Smeatharpe Stadium - Sunday 17th June 2012

A day packed full of races, with a deluge of spectacular and dramatic incidents to match, helped to make for a memorable first ever World Team Championship for the Bangers, at the end of which, there was a two-way tie for the victory, leaving the Buzz Boys and It's Spike & Co as joint winners of the title.

Bangers

Just under 80 drivers, spread across a splendid entry of 20 teams, made for a thrilling afternoon of action.
The five qualifying heats were each won by different drivers, as 113 Chris Jeanes, 158 Sean McCarthy, 153 Rachel Tavender, 607 Gary Sillifant and 938 Ashley Rice each took a turn with the chequered flag.
Once the points had been compiled, four teams were eliminated from the competition - Team Stevens, Green & Blacks C, Wagon Madness and Bog Standard.
The other sixteen teams were split progressed to the two Semi Finals, with a further chance to add to their points scores in a bid to make the cut for the World Team final.
Saloon Stock Car ace 65 Ian Willis won the first Semi Final, and 28 Steve Linly was magnificent in his command of Semi Final two.
With a revised points chart, after the Semi Finals, Buzz Boys, SRP, Farm Boys, It's Spike & Co, The G.A.Y. Boys, Green & Blacks A, The Justin Bieber Fan Club and Dave 'W' all made it through to the World Team Final.  Scores were reset to zero, and 27 cars set off on the rolling lap.
113 Chris Jeanes quickly took control, and built up a commanding lead, ahead of 354 Mark Sear.  By midway in the race, Jeanes was comfortably ahead, but the driver making most progress was the highly impressive Linly.  Jeanes was still ahead when the three-laps-to-go board was shown, but next time around he was bundled into a heap of cars in the pits bend.  Sear momentarily took over at the front, but he was quickly spun aside by Linly, who grabbed first place.  Linly saw out the remaining laps, to win the race from Jeanes and 46 Denys Richards.
However, the twist in the tail came when all of the result was turned into points, as the Buzz Boys and It's Spike & Co ended up level with eleven points each, which led to the overall victory being shared between them.
An Allcomers race concluded the day, and 744 Jake Carless marked his first home track appearance of the year, by winning after a race-long duel with 444 Kieran Bellringer.

Stock Rods

251 Lee Ribbans ran out the winner of the West of England Championship.
In the opening heat, 306 Neil Truran made the most of pole position to score his first win of the year, after a close contest with eventual runner-up 136 Steve Gooch.
Heat two saw Gooch as the runner-up again, after he battled long and hard with 909 Justin Washer.
A shower had left the track damp for heat three, and Truran did extremely well to charge through from last on the starting grid, to place second behind 151 Simon Vincent.
Truran and Gooch shared the front row for the West of England final.  However, they briefly tangled in the west bend on the opening lap, and Truran was forced to retire with a puncture.  Gooch charged clear, and Ribbans worked his way past 364 Nathan Olden and into second.
With the title seemingly his, Gooch suffered extreme misfortune.  Having clipped the kerb, he sustained damage to his front driver's side wheel, and veered waywardly off course.  By the time he had straightened the car up, Ribbans was on him and pounced.  Ribbans got ahead and finished off the closing lap to take the title, whilst Gooch manfully kept just ahead of Olden for second.

Ministox

Numbers fell slightly in the junior class, as just fourteen youngsters contested the last meeting of their current grading period.
In the opening heat, 901 Cameron Lawrence and 951 Aiden Vincent sped clear from the front of the white grade, to set a fast pace.  As the laps ticked by, the chasing group gradually began to close, but ultimately, the two eleven year olds stayed clear at the front.  Thus, Lawrence won for the first time, in only his fifth meeting, and Vincent continued his fine progress as the unner-up.  121 Marcus Skeels completed the top three.
Star grader 942 Steven Gilbert took heat two, when he reeled in Lawrence late on, who duly held on for second, with Skeels third once more.
In the final, 910 Tom Cadby performed a spectacular rollover on the back straight, after a clash with 989 Joe Marquand, who was then excluded from the restart.  Gilbert charged through to claim his second win, which brought him the Club 21 trophy.  Skeels was the runner-up and 903 Adam Neville was third.