Smeatharpe Stadium - Monday 24th August 2020

An all-contact domestic affair took to the track as the Monday night action continued at Smeatharpe Stadium.

2 Litre National Bangers

A decent 20 car showing for the 2L National Bangers failed to live up the action seen just two weeks ago in the class.  The heats, run to Old Skool rules, were high speed affairs, with the first of them won by 799 Tom Pearce.  The latter half of the race saw the entry to the pit bend obstructed by the 264 Shane Jennings car which had come to grief in a coming together with 74 Adam Hitchcock.  In heat two, 376 Steve Hill took a comfortable win, with 741 Alex Waterman the runner-up again, after a good contest with 383 Bradley Hutchings.  As is customary, the Old Skool rules were dropped for the Final and Allcomers, though the Final ran for much of the race without any real action of note until the last lap when 414 Jimmy Craig is blitzed on the back straight.  Pearce scored his second win of the evening, as he stayed sufficiently clear of the chasing star graders, led by 907 Cameron Bradford and 929 Sam Baker.  The Allcomers was the quietest race of the evening, as 131 Sam Hill led the field home to end a night which did not quite get going despite the drivers’ efforts.

Ministox

The youngsters arrived in good numbers, including a most encouraging number of novice drivers.  A two thirds format was deployed in an effort to keep car numbers reasonable during the early heats.  Heat one produced a fast and furious affair.  Mid-race 907 Cadan Davies made a dive on the leader 525 Harrison Stone on the pit bend which end up with both of them half spinning on a track that had precious little grip after the earlier rain.  That allowed 617 Christina Sillifant into the lead but on the last bend English Open Champion 499 Alfie Aldous connected with the rear bumper of the 617 car, but like the earlier incident both cars lost grip and half spun.  However, Aldous managed to recover first to scramble across the line for the win.  Heat two saw 985 Sam Carter streak through the field to claim the win whilst behind there was the first of a few controversial incidents during the night when 654 Harley Soper and 577 Harry Darby came together on the home straight; the Darby car sent spinning towards the fence.  The outcome saw Soper excluded after the Steward deemed that the driver could have deaccelerated during the incident, leaving 942 Leon Williams and 914 Callum Faulconbridge to take the other podium places.  Heat three saw 290 Alfie Tomkins speed to his first Ministox win, as he led from flag to flag.  Once again though, there was an incident on the final bend when Aldous took an audacious lunge at 985 Sam Carter which sent Carter spinning.  Aldous grabbed second place, 569 Adam Langridge was third and Carter eventually secured ninth by driving across the line in reverse.  The Final was punctuated by race suspensions, the last of which was brought about by 538 Kady Mills spinning fellow novice 870 Bertie Farrell, for which the former was disqualified.  That left a two-lap shoot out from a single file restart.  Aldous, Carter, and Darby led them away, but it all came down to a last bend challenge to determine the outcome of the race.  This time Carter tried to dislodge Aldous, but his attack only served to delay both and allowed Darby to nip up the inside.  In the race to the line, the two were side by side with Darby just taking the win, and having crossed the line, the efforts of Aldous to defend his lead resulted in Darby being spun inside out for the second time in the evening, with Aldous perhaps fortunate to escape with just a warning.

Back 2 Basic Bangers

Once again a large grid of cars arrived, with 50 drivers contesting two half car heats to begin their evening.  There are no other words to describe the opening heat, than chaotic!  There were numerous spins and shunts which left the majority of the field strewn around the raceway.  Almost oblivious to the mayhem, 31 Nathan Nichols picked his way through the carnage and managed to lap the entire field on his way to victory.  By comparison, heat two was a quieter affair, but it is no less a dominant win for 218 Ant Jeffrey.  The all-in Final produced a packed grid, and as the race began, a large pile-up built on the pits bend, which captured most people’s attention during the early laps.  However, the race was brought to a swift halt as the 3 Matt Peters car suffered a flash fire.  Once calm was restored, 70 Jamie Thomas led the field off on the restart, with the small vans of 989 Dean Arm and 328 Mike Parry proving to be highly entertaining as they came together on the home straight.  With 360 Jack Reynolds playing a blocking role amongst parked cars by the pit gate, 275 Liam Best shoved the delayed Thomas into a heap of cars, to claim the lead and the win.  Thomas and Parry were the only other finishes.  Given the damage in the Final it was unsurprising that the Allcomers featured such a low entry.  491 Charlie Fulbrook just pipped 17 Tim King for the win, but aside from that duel, brothers 360 Jack and 760 Joey Reynolds spent most of the race involved in their own entertaining battle with one another, although Jackstar’s follow-in of 386 Ryan Wagstaffe was deemed outwith the rules of Back 2 Basics.  Thus, Reynolds had an early end to his night, as did a number of other drivers earlier in the night.  The Destruction Derby saw around a dozen cars return for what ended up a relatively slow speed affair.  In the end the result was declared Null and Void, after a fire in the 992 car forced a premature end to the event.