Last week, we caught up with Xona by AET ambassador, and Hillclimb royalty, Damien Bradley. Damien and the rest of ‘Team Legacy’ have yet again had another successful season in 2023, and we wanted to catch up with him to discuss the events of the past year and find out just how well his turbo has performed.
Before the start of the 2023 season, it was agreed that a few upgrades were to be made to the turbo set-up at Team Legacy. Here is what Damien had to say regarding the changes made by AET.
‘At the end of the 2022 season, I discussed at length the turbo choice for the Legacy with Andy Taylor of AET. The X3C XR9564S turbocharger was performing incredibly well, it was very punchy. It didn’t really need any improvements; yet we always strive to go faster. The decision was made to increase the compressor cover size and install the latest Xona Rotor design compressor wheel. These improvements were really significant, and the cars performance increased more than we had expected.’
The AET sponsored Subaru Legacy of Team Legacy has recently been confirmed as the outright fastest production car on UK hills. This year, Damien secured the British Hillclimb Championships Tin Top Champion status using a recently modified version of the ‘very punchy’ XR9564S, now comprising of a high efficiency X4C compressor cover and a new HTC compressor wheel. At an estimated 800BHP, the Subaru has been in a league of its own, now holding the British class record at all but one national hill (Doune in Scotland). Drivers for Team Legacy, Steven Darley and Damien Bradley are on the cusp of completing the full set which we believe has never been achieved before.
Damien expressed his gratitude towards our team here at AET when Team Legacy faced some issues this year.
‘The changes to the turbo set-up brought some challenges. The incredibly efficient new turbocharger design coupled with a super aggressive antilag strategy resulted in damage to the turbo exhaust wheel at this year’s Coventry Motofest (we still managed a new record and 2nd place overall. Albeit, the support from Andy and the team, when we have needed assistance, this season has been amazing. Replacement parts were sent express so that we could keep the car competing at events, but also the wealth of knowledge and experience to identify and remedy the issues without any fuss in such a short time period, is remarkable. Thanks to AET, the Legacy now runs the best turbo arrangement we have had to date. A full array of sensors and safety settings ensure maximum longevity at crazy boost levels to help maintain Europe’s fastest Hillclimb Subaru.’
The 1992 4wd Subaru Legacy is no one trick pony either, securing the overall win at this year’s iconic Brighton Speed Trials was quite a tall order for a car built to tackle technical British Hillclimbs. The success doesn’t end there however, as Damien managed to take the overall win at the Isle of Wight Sandown Sprint and during the course of that, he obliterated his own 2022 outright record by almost 0.5s which was a huge achievement on such a short track. A visit to the world-famous Brooklands Museum in Surrey, and a sprint on the Mercedes Benz test track also brought an overall win along with an outright record to the team.
Here at AET, we are proud to work alongside Damien and the team. The Legacy continues to outperform the competition bringing home win after win, and we look forward to seeing what 2024 will bring, as Team Legacy aim to somehow top the success of 2023.
We wish Damien and Team Legacy the very best for the festive period and we are sure they will be back in 2024 refreshed and raring to go.
2023 honours:
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British Tin Top Challenge Champion (Damien)
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British Tin Top Challenge runner up (Steven)
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British C3 Class win (Damien)
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Targa Florio Fastest Saloon Car (Steven)
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Isle of Wight Sandown Sprint overall winner and outright record holder (Damien)
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Brighton Speed Trials 2023 Overall winner (Damien)
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BARC Speed Championship C3 Class win (Damien)
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HSA Championship C3 Class win (Damien)
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Sevenoaks and District Championship 6th overall (Damien)
