YORK drag racer Brad Jackson has won the UK National Super Pro Championship at Santa Pod Raceway.

The 22-year-old headed the series table going into last weekend's final races and, despite losing his fourth elimination race, had enough to top the standings on Sunday.

In doing so, he also became the Santa Pod Racers Club Super Pro Championship winner.

The championship completes a good year for Jackson, who also made the last four at the National Finals, finished runner-up at the Summer Nationals and won the European Finals.

Rain on the first day of the finals at Santa Pod in Bedfordshire prevented any racing, so nobody could earn qualifying points and names were instead drawn out of a hat as per emergency qualifying rules.

Jackson was drawn with Paul Przybyl, but the latter was ruled out because of a gearbox failure and Jackson passed through with a bye to face Dave Fulton.

Jackson won this first elimination race, pulling a 0.05-second reaction time to Fulton's slow 0.2 seconds.

Meanwhile, Jackson's rivals had a bad day, with Scott Hauser and Nick Good both fouling.

The second elimination race saw Jackson beat French ex-junior dragster Elodie Dubois. Both drivers - having pulled almost identical reaction times - ran too quickly and broke out (fouled), but Jackson went through with the lesser breakout.

Meanwhile, rival Laura Turburville lost to Billy Gane in the closest race of the day, leaving only Joe Kellett in with a chance to overhaul Jackson for the championship. Jackson was 370 points in front of Kellett, with 400 available.

Jackson's third elimination race was against the tough competition of Dan Giles, but the youngster remained calm and pulled a 0.04 light to Giles' 0.06. Jackson was 0.0685 over his index while Giles was 0.0689 over, giving Jackson the narrowest of wins and the championship.

Jackson was knocked out in the fourth elimination race after making a rare error against Gane and red-lighting by 0.2 seconds, and Gane went on to win the final against multiple Super Pro and Super Gas champion Brian Pateman.

Wayne Jackson, Brad's dad, said: "Brad has had many successes in his career, but winning the UK National Championship, in what is regarded as the most competitive class in Europe, is the pinnacle of his career to date.

"The journey with Brad started nine years ago - four years in Junior Dragster, and this is our fifth year in Super Pro.

"We have many people to thank who have helped us along the way - Lucas Oil USA, Lucas Oil UK, Tom Bognor, Les Downey, Geof Hauser, Peter Scriven, Nick Good, Cristiann Carlo, Trevor Reeve, Dawn Torr, Keith West, Simon & Scott Bailey, Nick Williams and Rob Breuilly. Without their help and support, we couldn’t have achieved what Brad has achieved.

"Brad is dedicating his championship win to our very close friend Roger Jewitt, who is in St Leonard's Hospice in York."