LAST weekend Peebles driving ace Robbie Dalgleish was able to take his foot off the accelerator.

At Silverstone the recent Scottish and UK Mini Challenge Cooper Pro champion was presented with his Sunoco 240 Challenge trophy and winning cheque.

In a tense battle which went right to the final weekend in October for five separate championships, Robbie secured the once-in-a-lifetime drive at Daytona International Speedway in January.

Coming into the past weekend, five different drivers remained in contention for the prize to drive in IMSA’s four-hour BMW Endurance Challenge at Daytona, in a Sunoco-liveried car, thanks to the Anglo American Oil Company.

At Snetterton, the final races for the F3 Cup, and the Mini Challenge JCW and Cooper Pro drivers helped the final standings take place. Despite podium finishes and championship titles for Cian Carey in the former, and James Gornall in JCW, neither managed to maintain their average point score to finish ahead of Kelvin Fletcher, whose GT4 title in the British GT Championship left him right in the mix.

With only partial points on offer in the Cooper Pro class, Toby Goodman also fell out of contention, leaving just series-rival Robbie Dalgleish and Fletcher in with a chance of the prize. However, with a second-place finish in the final race of the season, Dalgleish claimed not only the championship title but also the Challenge seat.

Robbie follows last year’s Sunoco 240 Challenge victor Kyle Reid in claiming the drive after taking the Mini Challenge Cooper Pro title and will now begin preparations for a step into GT4 machinery around the fabled Daytona International Speedway road course.

Robbie said: “At the start of the year we said we wanted to win the Mini Challenge, Scottish Mini Cooper Cup, and the Sunoco 240 Challenge, but that wasn’t really realistic, yet we’ve gone and done it.

“It was such a tense weekend – everything that has gone on has been crazy.

"If someone had said ‘you’d write a car off, get a spare car, all the politics…’ you wouldn’t believe it, but we’ve got the result.

"I have to give a big shout out to the team, my dad has set up the car, my mum has supported me so much, and my sponsor’s Evolution BPS without whom we wouldn’t even be racing.

“I am ecstatic to win the Sunoco 240 Challenge. I just have to let my new job know that I’ll be off to Daytona in January!”