Smeatharpe Stadium - Monday 27th May 2013

The Spring Bank Holiday meeting at Smeatharpe saw a return to the chilly weather, quite unlike the previous Monday meeting, but despite rain being in the forecast it never materialised – unlike this meeting last year which was run in torrential rain throughout.  A good crowd were on hand to witness a good afternoon of racing and crashing from the Unlimited National Bangers ‘Crasharama’, BriSCA F2 Stock Cars and ORCi Ministox.

National Bangers

For the unlimited cc National Bangers, amazingly we have now reached ‘Crasharama’ 15 and it has been on the corresponding weekend all along, and specifically on the Monday since 2006.   Therefore it was a disappointment in many ways to see the National Banger fixture list saturated over this particular Bank Holiday including two unlimited events this year that had not been on previous.  Nobody was a winner, all it did was predictably spread the driver base around.  However, that said, despite several notables who had always supported Crasharama not being present, the entry was not significantly down on last season and was actually very well covered by the southwest drivers from Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and those from the south coast, leaving only two from beyond and that was Autospeed registered 45 Anthony ‘Lips’ Croshaw in any case and Welshman 801 Micky Plum.  So, well done to them all and extra well done for the vast array of impressive and big cars that they brought along to do battle.  This included a Rolls Royce from 920 Simon Sparrow, whose team “The Weirdo’s in White” very generously put their sponsorship to the meeting, a Bentley for 99 David Spooner, a DS420 Limo for Plum, a Chevrolet Caprice for 701 Marcus Dunn, a stretch Mercedes Limo 52 Shane Marshall and a Ford Scorpio Hearse for 339 Jamie Newland which despite the Limo’s and Yank etc. won the day's longest car award by a mere two inches.
With the entry being at 30 cars the decision was made to run Crasharama first and it certainly produced a very spectacular start with some very heavy hits going in early on.  One of them was on Marshall courtesy of 74 Adam Hitchcock which saw the Mercedes ‘snap’ and Shane signalled that all was not well and the race was brought to a halt.  Thankfully he was all okay.   The complete re-start soon saw 239 ‘Nemesis’ Steve Carter in the lead and he could have very easily held on for the victory, but he decided to go for the crash by a monster hit on Sparrow which considerably shortened the Rolls Royce.  And to think they were once considered “too strong” for a Banger.  This put 114 Nick Courtier in the lead and he was comfortably clear of second placed runner 162 Brett Ellacott.  On seeing this was the case, his DWO team mate 190 ‘Pikey’ Steve Bailey set about the business, lurked for Courtier and succeeded in taking him out.  This put Ellacott into the lead.  Courtier was none too impressed and when he re-joined the race gave a Pikey a T-bone to register his displeasure.  Ellacott was thus clear to take the victory, the first time he had won this particular title.  Last year’s winner 265 Stu Foster was second and 74 Hitchcock took one of his best results with third.    The first Allcomers saw some huge hits go in on the pits bend with Nemesis coming through for the win and then in the second 45 Lips took the victory.  There may have only been six cars in the Destruction Derby but it was a memorable one.  There was an early red flag when a big head on between 123 Scott Cooper and 341 Andrew Jones resulted in a fire in Cooper’s car.  This finished both cars but Jones still wanted to play and he was pushed by Bailey and Carter into the pits bend, where he gamely waved in anyone who would go in at the re-start.  648 Jamie Smith duly obliged with a flat out hit and then 734 Kev Hooper then did the same on him.  What came next was a colossal hit from Nemesis, which folded Hooper’s car and then Pikey went storming in on Nemesis.  Not only Nemesis but Eric the DWO Mascot too….  A superb end to a great showing all round and as Bailey had delivered the last hit, he was declared the winner but all six drivers were paraded for putting on such a great DD.

BriSCA F2 Stock Cars

The BriSCA F2 Stock Cars saw an entry of 38 cars with several no-shows which is often the case, especially after racing the previous day at either St Day or Bristol but it did include a few long distance travellers.  One of them was Mark Gibbs and he took the win in the opening heat, his first at Taunton and a rare one for himself.  522 Chris Mikulla won heat two and then in the consolation 963 Lee Carlin was first across the line.  However he failed post-race scrutineering on the track width test and this promoted 954 Jamie Beere to the win.  All 30 qualifiers were on track for the Final and suffice to say the track looked crowded.   On the opening lap several of the yellow and blue grade drivers fell over each other resulting in a pile up and a complete re-start was ordered.   979 Paul Moss led off the re-start until the fifth lap when 76 Chris Rowe took over ahead of Gibbs, but all the while 886 Chris Bradbury was making light work of the traffic.   Rowe lost his lead when he found himself involved in a tangle up between back markers 685 Adam Deeble and 845 Andrew Morgan and this put Gibbs in the lead just as the yellow flags came out for the stranded 685 and 845 cars.  Bradbury was right on Gibbs at the re-start and he moved into the lead shortly thereafter and went on to take his second Final win in two days, having won at Bristol the previous day and also took second in the British Championship at Kings Lynn on the Saturday evening.  To his credit Mikulla kept Bradbury in his sights for second and 783 James Rygor was third.   The Grand National saw 254 Richard Beere come through for the win, at least on the road.  He was docked two places for jumping the start which promoted 676 Neil Hooper to the victory whilst Bradbury made it up to fourth from his half lap handicap start.  Further disappointment in the Beere household saw consolation winner Jamie Beere docked six places, for starting in the incorrect grid as a race winner.

Ministox

The ORCi Ministox numbers are down nationally which has resulted in little or no visiting interest in southwest meetings unlike in more recent seasons and seem to have settled amongst a regular dozen from Autospeed, but there was a track debut for 553 Kayleigh Glover from Kent.   There was only one winner all day though as 907 Cameron Lawrence made the most of his last meeting as a blue top by taking a hat-trick of wins.  In the Final he was followed home by 910 Tom Cadby, who did at least take some catching and 977 Keiren Bradford was third.

BriSCA F2 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th
Heat 1 270 605 700 430 768 135 823 189 783 519
Heat 2 522 886 76 254 761 126 921 676 830 315
Consolation 954 544 685 979 890 575 686 845 950 119
Final 886 522 783 270 921 700 430 315 830 575
Grand National 676 823 254 886 126 830 522 700 921 991
Grade Awards W 979 Y 270 B 522
Ministox 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th
Heat 1 907 910 922 989 977 986 255 916 931 987
Heat 2 907 989 922 945 977 255 931 986 987 951
Final 907 910 977 986 989 945 922 255 987 951
National Bangers 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th
Crasharama XV 162 265 74 734 452 45 239 nof
Allcomers 1 239 45 452 265 74 734 341 nof
Allcomers 2 45 162 74 190 nof
DD 190
Best Presented 47 52 88 99 891 920
Longest Car 339
Oldest/Rarest 99 701 801 920
Top Trier 123
Hit of the Day 239 on 734
Wrecker of the Day 341
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