On a day which had some rain showers but could have been much worse weather-wise a decent crowd attended to find 94 race cars filling the pits.

BriSCA F2 Stock Cars

A hugely disappointing car count of just 23 F2s made the track for the Snell Family Trophy meeting, with three unlucky drivers not surviving pre-meeting practice.  Heat one on a wet track saw 895 Ben Goddard get to the front early and although 127 Matt Stoneman got up to second with plenty of laps to go, he couldn’t close in at all as Goddard looked comfortable throughout.  418 Ben Borthwick did well to recover for fifth after an early spin with British Champion 667 Tommy Farrell well off the pace for once.  Heat two was soon led by the impressive 128 Jake Ralfs before 27 Kieren Bradford took over.  213 Tom Bennett looked sprightly from the rear of the grid and took over with 736 Josh Weare spending the last few laps a car length or so behind him without ever looking like he was going to mount a telling challenge.  186 Kasey Jones raced to his second third place of the day as Ralfs dropped back to sixth.  Only ten finished with 66 Ryan Hall scoring a point from the novice grade which whilst unexpected was most welcome.  Heat three was all about 235 Alfie Brimble who got into the lead on the first lap and was never headed despite Ralfs putting in a spirited drive for second.  After mechanical woes in his first race, 468 Sam Weston was quick in third with the reds struggling to make any impression on the speedy lower graders.  Weare led them home in fifth with Farrell showing improved pace for sixth.  20 cars made it out for the Snell Family Trophy which was stopped early on after Jones buried Farrell on turn two with both of them coming to rest on the back straight.  Tommy got out on his own after a couple of minutes but will no doubt have felt it afterwards.  Jones was disqualified.  The restart saw Weston and 605 Richie Andrews get together on the back straight along with others leading Weston to clobber the pit gate hard knocking the wind out of his sails.  Sam eventually got out but was later taken to hospital for a check-up.  Amazingly the chassis was still straight though the axle, diff and the rest of the front end was all wrecked.  Stoneman used the two stoppages to get to the front with 980 Charlie Lobb unable to hold him back.  Lobb had managed to cure a misfire from the heats and held off Bennett who had a fine battle with Weare which Tom just got the better of a couple of laps from the end.  Brimble was impressive in fifth underlining that his white grade is a temporary aberration.  Just 14 for a largely uneventful GN as Bradford got to the front and kept a decent gap to the impressive Ralfs.  Borthwick and Bennett did have a good battle for third with Ben just getting the better of that as Stoneman got back to seventh from the handicap.  A decent session marred slightly by the two incidents in the final.  Full credit to Tom Bennett and Kieren Bradford who each raced at Northampton less than 24 hours earlier.

Modstox

For their historic first visit to St Day, 17 Modstox was a decent number.  The formula in previous years has had most of its meetings at Birmingham and other tarmac venues but various changes to the Spedeworth formula roster has left them short of meetings.  In turn, that led to Autospeed taking them on as their formula and trying to assist with securing them race dates.  291 Dan Baker led for most of heat one before 192 Max Harding came roaring past as the quickest driver on track.  Harding came from the back and looked very stable in the corners.  Multi-champion 1 James Fautless struggled in this one only getting to ninth as Harding, Baker and 121 Josh Malt filled the top three.  Baker made no mistake in heat two getting past 261 Simon Burgess early to beat Malt by a good distance.  Faultless found his mojo for a fine third using plenty of bumper as the pack squabbled with 22 Luke Wilson getting fourth ahead of Harding.  Heat three was a Harding masterclass with Faultless getting up to second but never looking likely to catch him.  Two caution periods in this one, firstly for 37 Fred Tebbenham who broke down on the back straight.  Regrettabley, he didn’t finish a race all day!  Baker then stopped on turn two with an air filter fire which was swiftly extinguished.  19 Ben Lymn showed well for third with 73 Craig Underhill grabbing his second fourth place of the day.  The final didn’t count towards the British Championship qualifying points and Baker got his second win of the day ahead of Harding and Malt.  19 Ben Lymn and 83 Heidi Clark had a coming together on the top bend which saw Lymn in the home straight fence and Clark limping home for twelfth as 6 Adam Perkins had his best run of the day in fourth.

Bangers

The Bangers raised 48 plus three more who did not make the track.  Two half car heats were both decent.  632 Ryan Karkeek was clear in heat one until the lap down 354 Simon Phillips put him out.  Phillips was out in a well-used Citroen Xsara and was undoubtedly the day’s top entertainer not least for his car choice in a field full of Astras, Fiestas and Focuses.  96 Craig Cornelius was rapid from the back to beat 196 Phil Chapman with the impressive 823 Tyler Phillips getting a fine third.  Heat two went to 54 Jake Moore who was visibly the quickest exiting the corners with 242 Alfie Ellacott getting second in his Fiesta from the back.  18 Steve Soper led the early laps and finished an excellent third as 11 cars finished from 26 starters.  Just 17 cars for the consolation but Simon Phillips entertained once more with a rollover after clipping the Almera of 317 Macauley Haines.  An impact with the fence dented the 354 roof but Phillips emerged none the worse for wear.  78 Max Weare got to the front to win from 95 Marcus Bumt with 201 Richard Simmons third.  The latter ensured that place by steering 451 Nigel Belfield right into the run-off area.  ‘Sprout’ wasn’t having that though, and piled Simmons into a dead car on turn one. Unfortunately, that dead car was his lad’s, 551 Jack Belfield which ended the latter’s day with major front end damage!   The final included a number of pile-ups on turn three and four with drivers coming and going from the scene depending on who was behind them doing the pushing.  11 Grubby Frankson certainly removed 959 Justin Payne with some force with 268 Kerry Birch also receiving some damage in that incident.  22 Hayden May got to the front after leaders Karkeek and Soper were delayed in the pile up and got enough of a gap to hold off Nigel Belfield and Ellacott.  441 Dan Sutherland was among the drivers coming and going from the pile up and took plenty of damage though he repaired for the Allcomers.  31 drivers gridded, with a turn one pile-up collecting most of the lower graders as the Vectra of 280 Jordan Fitzpatrick took a hefty jacking.  Plenty of incident all around the track, but Ellacott came through for the win ahead of Nigel Belfield and 768 Tyler Cock.  A pile-up on turn four later on saw many drivers squeeze by half on the kerb, trying to sneak past with most of the field involved at various points.  This was a suitably chaotic end to an entertaining day’s racing with all three formulas providing good action and plenty of incidents.