeling you have given your best and still most importantly feel you have enjoyed yourself, at the level we race now its far to easy to become too intense about what we do. 

MM. You have one major meeting left this winter, The Two Day Carpet Wars World Cup meeting; I assume your intention is to add this to you impressive haul of winter titles. 

Olly. That would be really good, the icing on the cake, but to be honest I am treating the meeting as a fun meeting, I came second last year to Andy (Moore) and I really enjoyed the format of the meeting, being a two day meeting you need to think about things a little differently, it should be a good meeting and I am looking forward to it, nice to see a couple of Europeans making the trip, Marc Fischer and Simo Ahoniemi will certainly liven things up a bit, should be good fun, they will add strength to an already strong UK Corrally team, I feel they are ganging up on me a bit,….. X-Ray too are looking strong at the moment, I will have my work cut out this weekend. 

MM. You said earlier you have been up against a strong field at most of the races you have contested this winter, you mentioned Steve Weiss who was pole man at last years euros, but who domestically has put you under the most pressure. 

Olly. I don’t tend to look over my shoulder to much, I cant control what other people are doing, you can easily get distracted thinking about the opposition and get sucked into mind games, but to answer your question I would have say Elliott Harper has driven exceptionally well and also Chris Kerswell, its been a big jump for Chris coming up from 19 turn and he has adapted very well, apart from those two Chris Grainger has kept me on my toes and Ben Cosgrove has also been a thorn in my side at some meetings. Glen Doman has driven very well and consistant at Carpet War, but then again he always does 

MM. So what plans do you have after the Carpet Wars World Cup two day meeting? 

I hope that the weather is good enough that I can get outside and get some tarmac running, you will probably catch me at West London and Cotswold club meetings hammering round getting a feel for the black stuff again, apart from the tyres there is not a lot of difference between what we are running this year to what we ran last year, but with only four nationals every meeting is going to count so I need to be on the money from the off and hit the ground running.