Smeatharpe Stadium - Sunday 3rd August 2014

Report by Steve Linfield

The second day of the summer Speedweekend at Smeatharpe Stadium was always set to be one of the highlights of the season, and it proved to exceed expectations in many respects with the BriSCA F2 Salutes Bill Batten meeting bringing in a large entry for them, the Saloon Stock Cars had their National Championship Final, following on from the qualifying heat phase on Saturday and the BriSCA F2 Heritage made a successful return after a six year hiatus at Autospeed.

BriSCA F2 Stock Cars

Whilst just shy of 70 cars, which is of course very good, the BriSCA F2 Stock Car entry once again fell short of what was booked to attend, which was puzzling but it did include several faces from the past and those from throughout Bill’s career spanning an amazing six decades, several long distance and rare visitors to the south west and even more rare attendees in honour of Bill Batten.  ‘The Master’ himself was back on track for what was to be his farewell appearance and joined, albeit ultimately briefly by son 467 Rob Batten on track on a one-off return.

Pre-meeting there was the second of the two Ladies races over the course of the weekend, in aid of the BriSCA F2 Benevolent Fund and this time for the annual Bill Batten Trophy, which Bill donated to the event a few years ago.  Once again the ladies put on a grand show and it produced another win for Sarah Bowden, this time by a greater margin than on Saturday.  Katie Dawe made second and Sarah Harley third whilst there were also commendable efforts from Stacey Holdsworth and Sarah Gilbert in their efforts to beat Bowden to victory.

Then followed a parade in honour of Bill and it was led off by a Micro F2 dedicated to his colours, then a replica of his first F2 Stock Car from 1969/70, the oldest surviving car of his construction from 1995, his 2004 World Championship winning car, his son Rob who was at the wheel of Bill’s 2011 car now owned and raced by 740 Neil Langworthy, his nephew Tim Farrell’s BriSCA F1 and then finally Bill’s current, and thus last car.  Then came the unveiling of an almost exact replica of his 1982 car in which he won his third World title in at Smeatharpe, and had been under wraps.   After a very emotional interview, Bill was then reunited with Garnet Kendall, who played his own part in the beginning of the Bill Batten story (further details in the raceday programme).

It was then time to go racing, and the first event was the 2014 Teen Sensations for the drivers aged 16-19 at the start of the season.  Having lost out on the last lap in the Young Guns on Saturday evening due to a puncture, 921 Jack Aldridge once again lost out on the last lap, this time when 527 James Riggall came back at him with a textbook last bend lunge to shift him wide and take the win.  Aldridge held on for second and 542 Steve Gilbert made third.  The first heat saw a very early end to Rob Batten’s day when he found himself tangled on the pits bend with several others, including 218 Rob Speak and the damage sustained was not repairable.  254 Richard Beere went on to win, continuing his good form from Saturday and then in heat two 7 Gordon Moodie did the same with victory, chased home by 886 Chris Bradbury.  Heat three had its own piece of history on such a significant day when 55 Courtney Finnikin took her career first win.  There were enough cars for two consolation races and the first went to 126 Jamie Avery in which significantly Batten came through for fourth which meant he was able to qualify for his last Final and the second consolation went to 817 Timothy Bailey, and featured a monster crash involving 560 Luke Wrench, 102 Wullie Draeger and the instigator of it all, 511 Martin Coles.  The BriSCA F2 Salutes Bill Batten feature Final saw 31 cars on track and was led off by 572 James Lindsay and Finnikin until the latter moved past.  Further back Speak, Bradbury and Moodie were the pick of the stars through the traffic, but some of those ahead were setting a decent pace.  However, it came to nothing when there was a yellow flag called for the stranded car of 575 Tom Clark.  What happened during the yellow flag was to become one of the talking points of the day, probably the year and beyond.  The protracted battle/feud between Speak and Moodie once again came to the fore which resulted in them having their own private ‘DD’ under the yellow flags and to add to the drama, Batten particularly on the occasion that it was, tried to put his car between them to stop the shenanigans.  They did, but both were disqualified from the race and the remainder of the meeting and Moodie exited in a series of donuts on the centre.  Suffice to say this took at least one, maybe two of the expected front runners out.  Finnikin headed off the re-start until passed by 302 Dale Moon and he held sway until Bradbury moved to the front, chased hard by 783 James Rygor.  The gap between the two came down over the closing laps to a point where the World Champion was able to be in a position to attempt a last bend lunge.  Bradbury was ready for him though, and entered turn three as deep as he and Rygor could go, and Bradbury held on to take the win.  127 Matt Stoneman came through for a good third place.  Dave Brown, the first man ever to lift the F2 World crown three times, was one of the presentation party.  The 34 car Grand National certainly brought the day/weekend to a spectacular conclusion.  A complete re-run and no less than three yellow flags were necessary after a series of crashes.  Eventually it was 968 Micky Brennan who took the win, with Bradbury able to make good use of the caution periods to make it back to second place from the lap handicap.

More presentations to Bill Batten followed the end of the race, before the legendary star took his final bow, and walked from the track to cheers from the spectator bankings.  The end of an era.

Saloon Stock Cars

The Saloon Stock Cars National Championship heats had set the majority of the grid from the previous evening (see report) but firstly there was the last chance qualifier to make up the remainder of the qualifying positions.  It looked all the way as if 103 Chris Horwell was going to take the win, but backmarker 631 Peter Low had other ideas and spun him with just a lap to run.  Thus Horwell scraped home in eighth place and 199 Phil Powell was the winner.  It was 401 Steve Webster on pole position alongside 499 David Aldous.  402 Shaun Webster and 186 Todd Jones were on row two and 6 Simon Welton and 677 Eddie Darby on row three.  Steve Webster very quickly converted pole position into the lead with brother Shaun moving into second and Darby also getting ahead of Aldous, who suffered the typical grid two curse of being stuck on the outside.  The field did get quickly spread at this point, which was a surprise.  However a coming together on the back straight between 218 Jacob Downey and 314 Jason Baraclough saw the latter perform a full rollover.  This resulted in a yellow flag and brought the pack closer together.  Steve Webster had the cushion of a back marker between himself and his brother and then there were three between he and third placed Darby.  The re-start came down to a battle and head to head between the two brothers from Yorkshire.  Shaun slowly reeled in Steve and was looking to be in a position to do something in the very late stages.  What it could have been will never be known as back marker 186 Jones, whom they had just passed launched his car at the 402 and sent him spinning into the plating and out.  This left Steve Webster clear to take the win to add it to his UK title and the first time he had won the National.  Aldous enjoyed a scrap with Darby for second which he got the better of.  The first Allcomers heat saw plenty going on, particularly a scrap between 698 Danny Colliver and the brothers Low of 631 Peter and 611 Adam, the latter of which ended up hard against the turns three and four plating.  Even so, Adam Low shook Colliver’s hand after the race.  Aldous took the win.  The meeting Final saw Steve Webster complete a very fine weekend with another victory .  This time he finished ahead of Welton and Aldous.  The £250 winner takes all Dash for Cash was won and lost in the first lap and it was to be success for World Champion 618 Stuart Shevill Jnr, who’d otherwise had a quiet weekend by his standards.

Heritage

The BriSCA FII/Junior Heritage are for replica cars circa 1961-1972 and thus nicely encompass the early career of Bill Batten when the cars were starting to morph from the modified small saloon cars to the purpose built single seat specials we see today.  To show the respect the Heritage movement have for Bill too, they had one of their best entries of the year on hand too with 25 cars present from all over the country.  There are plenty of very fine efforts in preparation and standard too, and the racing was also very good and competitive, with many of the drivers actually from the period in question such as 1967 World Champion 247 Andy Webb for instance.  The first heat saw 616 Darren Clarke take the win and then heat two went to 47 Giles Carter.  The Final came down to a good battle between 205 Paul Rookyard and 869 Mike Walmsley with the former always having just enough of a gap.  They duly took the 1-2 and Carter came through for third place.