Sunny and breezy conditions greeted racegoers for a fixture which featured a mix of contact and non-contact racing served up in reasonable time, highlighted by some very entertaining racing over the course of the afternoon.

BriSCA F2 Stock Cars

The 36-car entry was pleasing, even more so that 19 of them were eligible to grid for the track’s White and Yellow Grade Final which doubled as heat one.  820 John Ovenden led the field off, whilst 95 Joe Willcock was the first driver to exit proceedings as he spun on the entrance to the home straight.  That is where Willcock stayed until lightly collected by 770 Bertie Farrell a few laps later.  At the front, Ovenden was eventually overhauled by 411 Reece Winch who sped off to take an emphatic win which brought him the Bill Hilborn Trophy.  Ovenden held off a late challenge from 207 Alfie Flecken.  Heat two was, by necessity, top-heavy grade wise, including the National Series challengers 183 Charlie Guinchard and 7 Gordon Moodie, who continued where they had left off from the day before, by trading bumper blows and swapping places over the opening half of the race in highly entertaining fashion.  128 Jake Ralfs took a comfortable flag to flag victory, leaving the main action of the race as the clashes between 611 Josh Winch and 979 Paul Moss which ended with Winch deposited in the fence in the west bend.  The consolation event saw an early coming together for 234 Tom Shilling and 510 Matt Stone, and a stoppage was required to untangle the two.  895 Ben Goddard took up the running at the front for a short period before 315 Charlie Fisher edged past.  Fisher stayed clear to secure the victory ahead of Moss and Goddard.  The Club 21 Final saw another clash involving Moss, this time with Reece Winch, as the pair exited together in the west bend.  All the while, there was a continuation of the fierce battles between Moodie and Guinchard.  The two superstars produced an abundance of tough but respectful Stock Car action, before Guinchard made the decisive move, sending Moodie very wide in the pits bend.  With Moodie delayed, Guinchard made good his escape to climb up the order.  Up front Ralfs was showing extraordinarily quick pace and moved past 206 Matt Brewer and into the lead as the last quarter of the race approached.  Brewer then lost second to 127 Matt Stoneman but just when it looked like he might hold on for a podium spot, in came a last bend challenge from 581 Dan Fallows that was timed to perfection.  Fallows duly grabbed third place in the charge to the line for a thrilling finish.  The Grand National saw Shilling and Stone again exit the race together, this time on the pits bend.  A few moments later Flecken and Ralfs also crashed out in heavy fashion, and that brought about a race suspension.  Stoneman sped away to win the race, followed home by Guinchard who had put clear daylight between him and Moodie prior to the stoppage, but the Scotsman was the one to benefit the most from the caution period, as it helped him to finish in third, his best result of the afternoon.

ORCi Stock Rods

The assembled cars contested two from three heats to add to their previous day’s results from the post-World Final heats at St Day.  The scores from the six heats were then used to determine their grid positions for the West of England Championship grid.  The opening heat saw 320 Matt Hatch cross the line first, but he was adjudged to have collided with debutant 100 Thomas Weeks as they duelled for the lead.  Therefore, it was 900 Lee Smart from Scotland who inherited the win, as he held on to his position despite a compelling battle with 286 Martin Walker Jnr and 77 Tom Larcombe.  220 Richard Short was quickly through into the lead in the second heat, which he managed to maintain and build upon.  Short was a distant winner as he took the chequered flag, but behind him there was another tremendous scrap for positions all the way through the field.  909 Justin Washer notable for his passes around the outside, only managed to get up to eighth place such was the level of competitiveness of the lower graders amongst the packed grids.  In heat three, 522 Chris Mikulla’s disappointing weekend continued in a clash with Northern Irishman 16 Samuel Montgomery which saw the former exit the race.  22 Jimmy McDermott in his extremely smartly refurbished car, led for two thirds of the race but dropped down the order as Walker Jnr swept by to claim victory.  The West of England Championship, which boasted the Ron Trickey Trophy, saw the grid assemble in points order from the six heats over the two days.  Consistent place finishes rewarded 51 Aiden Vincent who duly earned pole with Short alongside him.  Short’s race came to an almost immediate end with damage sustained early on, as Walker Jnr slotted into second place only to also retire as the race entered its closing stages.  216 Cameron Doak, the outgoing World Champion made impressive progress to come home in second place behind Vincent with 911 Harrison Bryant third to round out an exciting, at times dramatic, and always entertaining weekend of racing from the non-contact class.

Bangers

For the second day running there was a healthy field of more than 40 cars leading to some chaotic and exciting racing, much of it where outgoing Devon Champion 177 Ryan Miles was involved as he produced a lively display all afternoon.  617 Reece Rixon was an early casualty in heat one finding himself stranded on the home straight.  313 Oakley Hayes took up the lead, but he found himself caught up in an incident entering the back straight as 366 Pete Warren also came to a crunching halt on the back straight plating.  511 Dan Crosbie eventually came through to win.  Heat two featured lots of spins throughout the field with 252 Dylan Belfield leading.  He, however, saw his lead vanish with 303 Josh Jones forcing his way to claim the win.  The consolation saw teammates 78 Max Weare and 919 Oscar Berry colliding early on, but it was Hayes who made up for his earlier disappointment by making it to the finish line first: the Ministox graduate’s first in the senior class.  The Devon Championship was a hectic affair, with a few controversial moments along the way.  Belfield led from early on and was still a long way clear as the race moved into its final third.  With the conclusion in sight, Belfield encountered troublesome backmarker 6 Troy Jones, and with more than a touch of convenience, he slowed Belifeld, who then fellow into the clutches of Jones’ teammate, 67 Harry Pritchard.   As Pritchard relieved Belfield of the lead, he saw out the last couple of laps to clinch the Devon title, with Belfield and Crosbie completing the top three.  An Allcomers event went the way of 390 Alfie Tomkins, as he finally overcame mechanical issues that had plagued him all afternoon, to secure the last win of the day.