International Championship reports

The 2011 National Hot Rod British Open Championship Best of British for Blackman Nuttscorner Oval, Sunday September 4th 2011 Darren Black reports:  World Champion Malcolm Blackman stamped his authority on Nuttscorner Oval on Sunday afternoon when he took victory in an absolutely thrilling 2011 British Championship encounter. After an opening heat win for defending champion Stewart Doak in the relative dry, it was former Superstox World Champion Jason Cooper who took the win in a wet heat two. By final time conditions were treacherous, and after a superb dice between Blackman and pole sitter John Christie had been brought up short by a big accident, Malcolm was able to storm home to the win. The majority of the previous evening’s combatants were on hand once again, although Andrew Murray, Wilson Hamilton and Will Scott had departed the scene, along with the unlucky Keith Chesher after his oil dramas in the Irish Open final. The rest were joined however by Englishman Jason Kew, Ian McReynolds (who’d been at a wedding the previous day), and Shane Murray, having another outing in a spare Willie Hardie car, but not the same one as he’d previously pedalled at home as Hardie himself had been in it all weekend! There was a hint of drizzle in the air as they set off in the first qualifier with all on slicks; defending British Champion Stewart Doak quickly turning pole spot into the lead ahead of Kew, Hardie and Gavin Murray. Behind the leading quartet, Bell, Adam Maxwell and Christie were next up, whilst Blackman was making significant progress from the rear of the grid having got himself ahead of Matt Simpson in the traffic. Tom Casey found himself out of it after contact from McReynolds which earned the latter a black cross, before Hardie found a way past Kew and towed Bell and Gavin Murray through too in his wake. Christie soon did likewise, as further down the pack Adam Maxwell got a black cross for persistent contact on other cars. Doak was well ahead at the end for an easy win, and with Bell losing out nearing the end it was Gavin Murray who inherited second ahead of Christie and Hardie. Jason Cooper had the front row to himself for heat two, by which time it was wets all round as the rain was coming down much harder, and he quickly took charge of proceedings ahead of fellow Englishmen Simpson, Blackman and Chris Haird. At the other end of the pack Gavin Murray spun in the middle of turns one and two, perhaps after coming hard across Hardie, and the resultant spin momentarily pinned heat one winner Doak against the wall. He quickly wriggled free, only to rejoin behind leader Cooper. In the midst of it all too, Adam Maxwell collected another cross, this time for a jump start. As Simpson and Blackman dropped Haird and started fighting hard for second, leader Cooper had his mirrors full of the lap down wet weather specialist Doak. Stewart probably spurred Jason on more then he really needed too, or perhaps wanted to, but he was nevertheless getting the break from the squabbling duo behind that he needed. Doak finally did unlap himself and move on up the road to complete a fine recovery, but that was to take nothing away from a fine drive from Cooper who took the flag and the win in comfort. Most eyes had been on Simpson and Blackman throughout, as they conducted a fine battle with rarely less than a hair’s breadth between them. Simpson got the better of it to land second, with Blackman third ahead of Martin and Haird. Final Grid 962 911 95 303 174 369 966 70 921 943* 777 960* 482 996 9 72 994 115 76 977 116 970* 941 31 (* = dns) Consistency had given Christie pole spot for the final, with Cooper alongside, whilst Blackman and Doak looked very menacing to say the least on row two. There were a few non-starters in Davy McKay, Shane Murphy and Mark Heatrick and conditions were now more suited to powerboats than Hot Rods. Shane in fact had broken a back axle completely in two during the second heat. As Christie established the early lead ahead of Blackman, Doak moved ahead of Cooper for third only for the merest of touches to send the Cirrus Plastics car spinning through 360 degrees entering the back straight. Stewarty lost little time getting back into it, although a whole hatful of places had gone and he was back to ninth spot. The lead duo were by now pulling clear, with Christie receiving a few blue flags but Blackman unable to get around him. On at least two occasions Malcolm came in way too deep and lost valuable time, but was soon able to claw it back and return to the bumper of the #962 car. Backmarkers were always going to play a huge part in the proceedings, and so it turned out... A gaggle of cars were attempting to put Les Compelli a lap down, including Tommy Maxwell, Steve Burrows and Thomas Dilly. But they had the lead duo bearing down on them to lap them, and indeed put two laps on Compelli. But nobody could get by Les, despite numerous waved blues and warnings over the Raceceiver. Tommy Maxwell looked like he may make it at one stage, only to be checked back into each corner, and by now the lead pair had joined the back of the pack with absolutely nowhere to go as it was two abreast in front of them! And to make it even more interesting, third placed man Gavin Murray, along with Simpson, were now right there too. Christie chose inside, whilst Blackman dived to the outside and even fractionally went ahead crossing the line at one stage. Absolutely nothing was giving at all, but it had to at some stage, which was when Dilly went fence-wards from the inside line crossing the start and finish line. In an instant Christie was heading the same way, smacking the fence and the leader was gone. He bounced back across the track and was collected by the hapless Martin, who is certainly having his fair share of bad luck in recent weeks. The yellows were quickly out to clear up the mess, and Compelli was ordered to the infield for the restart. So, out of it all Blackman had been delayed in the incident, and we now had Gavin Murray in the lead! Simpson was next up, or indeed would have been, only for his car to die on him on the rolling lap. As Blackman helped him to the centre, the huge thump on the steering wheel only began to tell how disappointed Matt was... So it was Murray from Blackman, with Doak sensationally now right back in contention even after his earlier spin, whilst Kew was in fourth after another very good drive indeed. As the green came out again Murray quickly found that a car that had been right on the money before the stoppage, had completely gone to pot after it! Blackman easily slid through on his inside to take it up, with Doak doing likewise to go second. Murray eventually retired, and any hope of a battle for the lead disappeared too when it became apparent that Doak was struggling with a misfire on his machine – most probably from the rain but possibly from the fact that he had dealt the Christie car more than a glancing blow during the earlier incident. That wasn’t to bother Blackman though, and he romped home to take the double chequers and with it his first ever British title. Outgoing champion Doak hung on for second, with Kew delighted in third ahead of Hardie, with Tommy Maxwell, Haird, Burrows and Shane Murray the only other finishers. And there ended another NI International weekend. It was superb to see such a fine visiting entry, and the on track action was excellent too throughout the two days. Here’s hoping for more of the same in 2012, when the all-new Tullyroan Oval will be in full use!  Darren Black Heat 1: 996 95 962 72 369 174 9 911 70 76(x-2) 482 970 977(x-2) 966 115 994 921 303 960 31 943 777 941. Heat 2: 482 303 911 994 9 115 962 966 116 174 95 72 996 76(x-2) 921 943 369 977 777 70 941. British Open Final: 911 996 174 72 369 115 116 70. Penalties: 977 and 76 docked two places each for contact in heat one. 76 docked two places for jumping the start in heat two. 777 disqualified from final for continually baulking cars whilst being lapped. Brian Lammey’s photos - http://mkpics.smugmug.com/Nationalhotrodcom/2011-Br itish-Championship/

The 2011 National Hot Rod Irish Open Championship
For Whom The Bell Tolls!
Ballymena Raceway, Saturday September 3rd 2011
Darren Black reports:  With the biggest entry of National Hot Rods to be seen in Northern Ireland for many years on hand, it was local ace and former Stock Rod World Champion Glenn Bell who claimed the honours in a dramatic and exciting Irish Open Championship at Ballymena Raceway on Saturday night.

Thanks to the considerable financial input from both local promoters Aubrey Arbuthnot and Davy McCall, we were able to attract a handsome pack of visitors for the weekend, from all across the British Isles. Heading the list was World Champion Malcolm Blackman, along with National Champ Chris Haird. Other regular visitors Matt Simpson, Dick Hillard and Steve Burrows were joined by Gavin Murray for his second taste of Ulster action, whilst Jason Cooper made his competitive debut in the province although he has become quite a regular over here since striking up a friendship with local Murray family on one of the South African trips a few years back. Wilson Hamilton was also out for a rare appearance these days in the Nationals, the former Super Rod supremo combining the race meeting with a trip home to see the folks here in Ulster.

Shane Murphy led the Republic of Ireland charge, ably assisted by Des Cooney, Tom Casey and Les Compelli, whilst Keith Chesher was a welcome addition from Scotland in his Colt, and was enjoying the local hospitality courtesy of his host Frankie Lynn. Joining him was compatriot Willie Hardie, who due to his links with Davy McCall is a very regular NI visitor, and this was indeed his second visit to us in a week having attended the previous weekend’s Stock Rod British. Willie certainly racks up the miles contesting the English World Series from his Scottish base, but I don’t think anyone attends more meetings per year to race, mechanic or spectate than he does. He even left yours truly soaked from head to toe thanks to his antics at Skegness UK Speedweekend with a pump action water pistol...no, it hasn’t been forgotten Willie...

The majority of the locals were in attendance too, ably swelled by a return from Will Scott in his Fiesta and Andrew Murray, at the wheel of Paul Crawford’s 206cc. There was also a welcome return after a few meetings away for Mark Heatrick, and fresh home from holiday the very morning of the meeting too.

As the cars rolled out for heat one, it was a tremendous sight to see so many Nationals on the Ballymena track once again, with mentions of 1980s events and even the Super Rounds of the turn of the millennium plentiful amongst the fans. Murphy had drawn pole for this one and soon settled into the lead, whilst Chesher and Scott were swiftly engulfed by the pack. Haird attracted an early black cross for his much too rapid getaway from the rear group, as Hillard settled into second having now raced in South Africa, England and Northern Ireland within seven days! Cooney and Hardie were piling the pressure on Dick by the bucketload, resulting in a blue flag for the globe-trotter.

As Cooper went for a spin exiting the Fisherwick bend, Bell was moving forwards at a great rate of knots, with Doak, Haird, Blackman, Christie and Simpson all doing likewise. With Murphy all but gone in the lead, Cooney took to Hillard’s outside, only resulting in letting Hardie by him and Heatrick too, before Willie then found a way past Hillard to go second. Murphy reeled off the remaining laps to take the flag, with Hardie next up followed by Heatrick, the already impressive looking Bell, Cooney and Doak. Haird would have been next up but lost two places for his jump start, putting Christie and Blackman ahead of him.

After trouble in practice, Compelli joined the rear of heat two, which was led away by Keith Martin from the outside of the front row, ahead of pole sitter Adam Maxwell. Adam’s Uncle, Tommy Maxwell, was next up on his first ‘home’ outing in quite some time, with Christie next after a very telling move to slot in front of Simpson early on.

Doak and Bell were moving well once again from mid-grid, and had tagged onto the tail of the lead grouping which also comprised Haird and Blackman behind Simpson, before the slightest of touches from Christie sent Tommy Maxwell spinning on the entrance to the home straight. It seemed to take an eternity for Tommy to go around – indeed it did look as though he may hold it for a while – and Christie attracted a black cross next time around. Casey was then facing the wrong way on the exit of the town end bend, causing the yellows to get an airing and from which Tom escaped without any damage despite the crowded raceway.

After the restart Martin again led them away, and would hold the baby all the way to the flag. Adam Maxwell was fending off Christie for second, but John managed a telling move to grab second on the road on the outside line with just a couple of laps left.  He was however dropped two places for the contact earlier in the race, elevating Maxwell to second after another very impressive drive indeed. Bell tellingly got third ahead of Christie, with Haird, Simpson, Blackman and Doak next up.

Final Grid
9 994 115 76 960 72 95 116 943 31 369 482 662 980*
962 970 996 911 303 921 966 941 904 997 961 777
(* = dns)

With the calculations complete, Bell had pole spot for the Irish Open final ahead of Christie, with Martin winning the toss of a coin with Murphy to take inside second row. Haird and Doak shared row three, whilst a great performance from Adam Maxwell saw him and Blackman sharing the back of group one.

There was heartbreak for Cooney on the warm up laps as he was forced to retire and miss the start, at which Bell was much too eager to get away resulting in the reds going out at the first time of asking. He made no mistake in slotting into the lead at the second attempt though, ahead of Christie and Martin. Murphy had a nightmare as he struggled to get in, whilst a rare mistake from Haird allowed Adam Maxwell under him into turn one. After only half a dozen laps, Blackman was in trouble and soon retired, along with the luckless Adam Maxwell, leaving Haird to inherit fourth spot once again ahead of Doak, Murphy and Heatrick.

As we reached half distance Bell was still in control, but Christie was right with him looking for any type of opening Glenn would offer. These two struggled to put Compelli and Hamilton behind them as the backmarking duo continued their own dice despite severe use of the blue flag, before the next backmarker would have a telling outcome on the race. Bell swooped past Tommy Maxwell with ease, but Christie was less fortunate as he was run very wide and clouted hard into turn one. Many fans aired their own views from the stands, but the one that mattered saw the #369 machine receive a black flag disqualification next time around.

Bell had a considerable lead now, and it looked all over bar the shouting to be honest, but it’s never over ‘til the “fat lady sings” as they say. But as she cleared her throat to get started, Chesher decided to coat the track with oil in the final stages. Everyone coped admirably on it, but Christie was on a massive charge. From nowhere he was now right within sight of Bell’s Tigra as the laps ticked away. Three to go, two to go and he edged ever closer, but Glenn was able to hang on for his first big win since moving up to the Nationals. Celebratory donuts on the start and finish line almost brought tears to his father Marty’s eyes, probably both in joy and in despair as he watched Glenn destroy crucial tyres! It had been a fine evening’s racing from the young Portadown pilot, with a well deserved championship win to top it off. Christie was a gallant runner-up, ahead of Martin, Haird, Doak and Murphy, with Andrew Murray coming through well from near the rear of the line up to seventh, and in an unfamiliar car too. Darren Black
Heat 1: 970 72 960 9 921 996 962 911 115(x-2) 303 31 994 961 95 116 76 966 941 369 904 980.
Heat 2: 994 76 9 962(x-2) 115 303 911 996 95 943 997 970 966 482 960 116 941 777 904 921 369 980.
Irish Open Final: 9 962 994 115 996 970 997 95 960 116 941 662.
Penalties: 115 docked 2 places in heat one for a jump start. 962 docked two places in heat two for contact on 369. 369 disqualified from final for deliberate baulking/contact on a lead driver whilst being lapped.
Brian Lammey’s photos - http://mkpics.smugmug.com/Nationalhotrodcom/2012-Iri sh-Open-Championship/

The 2011 National Hot Rod National Championship
Haird’s compensation
Hednesford Hills, Saturday/Sunday July 30th/31st 2011
Graham Brown reports:  He may have lost his world title at Ipswich but Chris Haird gained some significant compensation at Hednesford by winning his first National title, picking up the lead after pre-event favourite Shane Murphy went out. The rest of the podium places had a distinctly Northern Irish look about them though, with Gary Woolsey following Chris home in second ahead of John Christie and Keith Martin.

Entry & Qualifying

At one time, the entry for this looked like it might hit the sixty mark (and was indeed limited to that) but in the end, it never happened, a couple of cancellations and a practice crash bringing the eventual attendance who actually raced to fifty two.

That is still a lot of cars for any one NHR event and nobody was too disappointed with the turn out. In fact, the Northern Irish entry was way more than they usually get for a local qualifying round and if you counted Tommy Maxwell, totalled up to fifteen. They included newcomers Stephen Nevin and Adams Maxwell and Heatrick, as well as the still new Tigra of Thomas Dilly. I had initially been under the impression that this was Tom’s Merc re-bodied, but in fact that is now in the hands of Ray Harris, and very smart it looks too. It is also unusual in utilising a Ford Duratec power plant.

The above may leave you wondering what has happened to the Harris Audi. You might be seeing that again before too long, in the hands of a comeback man who once introduced a totally new marque to the formula, back in the day.

Harris was one of twenty four truly English entrants, among them Danny Hunn with a new paint and sign job (it didn’t have any signs at all during Friday practice!) and Ricky Hunn in the immaculate “Retro Peugeot” 205 seen on display at the World Final, which had a few fans coming over all nostalgic. Ralph Sanders was another in new-to-him (and unfamiliar white coloured) machinery, in the shape of Graham Luscombe’s most recent Tigra, while Colin Gomm had plumped for his Peugeot over his SLK. The rest of them were all driving what you’d expect.

There were just three Scots - and one of them was Willie Hardie, almost an honorary Englishman – but it was good to see Billy Bonnar and Ronnie McKenzie south of the border once more.

The Irish Republic raised seven entries (including James O’Shea) and there was one apiece from Wales (Mike Oliver), Germany (Winnie Holtmanns) and the Netherlands (John vd Bosch). As I said, not a turn out you could be disappointed with.

I’ll admit, I set off for Hednesford fully expecting Shane Murphy to retain his title (and I wasn’t alone in that), so it came as no real surprise when he recorded FTD in Friday’s practice session (13.547s). He also had quite a bit in hand over the field too, as can be seen from the next best: Mark Paffey - 13.688, John Christie – 13.689, Chris Haird – 13.694, Gary Woolsey – 13.699. No-one else was under the 13.7 mark. So far, so much as expected. But, as you might recall, Matt Simpson had a similar provable pace advantage over the rest at Ipswich, but did he go on to win the race? Well, we all know the answer to that one. And as usual, it would almost certainly be what Murphy achieved from the furthest back grid position the draw handed him, that would really matter. That wasn’t just true for him of course, but that is what separates the merely very quick from those sitting on the front couple of rows come final time.

There was one sad footnote to Friday practice, and that was Jack Blood’s crash right near the close of proceedings. A tangle with Terry Maxwell saw the yellow Tigra ‘B’ in big trouble as something broke in the steering during the impact, meaning Jack speared off hard into the infield embankment just past the pit gate. Unfortunately, the crash caused enough damage to put him out for the weekend

Six fiercely contested heats were necessary to sort the qualifiers for the main event, and these were going to take place in blazing sunshine and some serious heat. Quite nice for the spectators who like that sort of thing but not necessarily so good for the cars and drivers. When Saturday morning started out pretty cool, I did think to myself that this could be the sort of day when lap records tumble, but all that changed once the sun got into its stride.

So: everything looked set fair for a great day’s racing. However, things didn’t actually start all that well, as it took no less than three attempts to even get the warm up laps done for heat one! It’s not often you hear Paul Gerrard using words like “disastrous” over the Raceceivers before anybody’s even turned a lap in anger…

Eventually, the warm ups were abandoned altogether and it was straight into the first race with a clutch start. Sanders made a very lively getaway from row two and very nearly managed to blitz past everybody from the get-go. It didn’t quite work out for him though, and at the end of lap one it was Dave Brooks who held the lead over Harris, Brendan O’Connell, Blackman and Haird. Brooks pulled away from the rest amazingly quickly while Des Cooney went spinning on the West bend after a punt by Oliver, the latter gaining a swift black flag for his trouble.

Brooks continued to maintain a clear lead but it looked like he was going to face some stiff opposition sooner or later once Blackman and Haird were through to second and third. They were having quite a dice too, the outcome of which, even at this early stage, looked as though it might be vital in the final analysis. Malcolm got a bit of a bump from Chris as they headed into the West bend, a touch that put Haird in front by the time they got to the other end. With Brooks now in traffic, it wasn’t long before his pursuers were on him. Blackman snuck past Haird again before Chris was able to reverse the situation once more and get down Brooks’ outside along the home straight to hit the front.

Despite the fact that Haird had got by (and pulled out nearly a quarter of a lap lead by the end) the Brooks Puma was proving far from ‘easy meat’, Dave putting up a spirited defence of second against Blackman, and Stewart Doak and Glenn Bell once they’d caught up too. In fact, Brooks seemed quite capable of holding them all off to the finish until a last minute tangle with the backmarking Nevin saw the #67 go spinning on the East bend, leaving him a lowly 20th instead of second.

Les Compelli set the early heat two pace for a couple of laps until suddenly slowing into retirement. That put Danny Hunn into the hot seat, until he shed a wheel and went spinning, bringing out the yellows. The main beneficiary of that was Tom Casey, who now assumed the lead. But with Mark Paffey quickly up from third to second at Tim Pullen’s expense once they were back under the green, it was obvious Tom was going to have to work hard to stay in front.

And work he did, as Paffey went straight for the outside pass once he was with the leader and spent two whole laps out there trying to make it stick. Unfortunately, Shaun Taylor had spun earlier, his car sitting down on the edge of the inside line on the exit from turn two. This was not helping Paffey’s cause, as Casey was forced to go wider than usual at that point, although whether Tom needed to go quite as wide as he did was debatable! He did get black crossed with less than two laps to go (presumably for blocking) but in the end managed to both stay in front and remain un-penalised.

Remember what I was saying earlier about how it would be what Murphy achieved from his furthest back grid position that would really matter? It certainly looked like it was going to, as he started three cars from the back and only managed to get home 13th, commenting later that, “The car just never really got going”. It would certainly need to get going better than that if the title was to be retained, but there was damage done here for sure.

Heat three started less than well, particularly for Colin Smith, who really seems to have upset the racing gods lately. With an outside front row start, he obviously meant to make it count and tried very hard to go around pole sitter Dilly from the off. Dilly nearly pushed on into him rounding the West bend on lap one and actually did so second time around, sending Smiffy hard into the wall and attracting the Ulsterman an immediate black flag.

All of that left Gavin Murray out front ahead of the impressive Adam Maxwell, Ricky Hunn and a whole gang of others spearheaded by Jason Kew, Woolsey, Blackman and Haird. Woolsey was the one to break through this mob, darting past Hunn into the West bend shortly before the latter retired and Kewy went spinning at the same spot. There was some kind of coming together involving Hardie, Tim Pullen and Dickie Burtenshaw between turns one-two and then Brooks rotated at the other end, at which point the yellows got an airing.

When the race resumed, Murray had some breathing space created by the back-marking Kew sitting between himself, Maxwell and Woolsey. The two NI drivers were hard at it for second as soon as the green was back out, with some small contact between the pair putting Woolsey up to second as they left turn three. Gary wasted no time lapping Kew and setting about wresting the lead away from Murray either, but Gavin was having none of that and instead actually managed to put a bit of space between them again by flag fall. Haird and Blackman weren’t far behind them at the death either, two more significant places recorded there.

Heat four turned into the race of the day up to that point and kicked off with Gomm leading but immediately under pressure from Christie. Christie got on the outside trip and took over the lead going into the West bend. But there was a likely-to-be-significant scrap going on right behind him too, Gomm now having to square up to Murphy and a very handy looking Kym Weaver. Weaver managed to box Murphy in and overtake Gomm, which meant that Murphy had to devote a bit of time to passing Gomm too. The ease with which Murphy raced past Weaver (who wasn’t exactly hanging about himself) suggested Christie was going to have a fight on his hands sooner rather than later.

So it turned out, with John heading into traffic just as Shane managed to chase him down. Christie scythed through the backmarkers with Murphy matching every move but ultimately unable to find a way past.

The fifth encounter and first of the third round races brought the welcome sight of Smiffy’s BMW back on the grid, the damage not having been quite as bad as first thought.

Almost as soon as they were on the move, Phil Spinks passed fellow front row starter Taylor to head them around. Shaun was unable stay with this lead pack however, and it was soon Jason Cooper, Paffey and Doak who occupied the major places. Despite Spinks having pulled out a half decent lead, Cooper was able to close up and had just started to mount his challenge when an entirely unrelated incident went down on the home straight.

Sanders and O’Shea had had a bit of a get together, which led to them becoming involved with Bonnar, who went spinning on the East bend. This all happened just as the leaders were approaching, and Spinks was forced wide to avoid it all. Cooper was forced wide too, but managed to recover his composure slightly sooner than Spinks and therefore grab the lead. Phil fought back but before he could really try to redress the situation, Paffey was there too and down his inside.

Leaving Spinks to try and fend off another challenge, this time from Murray, Paffey got on with attacking Cooper’s lead but had failed to dislodge him by the finish.

The final heat adhered to the saving-the-best-till-last principle.

Pole man John Holtby managed to beat Hardie away but it was a somewhat scrappy opening, with David Casey spinning in the West bend and getting collected by Woolsey, Haird picking up a black cross and then Dilly smacking the wall coming onto the home straight. The impact knocked his wing off which was good grounds for a caution.

The green had only been back out for a second or two when Hardie sent Holtby spinning as they rushed the first corner. It got him an almost instant black cross, although this incident was not going to be uppermost in anybody’s mind for the next few minutes…

Hardie’s lead was immediately assaulted by Glenn Bell, Carl Waller-Barrett and Murphy, with Woolsey rushing to join in as well. Murphy zipped past Waller-Barrett at the West bend, Woolsey did the same half a lap later. Bell tried for an outside pass on Hardie but only succeeded in letting Murphy under him. Then it was Murphy’s turn to try the outside pass, which let Bell back under him! This was all getting really intense now as the first four finally managed to drop Waller-Barrett (who’d given a great account of himself) and get down to the end game. Murphy and Bell had been running side by side for several laps and, with the five lap board out, Bell finally managed to get himself properly ahead by about a fag paper. Murphy tried again to get past, Bell weaved about a bit causing Murphy to clout him. Murphy got by again anyway into the East bend, Woolsey followed him through (the Raceceiver was alive with warnings for Bell and Murphy but PG was wasting his breath, this was not the kind of race where they were going to be paying any attention!) and still somehow Hardie was clinging onto the lead.

With three laps to go, the battle raging behind had allowed Hardie to gain perhaps a car length on the others but they were coming back at him hard now. Two to go, one to go, and Murphy was in position and desperately looking for an outside pass, only to find the backmarking (but entirely blameless) Ronnie McKenzie right where Shane needed to be.

Maybe that fact saved Hardie’s win, maybe it didn’t, but in the end it wasn’t going to matter as it all ended controversially with Hardie disqualified for the early incident with Holtby, handing the win to Murphy from Woolsey and Bell.

Hardie protested the penalty and got nowhere with that, subsequently upgrading it to the full appeal on Sunday morning. This was heard by four independent drivers - one each from England, ROI, NI and Scotland - who then had a secret ballot, which was unanimous in supporting the steward’s original verdict. Although I can quite see why Willie argued the point (a win here would have got him into the race; his results without it wouldn’t), apparently the video evidence available to those dealing with the protest and appeal was pretty damning.

So, with qualifying done and dusted, it all left Haird on pole with Blackman alongside, Woolsey and Murray on row two and Paffey and Bell right behind. Thanks to that thirteenth place, Murphy was back on grid seven and with Christie still another rank further back, an interesting race was definitely in prospect.

Just before we move on to that race though, I feel I should just touch on the good showings by a few drivers who haven’t had a mention yet. I did say that Adam Maxwell had looked impressive early on and he carried right on the same way throughout the day. Grid position fourteen in this company was no mean feat. And, on that same theme, check out the positions gained by John vd Bosch and Winnie Holtmanns, both of them earned the hard way and entirely on merit.

115* 940 60 970 961 996 209 14 467 960 734 162 500 977 190 261 911 95 9 482 962 994 76 66 844 224 174 278 943 6 39 67

The Race – 75 Laps

Sunday’s weather turned out to be every bit as hot as Saturday’s had been – at least to begin with – so it was going to be a fairly gruelling race for man and machine alike.

Following a pair of finely controlled pace laps, Haird was first to break at the green, but Blackman was wide awake too and hauled himself in front going down the back straight before Haird forged in front once more as they exited the West bend for the first time. Blackman, Woolsey and Murray settled in behind him, with Paffey, Murphy and Bell forming the next group a short way back. Tom Casey had a spin at the East bend and Ian McReynolds also went round at the other end, right in front of the leaders, though luckily without involving any of them.

Cooper had managed to nip past Murphy somewhere while Paffey had somehow got himself stuck on the outside line in his duel with Bell. They went at it until they touched, eliminating Glenn with a flat and allowing Christie to blast past the pair of them. Then Murphy re-passed Cooper under braking into the East bend, bringing the order to Haird, Blackman, Woolsey, Murray, Murphy, Cooper, Christie, Doak, Keith Martin, Paffey and Weaver. Haird was just starting to draw clear of them all when David Casey went spinning backwards into the barriers along the back straight, bringing out the yellows with eleven laps gone.

With the race back under the green, Haird went right back to pulling away at the front, while Murphy cut under Murray as they crossed the stripe to move up another spot. Christie took Cooper entering the East bend and suddenly Blackman was in trouble, smoke pouring from the left rear as a driveshaft bearing gave up the ghost.

Malcolm’s departure allowed Woolsey and Murphy to adopt second and third, but none of them were going much further at race speed, a West bend wall banger for Harris and Adam Maxwell and a back straight spin for Kew setting the yellows flying again.

With the cars sitting idling, a sudden scream of revs from Murray’s car signalled problems there. Shutting the motor off and getting out to have a look under the bonnet was enough to ensure Gavin’s disqualification, but he already knew it was all over, having discovered a broken throttle link which had dropped down and jammed the lot wide open. As he said, “It’s a good job that didn’t happen a minute earlier!”

Following the resumption of hostilities, Haird positively leapt away this time on sight of the green. Murphy was of course now able to pile the pressure on Woolsey, but initially it wasn’t getting him anywhere, as Gary was forced to defend mightily. The blue flag and an R/C warning didn’t shift him either, but Murphy simply took to the outside and went charging past. He was able to leave the other placemen behind pretty quickly, but Haird was doing the same to everyone.

Eventually the leader encountered traffic and a lengthy period of cat and mouse ensued, as Haird and Murphy cut through the backmarkers, each by turn losing a bit of ground then gaining a bit. When they were finally back on open road, there had been no nett loss or gain at all between the pair and Haird’s sizable lead remained intact. And then came the yellow Murphy so badly needed. Mark Heatrick’s bonnet had been flapping away at one edge for a long time, but then finally parted company with the car, debris on the course always an automatic caution these days.

So now it was going to be a straight fight, Haird against Murphy. There were three backmarkers between them and Woolsey and Christie, and to be frank, there really were only two drivers in it for the win now.

Coming back under the green flag for what was to be the final time, there were 25 laps remaining, giving rise to the usual queries. Whose car had liked/disliked the little ‘rest’ caused by the yellows the most? And whose tyres were in the best shape for the run to the finish?

It certainly looked like Murphy had everything it took, as he moved tight up onto Haird’s bumper and simply pressed, and pressed and pressed until Chris basically just gave him the inside line going down the home straight. In a flash, Shane was in front going through the East bend. He clearly had plenty still in reserve too, as he pulled away fast.

We had just reached the point where I was cursing myself for not taking a bet with somebody about Murphy still winning even from grid seven, when I heard a short, sharp scrape as 970 entered the West bend. It was caused by the front spoiler hitting the deck briefly as he turned in and I knew it signalled trouble. Murphy knew it better than me, and had to lift sharply to stop the car going straight for the wall. It took a few seconds for Haird to catch him but, by the time they came around again, it was obvious Shane’s right front tyre was down, the pop-off valve having er, popped off, so to speak.

This cruel luck obviously handed the initiative back to Haird, just as fifth man – Doak – also departed in a cloud of smoke from a thoroughly blown up transmission.

Murphy tried to limp on and was in fact still second not far short of the five lap board, but was eventually forced to park it. That left Haird with nearly half a lap over Woolsey and it was effectively all over. Chris carried his advantage all the way to the flag, with Woolsey second, Christie third and Martin fourth, just as a little reminder that Northern Ireland is as powerful as ever in the world of NHR racing. But it was Haird’s win, his first ever National title, and if he’d needed a bit of luck to get it, so be it. As the great Richard Petty once famously remarked, “If ah could be lucky or good, ah’d rather be lucky”. It’s a brave man who’d argue with anything Petty has to say about racing.

That just left the Grand National to round off proceedings. Non-National championship qualifiers got ‘first dibs’ in drawn order at the front of the grid, with ‘Nationalists’ at the back.

Mikey Godfrey probably didn’t need to pop into his local chemist for some laxatives when he got home, after his car bogged down and failed to go when the green flag came out, the entire field rushing down on him in a way that’s guaranteed to get your attention! To add to the fun, ‘Smiffy’ lost a wheel during all this, due to some weakened components previously unnoticed after his earlier shunt.

With order restored, they set off again, this time with Taylor leading and clearly ready to try and get some sort of trophy out of his weekend. He was being pressed by Danny Hunn from the outset though, Danny going by into the West bend shortly before Les Compelli also found a way through to claim second.

Then James O’Shea went spinning along the bank stretch and cannoned backwards and hard into the infield embankment John Holtby found last year. This was certainly good for a bout of yellow flags while James was attended by the medics, although he did get out and walk to the ambulance under his own steam, I’m pleased to say.

They’d barely got going again, with just enough time for Dick Hillard to relegate Taylor a further spot, when the yellows were back out for Taylor, who’d spun and ended up in a T-bone with Kew. This hadn’t turned out to be one of Jason’s better weekends…

With the race restarted again and Murphy now up to fourth, this looked like a foregone conclusion. He immediately got on the outside trip, dived past Hillard crossing the start/finish, Compelli down the back straight and then Hunn rounding the East bend. That was very much that as far as the lead went, but there was a fair old dice going on for second as they neared the finish, where Hunn just managed to hold on to it from Murray, Hillard and Bell.  Graham Brown

Personal footnote: I’d like to thank everybody who said such pleasant things to Angie and me at Hednesford, and indeed beforehand, via text, e-mail, etc. If I named everybody here this article would stretch a lot further than it has already, so my apologies to all those I’ve left out. But I should mention David Haird, Steve and Lorna Burgess, and Andy Godfrey (and Mikey via his blog) for all being particularly kind. Thanks also to Mick Reece for welcoming us at the gate, Chris Earl for the results sheets and Brian and Chris for keeping us ‘in the loop’ whenever possible. And of course, many thanks to DW for the permanent free passes. It was all much appreciated and made what could have been an awkward first meeting as ‘just spectators’, so much better. GB Martin Kingston and Trevor Hill’s photos
Results
Heat one: 115,911,996,9,224,39,734,72,940,14,162,962,844,960,369,977,27,966,74,67,952.  57 Disqualified for contact with 921.
Heat two: 961,60,482,500,467,66,994,95,190,6,31,491,970,943,76,174,261,209,278,100,187.
Heat three: 95,940,115,911,76,9,467,977,57,60,482,369,(339),174,500,67,100,152. 339 Disqualified for contact. 966 Disqualified for contact with 491.
Heat four: 962,970,209,844,994,261,961,278,960,943,31,27,734,14,224,996,6,66,74,7,963,187,952,39.
Heat five: 482,60,14,95,996,76,174,962,190,960,491,152,100,963,734,467,224,74,39,844.
Heat six: (72),970,940,9,162,66,911,209,115,994,961,67,777,278,943,6,761,977,187. 72 Disqualified for contact with 6.
National Championship: 115,940,962,994,14,60,209,482,6,66. NOF.  844 Disqualified for passing under yellow flag.
Grand National: 970,339,95,31,9,777,14,482,115,962,66,39,943,174,152,187.
As I no longer have access to steward’s reports, it should be noted that this is not a definitive list of penalties and there were probably others not detailed here. Apologies in advance for any mistakes relating to this area of the results.

Support Races Graham Brown reports:  The support car entry was considerably better than in 2010, helped slightly by world qualifiers once again being allowed to take part providing that they did it in another car. Only Colin Gomm (last year’s Best in Britain winner) and Matt Simpson were really in a position to take advantage of this, but they both did and helped swell the numbers to a healthy looking 27. They were going to contest two heats and a final, with the number of B in B qualifiers split 50/50 between support cars and world finalists, with 16 world cars meeting 16 support cars in a 32 car grid for the ‘Best’. The world finalists would have a reversed grid ‘revenge’ race, so that would be their ‘second heat’, with the best 16 aggregate scorers (on a Longhurst system) joining the first 16 finishers in the support car final. Then the B in B would feature a drawn grid. Those 27 support cars comprised a fair old mix of entries, with Brendan O’Connell from Southern Ireland (and James O’Shea too of course), Adam and Terry Maxwell from the North, plus Scots representatives Graeme Callender, Ronnie McKenzie and Ian Donaldson. David Polley was back out, as were Andy Steward and Lee Wood and, somewhat surprisingly, Colin Smith, after his heavy shunt at the T-500. Kym Weaver’s car was sporting a new bright green paint job and there was even a “newbie”, former Spedeworth 2.0 driver, Chris Lehec. Things didn’t actually start that well with O’Connell initially failing to get going at the green in the first heat, causing a lot of bother with the cars trying to swarm all round him, Lee Pepper and Terry Maxwell just two who got involved. In fact it was going to be a pretty scrappy race all round. They’d barely got going (with Wood leading) before Smith and Chris Harvey got into some sort of bother in turns three/four and Shaun Taylor and Donaldson both had an ‘off’ along the home straight. While all that was going on, Jason Cooper had assumed the lead, with Luke Armiger up to second and dicing with Terry Maxwell. Then Adam Maxwell got into a clash with Armiger shortly before Donaldson got black flagged for some contact with McKenzie. Before Donaldson could pull off however, he managed to get together with Weaver down in turn one, with that swiftly followed by Lehec blowing his engine up at the same spot to bring out the yellows! Pause for breath… The restart saw Cooper still in charge with Armiger zipping back into second after Adam Maxwell had passed his dad going into turn one, only to have Armiger overtake the pair of them, taking Gavin Taber through with him. Taber (who was already under observation by the steward) then got into a nerfing match with Armiger and got past too, although Cooper was miles in front by then and a very safe winner. Although somewhat overshadowed by all that was going on, Matt Simpson put in an absolutely storming drive to get home third (started sixteenth), Matt collecting second when Taber got docked four places for his antics. Mind you, Gavin wasn’t alone here, as there was (not surprisingly) a whole raft of penalties handed down after this one. ‘Doughnut’ didn’t have the best of starts to heat two, as a spin which left him beached on the kerb during warm ups probably wasn’t what he had in mind! The draw had put Weaver on pole for this one which seemed quite likely to provide a fairly easy win for him. That was exactly how it turned out too. He was chased all the way by Donaldson, but only ever looked remotely threatened when he had to lap the dicing duo of Armiger and Terry Maxwell. Their dice was getting pretty heated (and had already seen Luke black crossed) but Weaver negotiated it all with no problem. In any case, Donaldson had things other than pestering the leader to think about in the closing stages, when another scorching drive by Simpson (from mid-grid this time) brought him up third and right on Donaldson’s tail with two laps to run. Matt went by on the final tour to totally set the seal on pole for the final, two pole positions in one day not a bad haul by anybody’s standards. Just the one penalty told its own story about how much cleaner this race was than the first one. After his pace in the heats, it was no surprise that Simpson took complete control of Saturday night’s final right from the off. John Holtby – whose solid heat performances had got him on the outside of the front row – Cooper and Weaver quickly settled into the places. Adam Maxwell had a spin at the end of lap one, with Steward also taking a rotation a little later, before O’Donnell had an off along the back stretch that pitched him into a marker tyre. Most of the rest of the race was all about the leader drawing steadily further clear and producing some entertaining flame outs from his exhaust every time he backed off into the turns. Holtby managed to keep the gap to a quarter of a lap, while Cooper and Weaver got into a good dice near the finish for third, with Jason just managing to hang onto the position at the line. Polley was fifth with Callender sixth, despite the rear of his car being on fire on the last lap! Fortunately, some prompt intervention by Paul Gerrard on the Raceceivers got Graeme to stop by a marshal with an extinguisher, so there was no real harm done. So, that was the support qualifiers sorted. That left the world finalists to have their ‘Revenge’ race, with the grid simply the reverse of the world. That put Gordon on pole, Graeme going straight off into the lead, a lead challenged by Billy Bonnar and vd Bosch. But Tom Casey and Winnie Holtmanns had already been indulging in synchronised spinning at turn three, and a yellow was in the offing. Once the race was back under way, it was the mix as before, but with Bonnar trying hard to relieve Gordon of the lead down the outside. He eventually only succeeded in letting vd Bosch and Tommy Maxwell through on his inside instead, Billy then getting involved in a clinch with Laurens vd Velde and Scott Bourne. This enabled Willie Hardie to zap past the lot of them to have a go at vd Bosch and Maxwell, but Tommy managed to get under vd Bosch at turn one to go second. The Dutch driver wasn’t giving in that easily though, and stayed alongside, the pair racing like that for a lap before getting together as they exited turn two. Vd Bosch went spinning and several others got involved too, including Blackman (who was out on the spot) and Mark Paffey, who also spun. All that caused quite a shake up the places, with Bourne getting through to snatch second, while Murray, Haird and Doak all took advantage of the melee to charge into the top six. But it was still Gordon who took the flag as a welcome reward for both qualifying for the World and getting his car totally re-prepared for the race too. That left just the Best In Britain to round proceedings off. 29 cars were still fit or eligible by that stage, the draw placing vd Bosch on pole with Armiger alongside, and Polley and Bonnar sharing row two. With all due respect to these guys though, it was probably row four – shared by Christie and Simpson – where we were looking for a possible victor. But, clearly taking the view that ‘Best in Britain’ didn’t necessarily mean you had to be British, vd Bosch went off like a rocket at the start and quickly turned his pole start into a sizable lead. Armiger as running second with Bonnar up to third after he’d nipped inside Polley into turn three. David was soon under threat again too, as the fast starting Christie also went by to set about Bonnar. An outside blast into the score board bend saw John take that place away, and only about another lap was enough for him to perform a similar number on Armiger. Vd Bosch was still some way ahead by the time Christie was through to second but wading in traffic now and Christie was carving big chunks out of his lead. Vd Bosch was back on clear road when Christie finally caught him but heading for more backmarkers and then the race was truly on. Up the outside went Christie for what looked like a certain pass, but vd Bosch parried that one. Again Christie went outside, they ran side by side, and then finally the #962 drew ahead along the back straight to cheers you could hear over the engines. While Christie pulled away and contented himself threading through the backmarkers vd Bosch was forced to defend his placing again, this time against Murray, who was coming on strong towards the end. Gavin went by down the outside as they left turn two with two laps to run, but it wasn’t long before the chequered flag fluttered down to signal Christie’s victory in what had been an excellent curtain closer. Graham Brown Support Heat One: 482,303,519,6,963,555(-4),190,500,278(-2),87 1,780,198,333,306(-2),74,503,39,152,---,---,7 6(-2). Support Heat Two: 209,303,700,306,74,6,491,871,76,503,555,339, 190,482,187,278,333,780,39,500,152,963. Support Final: 303,6,482,209,306,871,555,74,278,963,519,700 ,500,190,503,491,155,780,333,39,76,152,187. World Final “Revenge”: 338,199,72,95,115,996,192,162,78,844,208,66. NOF. Best in Britain: 962,95,66,303,996,60,306,72,338,491,500,199, 209,482,155,78,278,369,74,555,115. Penalties. Heat one: 700 black flagged for contact with 187. 555 dropped four places for contact. 76, 306 & 278 all dropped two places each for contact. Heat two: 519 black flagged for contact with 963. World “Revenge”: 369 black flagged for contact with 66. 940 black flagged for contact with 192.

The 2011 Kent Cams/Hoosier Race Tires NHRPA
National Hot Rod Championship of the World
Blackman’s wait is over
Ipswich, Saturday July 2/Sunday July 3

Graham Brown reports:  It’s been seven years since Malcolm Blackman’s only previous World Final victory but the drought finally came to an end when Blackman – running fourth at the time – seized his chance to grab the lead as those ahead tangled. 2010 runner-up Shane Murphy got home second again, having fought for the lead with Matt Simpson early on, while Ulster favourite John Christie took another third place to go with the one he earned back in 2007. And, after some previous World Final disappointments, Gavin Murray managed a highly respectable fourth spot in this one.

Qualifying

The entry was exactly as expected in terms of who was there and what cars they were due to be driving, so no eleventh hour surprises this year. Although not a surprise of course, it was certainly nice to once again be able to see some genuine Scots qualifiers (as opposed to Scots who’ve qualified in England) among the assembled cars in the world finalists’ area of the pits.

As ever, the World final race really begins on the Saturday with the traditional ‘hot laps’ to determine the grid.

Ominously – very ominously as things turned out – Steve Burrows had some last minute problems with his car ‘missing’ shortly before the hot laps were due to start. The team had changed an ignition coil which appeared to have it sorted just in time, but maybe it wasn’t that after all…his car still sounded a bit “fluffy” when it went out, although a best of 14.71 wasn’t too bad.

Mark Paffey had been the man unlucky enough to draw number one out of the hat, meaning that he’d been saddled with going first and setting the benchmark on a fairly green track, of 14.51s. There were a few people watching and waiting to see if the fourth man out – Phil Spinks – could produce something special enough to leap out of group two and snatch pole and he certainly didn’t disappoint. His second lap at 14.38 was a corker and for the next sixteen drivers and fifty laps, it really did look like he’d done enough.

By contrast, fifth man on track – Keith Martin – could only manage a best of 14.84, which was going to put him on the very last row of the grid. This seemed a fairly unlikely proposition for a former world champion, and I did actually ask him what went wrong, Keith explaining that his car had felt funny when they were pushing it down through the pits. A subsequent inspection had revealed swarf and chippings in the diff and a limited slip hub that had been acting like a locker. Not good.

Glenn Bell was another who’d been suffering morning sickness in the motor department but, although the car still didn’t sound great on track, he nonetheless managed a passing fair 14.51. This time was also matched by 2004 champion Blackman, in another solid performance.

With nothing below a 14.47 (Christie) in the sixteen drivers that followed Spinks, his pole start was looking safer by the minute – and then came Shane Murphy. Everybody was looking for him to put in a good one so it wasn’t that much of a shock when he shaved a further two hundredths of a second from Spinks’ time. Well, I say “everybody” was looking for him to put in a good one, that meant everybody but Spinksy’s crew of course; I could see their shoulders slump when Murphy’s 14.36 went on the board.

A bit galling to lose out by just 0.02s, but no matter, somebody was about to knock all that into a cocked hat. Those of us privileged to have seen the times from the “un-timed” morning practice session (the timing computer was turned on, un-timed or not) already knew that the quickest car out there then had been Matt Simpson. Oddly enough, second quickest had been Murphy and third fastest, Spinks! But they were all up in the14.4’s, so it would be fair to say no-one was expecting the blistering 14.20 dead that Simpson slammed in on his second lap, and even his third of 14.22 would still have been way good enough for pole.

There remained some quick ones to come though, that could have dislodged Matt, but Gary Woolsey’s 14.47 failed to turn the trick, as did fellow Ulsterman Stewart Doak’s best of just a hundredth quicker, although this was still a lot better than Stewart usually manages around Foxhall.

I N S 3 0 3 9 7 0 9 1 1 1 4 9 6 2 7 2 9 1 9 9 1 9 2 2 7 8 2 6 1 7 3 4 3 6 9 8 4 4 1 7 7 8 9 9 4 O U T 1 1 5 9 9 6 9 5 9 4 0 6 0 1 7 4 2 0 8 1 3 0 1 6 2 9 6 1 1 0 0 2 7 4 6 7 1 1 6 3 1 6 6 3 3 8

There was still a driver left to come who’d drawn a high number for his hot laps and that a lot of hopes were resting on to change the front end of the grid. This was the defending champion of course, and there was to be no messing from Chris either. He put in two tours in the 14.3’s, one of them just enough to clip Murphy’s best by a hundredth and claim the outside of the front row. Drivers in blue = dns

The Race - 75 Laps

There were the usual few dramas prior to the race, rather more than usual this year in fact. Dick Hillard discovered major problems with his motor and, despite having initially still felt able to give it a go, was eventually forced to non-start. In the same boat was Steve Burrows, his miss having returned with a vengeance. Steve was obviously extremely frustrated with his situation but still found the grace to apologise for not being able to make the line-up.

Meanwhile, there were others about to be forced to join the list of non-starters too. Glenn Bell, Tim Moody and David Casey all faced the heartbreak of failing pre-race inside weight checks and the inevitable disqualification that goes with that. We all know that rules are rules and, particularly after what happened to John Christie last year, there was never going to be any choice but to exclude all three. However, it seems pretty clear now that this particular rule is causing problems and probably needs to be reviewed. Like Christie in 2010, it appears especially harsh for long distance travellers like Bell and Casey to be excluded for such small incremental failures. As for Moody, well, that small stretch of tarmac at Foxhall that extends from the scrutineering bay to the pit lane must just be the unluckiest place on earth for him. In fact, I’d say he ought to be really really careful, if he even just walks over it again….

Perhaps, at this juncture, I should just explain something about the use of reserves, as I’ve been asked about it so often since the race. Most fans will know that we always used to have at least one and sometimes two reserves on stand-by, and that they could sometimes to be seen waiting on the infield, suited, booted, in their cars fuelled up and ready to go. It was decided a while back that this didn’t look particularly professional and in 2009 there were no reserves nominated. Then the matter arose of, what if a qualifier fell ill or got injured the day before the race? A return to having a reserve was agreed upon but that this reserve could only be called on to race up until all the qualifiers have signed on for the event, which must take place by 9.30 Saturday morning. A driver who fails to do that will automatically be excluded and the reserve called. Therefore, once that deadline has passed, the die is cast and the reserve will not be in the race whatever happens.

You may well think that the most likely time for an entrant to fall by the wayside is only after they start actually driving the cars, and so it proved this year. Well, I never said it was a great rule, only just that that is how it is.

And so, five cars light, to the race itself.

At the off, Haird got the best start from the outside front row and oh so nearly managed to beat Simpson down to turn one. But the pole man was having none of that and kept his foot hard in it as Haird tried to cut across. The two were locked together for a few seconds before blasting onto the back straight with Simpson now ahead of Murphy, who’d been able to take advantage of the clinch. Haird was forced back to third with Blackman fourth ahead of Gavin Murray, Spinks and Christie.

With the opening gambits played, Simpson had managed to draw slightly clear but the backmarkers were already looming up ahead. Winnie Holtmanns had had a spin at turn three and rejoined right in front of the leader too, but this caused no problem.

A lap or so later though and a knot of four about-to-be-lapped cars had to be negotiated. Mikey Godfrey and John van den Bosch both stepped politely aside and allowed the four front runners through. Next came Graeme Gordon and Laurens van der Velde. Simpson shot past the Scot and gained some ground on Murphy in the process. The merest touch with vd Velde saw the leader past him too, Murphy still following a very short way back, both men having now left Haird behind a bit. However, the dangers presented by traffic were soon going to become a very grim reality for the leader.

With more backmarkers soon to be encountered, Murphy – who’d been sitting back just a couple of car lengths, giving himself some space and air – moved back up onto Simpson’s bumper. It was a logical tactic; get some pressure back on and maybe he’d be able to force a mistake in the traffic. It became a pivotal moment, as they came up behind the back marking Tommy Maxwell. The Ulsterman clearly intended to let them through but didn’t make it particularly obvious (from my vantage point) which way he was going to go in order to do so. As they raced down the back straight Simpson was forced to make a choice and decided to go inside, just as Maxwell did the same.

Murphy dived for the outside at the same moment the leader realised his gaff and tried to cut around Maxwell to go the same way. With Murphy already partly alongside, the inevitable collision sent Simpson spinning into the wall, which was game over for him right there. Haird came rushing up to try and take advantage of the situation but only succeeded in getting together with Murphy, the impact slowing both men.

It all played right into Blackman’s hands. Malcolm was far enough behind to be able to watch all this unfolding with (in NHR speed terms) plenty of time to think to himself, ‘I’m not getting involved in any of that’ and do something about it. The erstwhile fourth man drove right around all the drama cluttering up turns three and four, picked up the lead, and then ran off with it before anybody could even begin to give him an argument.

It had been just a few scant seconds which changed the whole complexion of the race.

With Blackman long gone, Haird and Murphy were left dicing over second, with Gavin Murray coming on strong now in fourth ahead of the Ulster trio of Gary Woolsey, Christie and Doak. Eventually, Murphy managed to find some daylight on Haird’s inside going through turn three, the pair touched coming across the stripe and then Shane was in front. The Irishman’s car was trailing some ominous black smoke by this point but it definitely wasn’t slowing him down (the team thought after the race that it was probably the gearbox breather chucking oil on the exhaust) as he left Haird to try and fend off Murray and Woolsey.

Woolsey and Christie both managed to relegate Murray somewhere along the way, but Doak was no longer with them by this stage. In fact, he was no longer seventh, as that was now Spinks. His car was going better in the later stages of the race, as it usually does, but it was going to be rather too little too late to do Phil that much good this year though.

Interesting as all this was, Blackman was now over a quarter of a lap clear and not showing any sign of faltering. Although Murphy did start to close the gap as the final ten laps wound down, this was only because the leader was making sure of no mistakes when lapping the still considerable quantities of traffic.

“Yes, I lifted off towards the end”, Malcolm confirmed after the race. “I didn’t want to cut in too tight on anybody and I didn’t want them touching me either! But I always knew exactly where Shane was because I could see him coming into the bends as I was leaving them”.

There was still a race going on behind though, where the places battle involving Woolsey, Christie and Murray came to head when the former pair touched. This put Christie up to fourth, but he was to move up still further as Haird’s tyres conspicuously went away in the closing stages and he fell back down the order.

Despite his careful driving toward the finish, Blackman was still around a quarter of a lap ahead at flag fall and no doubt mightily relieved to be once again ordering up the gold paint.

Murphy had a sizable gap over Christie, with Murray and Haird not too far behind before another long gap to Woolsey and Spinks.  Graham Brown

Results: World Final: 911,970,962,95,115,940,14,72,996,60,208,961,66,369,844,278,338,467,78.
Support racing coverage to follow...
Martin Kingston and Trevor Hill’s photos

The 2011 NHRPA Thunder 500
Haird steals their Thunder
Ipswich, Saturday 18th June 2011
Graham Brown reports:  Reigning World champion Chris Haird warmed up in the best possible way for the upcoming defence of his title by taking victory in the annual precursor event, the Thunder 500. Although the Northern Irish drivers failed to dominate quite as they did in 2010, theirs was still a strong showing, with Glenn Bell second and John Christie fourth, Mark Paffey joining them on the podium in third spot.

It was the usual sort of cosmopolitan entry (34 cars) we’ve come to expect for this event, with some World qualifiers, quite a few who weren’t and a goodly smattering of visitors into the bargain.

No Southern Irish entries at all was a bit of a blow (although David O’Regan had been getting his practice in a week earlier) but the North did their best to make up for it, being strongly represented by Gary Woolsey (finally getting to turn a wheel on the Ipswich tarmac in his Tigra), John Christie, Glenn Bell and Stewart Doak. Only Keith Martin was missing in other words, and I believe Keith has a theory about Thunder 500’s and World Finals…

Top of the shop in Scotland, Billy Bonnar, made a welcome return to Foxhall, while Netherlands drivers John van den Bosch and Laurens van der Velde, plus German racer Winnie Holtmanns were also all gaining track time.

Woolsey wasn’t the only driver tracking a new Tigra, although Jason Kew’s example was good deal newer and looked most “un-Kew-like” in its yellow and white colour scheme. Jason was weighing up if this was going to be his car for the World or whether the SLK would get one last chance of glory in his hands.

At the other end of the scale, so to speak, was newcomer and former Outlaw racer Gavin Taber, the new owner of the ex-Turiccki Tigra ‘B’. He was another who’d dipped his toe in the water at the previous week’s Slick Car meeting.

As seems to have been our lot recently, the weather wasn’t really setting out to play nice, and some heavy showers prior to the meeting had left everything wet and dripping. Indeed, the rain was still spitting as the first race got underway. With the sun out at the same time, a vivid rainbow was also spanning the stadium with its half-and-half track.

Luke Armiger was the first to show in the opening heat with Malcolm Blackman swiftly second once he’d overhauled Dickie Burtenshaw. But before Armiger had to face up to the challenge presented by the former world winner, his car went down on three cylinders and he was out. That left Blackman well clear of the rest, where he stayed, with Gavin Murray getting home second more than a quarter of a lap ahead of Paffey.

Behind Mark, it was all very close at the end, with Willie Hardie taking fourth from a blanket finish involving Colin Gomm, the hard charging Haird and Carl Waller-Barrett.

Matt Simpson stepped off pole to lead the second heat but soon found his mirrors full of Bell’s blue Tigra, while Woolsey and Colin Smith got into a bit of a clinch in turn one, allowing Scott Bourne and Haird past both of them.

Bell piled the pressure onto Simpson and it was clear the Ulsterman’s car was turning in much better. As Simpson left more and more daylight on his inside with every passing corner, Glenn was finally rewarded with the lead going into turn one, gradually pulling away once he was ahead. Simpson (who later discovered a bent shock on the car) was also easily caught by Haird with two laps to run but was still able to hold onto second.

Kym Weaver got a flyer of a start to lead the third heat from outside pole, and stayed ahead despite a bit of rubbing with Andy Lane on the rush into the first bend. This left an interesting battle in prospect once Christie had passed Lane for second, Kew following on and not far behind either.

Christie was quite clearly taking ground out of the leader going into the turns, Weaver and Christie having just got down to business when Colin Smith went spinning hard into the barriers at the first turn, with cars going everywhere in the aftermath. The leader slammed the brakes on in avoidance but got hit hard by Christie as the yellows came out.

The crash, which saw the #962 jack the #209 right up (think Paffey/Sanders at NIR) was enough to put Weaver out of it but, amazingly, Christie’s car had survived the experience. I studied the front of his car (which had tyre marks and axle case graunches right up the bonnet, as well as a severely cronked grille) intently, expecting to see steam rising from a holed radiator at any moment. Miraculously, it never came.

But, whatever had happened to Christie’s car it was purely cosmetic compared to Smiffy’s BMW, which was a real mess once again, and just looked like a frame with a pile of panels heaped on top of it once it was cradled onto the infield. Worse still, Colin hadn’t come off too well in the shunt either, and had to be helped from the car by the medics. Thankfully, he was well enough to walk to the first aid room unaided.

Having been left at the head of the pack, Christie carried on to win after the restart, although he didn’t have it easy, as Kew’s new Tigra was glued to John’s bumper throughout the remaining laps. It became something of a stalemate, with Christie quicker down the straights and Kew quicker in the turns. This looked very good for Jason (and undoubtedly helped the Merc on the way to its new owner), although Christie was apparently suffering from bent steering or suspension components as a further legacy of the incident with Weaver. For his part, Kewy had tried something different with his engine that he found he didn’t approve of (cam?) and it won’t be that way come the day either!

With Haird (pole) and Bell sharing the front row for the final, a fierce lead battle looked a certainty. But, with all this talk of World finalists and their respective chances and drives, we have overlooked a couple of notable performances on the night that are definitely worthy of mention. David Brooks had put his Ford Puma on the outside of row two, an outstanding achievement that certainly raised some eyebrows. However, it should be remembered that this car has looked very quick indeed when it’s working right – particularly at Birmingham – and that Dave has had occasion to put in the odd hot lap at Ipswich too. The two fifth places that got him to that grid position were well won places, no question.

There is also no question that Jack Blood is going to be one to watch. Barely off a provisional licence, his heat races in this company and his final grid position surely laid down some markers for the future.

So: as I said, Haird and Bell on row one, then Paffey and Brooks, followed by Christie and Gavin Murray, with Blackman and Kew – perhaps the dark horse here in his new car – on the next rank. Clearly, you couldn’t count any of those out of this just because they weren’t right at the front.

They didn’t get very far at the first time of asking however, as Brooks and Paffey tangled at the start and careered off into the barriers, bringing about an immediate red flag and a restart. Interestingly, Bell had clearly beaten Haird to the punch when the green was shown, although Chris was still the leader when the reds appeared.

With Brooks out of the new race, Bell and Haird replayed the original start again, with the same outcome, and once the race was truly on the whole thing became a cat and mouse struggle between these two.

With the opening laps gambits played, it was Haird from Bell, Paffey, Christie, Murray, Blackman and Kew. Murray in particular, looked keen to move forward fast and took to the outside of Christie. He got very wide though, going through turns three and four, came back down to the racing line and appeared to clip Kew as he did so. I thought I heard a ‘bang’, like something broke at that moment and, although that might just have been my imagination, Gavin went virtually straight on at the next bend and speared off into the wall.

Up front, Haird was always ahead, but every knot of back marking traffic was giving Bell an opportunity to change that. There was one very dicey moment when Chris was well and truly boxed in, with Bell eagerly heading for the outside pass. The race could have been won and lost right there, but Haird kept calm and managed to find a way to break through on the inside past Bonnar and Burtenshaw. He then immediately placed Tommy Maxwell between himself and Bell to give himself some breathing space. It was a vital few seconds of driving that I’m sure Chris could not have managed a couple of years ago but which showed why he’s wearing the gold roof today.

Even a caution period thrown for debris on the track (it was Waller-Barrett’s door) made little difference but, even so, it wasn’t until the five to go board was out that the world champion began to look totally in charge. Until that point though, Bell had looked almost completely Haird’s equal and if he raises his game that fraction of a percentage point in traffic….well, let’s just say it won’t be much of a shock if he’s the one to steal away with Chris’ title.

It has to be said there had been some less-than-sparkling performances from one or two drivers who we would normally look at as being World final contenders, but of course, the World is a whole different kettle of fish to the T-500; ask Keith Martin! Graham Brown
Results
Heat one: 911,95,60,72,278,115,162,100,996,66,467,174,303,14,39,199,209(-2),339,940,152,555.
Heat two: 9,303,115,199,67,31,940,491,996,95,162,962,92,911,369,130,844,78,198,100,555,339.
Heat three: 962,174,130,92,67,66,60,116,9,72,278,467,39,78.
Final: 115,9,60,962,911,174,72,303,92,278,199,31,66,14,996,116,130,940,369,844,100,39,339,---,78(-2).
Photos at www.mkpics.smugmug.com/Nationalhotrodcom

The 2011 NHRPA National Hot Rod Ballymena Challenge Cup
Gary Woolsey wins Challenge Cup
Ballymena Raceway, Friday 15th April 2011
Darren Black reports:  Even though he had already tested his all-new Vauxhall Tigra at the venue a fortnight earlier, former British Champion Gary Woolsey wheeled out his Mercedes SLK for the Challenge Cup which heralded the start of the new NI racing season, and duly put on a classy display all evening to claim the honours with ease. Even a change of conditions, when the rains came before the final, couldn’t halt his charge to a heat and final double. The other of the reverse grid heats fell to returnee Thomas Dilly.

With the new NHRPA approach to racing this year in Ulster - a travelling Steward and Scrutineer between both venues - a certain ‘line in the sand’ had been drawn as regards a number of issues. One of the main points was tyres, and the logging of such, and with everything now being ‘by the book’ so to speak, the drivers were allowed four new slicks for this meeting to get things up and running. Many took advantage of this and turned up with one eye on next week’s qualifying round and the need to get on top of the tyre situation, although Mark Heatrick was noticeably absent despite having been testing during the previous week.

Of those in attendance, it was pleasing to see Thomas Dilly return to the National fold, and now behind the wheel of the much more purposeful ex-Luscombe Mercedes SLK. Gary Woolsey chose to race the NW Mercedes, last seen with brother Wayne at the wheel, whilst Glenn Bell was in his 206cc as opposed to the Tigra. Stewart Doak returned the Tigra last seen on its roof at Tipperary during the European and now looking immaculate again, even without signage - as was John Christie’s similar car.

Woolsey had pole for the dry first heat, with Christie alongside on the front row, and although John hung on keenly initially, Gary soon gathered up the lead. Doak settled into second as Bell’s engine sounded disastrously sick and he soon was on the infield. Christie settled into a rhythm and got under Doak into turn one to go back to second, but Woolsey was well clear by now to take the first win of the night from Christie, Keith Martin and Doak.

Dilly and McKay shared the front row for heat two, and with Corrie Beggs and Ian McReynolds on row two, it was always going to be much more interesting as the top lads had much more work to do this time around. Dilly took it up with McKay challenging briefly before thinking better of it. Things were certainly a little on the ‘hairy’ side as they say for a spell, but that’s just what the fans want to see! As Bell once again found trouble and retired, Martin was the first of the ‘stars’ to show, but as he went for the lead he made an uncharacteristic mistake and ran too deep into turn one*. This allowed Woolsey through to second and from there Gary controlled the race behind Dilly, knowing that he already had pole spot sewn up for the final. Dilly was delighted with his victory nonetheless, with Woolsey second and Christie third.

*For those used to the Ballymena oval over the years, the start/finish line has now been moved to what was the back straight, given the change in position of race control. So the town end Suffolk Bend which originally was turns 3 and 4 is now turns 1 and 2!

It had been raining by final time, and most screwed on wets....but not all! Woolsey was on pole from Christie, with Martin and Dilly on row two. The change in conditions no doubt influenced McKay and Beggs’ decisions to load up and take no part in the decider. Woolsey set off like he really meant business at the green, but Christie was struggling badly having gone for slicks, a gamble that just didn’t pay off. Martin soon relegated him and moved to a secure second, as Bell once again had those gremlins return and force his third dnf of the night. I’m sure he was glad there were no World Series points on offer! The top two were cut and dried by now, whilst the real battle was an entertaining duel between Christie and McReynolds. John kept using the much preferred outside line in the wet at Ballymena, allowing Ian under him on the bends before powering back on the straights. This was finally settled in the Saxo drivers’ favour as he annexed third spot behind the dominant Woolsey and Martin, who were both well clear at the finish.  Darren Black
Results:
Heat One: 940, 962, 994, 996, 977, 7, 943, 966, 147 nof.
Heat Two: 966, 940, 962, 977, 994, 943, 996, 7, 147 nof
Final: 940, 994, 977, 962, 7 nof.
Brian Lammey’s photos

The 2010 NHRPA National Hot Rod Davy Evans Memorial Championship
Shane Murphy wins the Davy Evans Memorial
Tipperary Motor Speedway, Saturday 30th October
Heat 1: 777  970 961  308 967. DNS 420. DNF  992, 493
Heat 2: 970  961 777  967 308  992   NOF
Final: 970  777 992  961 308  967 NOF

The 2010 NHRPA National Hot Rod European Championship
John Christie 2010 European Champion
Tipperary Motor Speedway, Saturday 9th October
Darren Black reports:  John Christie finally got his hands on a major National Hot Rod title when he took a superb win in the 2010 European Championship at Tipperary Motor Speedway on Saturday October 9th. During an enthralling final, John managed to edge his Tigra around the outside of long time leader Keith Martin for a spectacular victory in what was hailed as one of the great National Hot Rod championship races.

As has now been the case for both majors on this side of the Irish Sea this season, the entry was far from massive, but for the 24 cars that did turn up it was certainly a case of quality over quantity, with most of the sport’s major players on hand. From England came the World Champion Chris Haird, alongside defending European Champion Matt Simpson and former winner Malcolm Blackman. Stu Carter, Gavin Murray and Steve Burrows made up the rest of the UK contingent, with Burrows taking to the track in a new Peugeot 206cc that only the eagle-eyed would have noticed – that’s just how similar it looked to his Tigra!

From Ulster came recently crowned British and Irish Open Champion Stewart Doak, along with Christie, Martin, Glenn Bell, Mark Heatrick, Rab Forsythe, Ian McReynolds, Paul Crawford and Davy McKay in a very formidable line-up indeed, whilst the home stars of National Champion Shane Murphy, Caseys x2, Des Cooney, David O’Regan etc were joined by the now World Series England-domiciled James O’Shea for his first home outing in quite some time. That was until James’ engine cried enough in practice and he was forced to turn spectator for the evening, as was Heatrick who’s Merc had similar engine bother.

With the 2/3rds format in operation, there was going to be plenty of room for some excellent hot rodding, and Doak set off at the head of heat one by establishing the early lead, with Martin slipping ahead of Cooney to go second. As David Casey had a wild ride through turns three and four, Simpson went under Cooney for third just as local favourite Murphy signalled his intentions by nipping past Blackman further back.

Martin was all over Doak like the proverbial rash at the front, and with the Simpson/Cooney/Bell/Murphy/Haird train now closing, Martin took to the outside of the leader. Keith soon realised that it was going to be a tall order to pull it off, and slammed himself back into second just in the nick of time, obviously playing the percentage game and thinking that he could quite easily get rail-roaded way, way back.

As we entered the final stages the reds were soon flying as Murphy popped a core plug at the end of the home straight, the resultant fluid sending the Tervas machine sliding backwards into turn one as the others took avoiding action. That was all bar Haird, who found himself stranded alongside Shane midway round the bend. On countback, form man Doak took the win from Martin, Simpson, Cooney and Bell, with the new ORCi ruling regarding causes of stoppages seeing both Haird and Murphy start the evening with DNF’s.

Sterling work by Murphy’s pit crew saw Shane just make the start of heat two, the #970 machine rolling out even after the rest had completed their warm up laps. Young David O’Regan was the first to show in this one, with Haird slotting into second from Murray and Eddie Wall. Murphy and Christie soon went the long way round Wall, dropping Blackman in the process as he hesitated in making his move stick too.

Tom Casey, Bell, Simpson and Cooney were having their own battle royale further back, with Tom attracting a black cross when he punted Wall into a spin. O’Regan was well clear and driving a very mature race to which the World Champion had no answer, until he came to lap Crawford, McKay and Wall. All three held a tight inside line, thus showing the leader the outside berth. But it had been coated in oil (most probably from Forsythe’s diff), and David unfortunately found it and went headlong into the turn three wall to end what had been a very promising run.

Haird reeled off the remaining laps to take the win, with Murphy getting the better of Christie and Murray in the closing stages amongst the traffic to take the runner up slot. Murray was third from Christie, Blackman and Bell.

Crawford had pole for heat three, and quickly assumed the lead from Carter and Tom and David Casey. From the rear, the Ulster trio of Christie, Martin and Doak were making great strides forward, until Doak lost out after a hairy three abreast moment with McKay and welcome returnee Neville Stanley. Crawford was still defending for all he was worth out front, until David C made the bold move right around the outside to take it up. Doak’s rear spoiler then came adrift and was trailing precariously behind the Cirrus machine, but before he could be removed from the race it detached itself and he was allowed to continue...I’m sure he wished he’d got to see that dreaded red-crossed flag, as we shall soon hear…

Both Carter and Tom C had struggled to get by Crawford, but Martin and Christie soon arrived and pulled it off with ease to go second and third. Then Tom got into a spin entering the home straight, which was to trigger the mother and father of all accidents. On his way round he collided with Les Compelli, who speared into McReynolds’ Saxo, which just happened to have Doak blasting down the outside at full chat at that very moment. The British Champion’s now wingless Tigra was squeezed up on to the wall, where he took out at least two posts before coming to rest down the straight on his roof after a terrifying ride indeed. The car was badly damaged, with Stewart luckily extracting himself none the worse for wear to a sympathetic round of applause from the fans. It’s not very often you see a National upside down, but Stewart has now done it twice in three odd years – his SHP Corsa coming to a violent end down the back straight at Ballymena back in 2007. Don’t even dare mention that things like that happen in threes…

The race was declared at that stage, with David C taking a fine win in his Corrado from Martin, Christie and Crawford, the latter having driven probably his best race on the international stage to date.

With the calculations completed Martin was on pole with Christie alongside, whilst David C and Murray shared row two ahead of Simpson and Bell on row three. World Champ Haird was on grid 12, with National Champ Murphy directly behind courtesy of their non-finishes.

Martin quickly settled into the lead as expected from Christie and David C, and these three soon drew away from the battle for fourth between Murray, Simpson, Cooney and Bell. But such was the pace out front that Casey soon got dropped too, and it looked to be a two horse race for the red and yellow chequers. Crawford was an early casualty as an inadvertent thump from Murphy left his bodywork fouling a rear tyre, but Shane had most certainly the bit between his teeth as he pulled himself onto the back of the fourth place train very early indeed.

Christie was tracking Martin’s every move, and soon hauled himself alongside the former World and European Champion, but just couldn’t make the move stick. Martin was using all his experience as John constantly drew level, just holding him off into each turn like the seasoned campaigner that he is. It was becoming absorbing stuff, and I doubt anyone in the stadium was watching anything else – all they needed to see were the lead duo at it hammer and tongs.

Christie would occasionally take a breather before coming back strong again, and indeed on one occasion he got superb drive out of turn two and pulled ahead of Martin down the back straight. John tried to take the line into turn three, but Keith was having none of it and the duo arrived into the turn both on opposite lock….but the order still remained the same.

John then took another breather and attentions switched to Murphy’s charge. He had relegated Bell and Cooney, and soon did likewise to Simpson with a similar outside pass to go fifth. Up front Christie was on the move again as the laps dwindled away, and after yet more side-by-side laps, John got a good run into turn one on the outside, which gave him the momentum down the back stretch. He was never going to make the same mistake again, and this time didn’t cut in, instead running the high line and completing the pass as they passed the start/finish line to great applause from the terraces.

A quick glance back and Murphy was now a fantastic third, having sent Murray and David C the same way as the others. Such was the ferocity of the lead battle, had Christie not grabbed the lead when he did, Shane could’ve been right with them. He did get onto Martin’s tail over the last lap as Keith’s brakes had all but gone by that stage, but it was to be Christie’s finest hour this time around. John took the flag to tremendous celebrations as the infamous ‘962 crew’ went wild with joy.

It was most certainly one of the finest races I have ever witnessed, and John was over the moon at the outcome. Remember that only three weeks previously the car was as good as trashed after his jammed throttle at the Irish Open, so I’m sure John would heap plenty of praise on his pit crew for getting it back into top shape. Behind the jubilant champion came Martin, who admitted that he’d “given it absolutely everything” and Murphy, who was no doubt rueing his non finish in heat one.

All-in-all it was a fantastic evening’s entertainment, and certainly one of the meetings of the season. It had everything: drama, excitement, accidents and - top of the bill - some outstanding side by side National Hot Rodding with paint hardly being exchanged. Let’s hope for more of the same from next year’s championship events.  Darren Black
Results:
Heat one: 996  994 303  921 9  911 208  977 261  116
Heat two: 115  970 95 962  911 9  303 961(X-2) 921  967 7  943 420
Heat three: 261  994 962  7 85 961  95  777 977  420 116  943 967
2010 European Championship: 962 994  970 261  95  303 921  9 115  911 208  116 967  85
Paul Whelan’s photos.

The 2010 NHRPA National Hot Rod Irish Open Championship
Stewart Doak 2010 Irish Champion
Nuttscorner Oval, Sunday 19th September
Darren Black reports:  Having driven a superb race to land the British title for the second time at Ballymena the previous evening, Stewart Doak pulled off yet another stunning performance to net himself the Irish Open Championship at Nuttscorner Oval on Sunday September 19th, and thus complete a dream weekend for the Portadown racer.

With the travelling entry well down on previous seasons, there was never going to be a massive field, especially with the British the night before, but several no-shows and damaged cars left us with just thirteen fit cars for the meeting. Some weren’t even present after the previous night efforts, although Des Cooney had made it along but terminal engine damage from BMR kept him on the sidelines. The big talking point though was John Christie, who slammed hard into the turn 3 wall during practice, when the throttle on his Tigra jammed full open. It was a massive impact, and luckily John was able to walk away although the severe damage to his car meant one of the pre-race favourites was out already.

Glenn Bell led them away in heat one, the first dry race of the weekend. Fellow front row man Mark Heatrick lost out to a fast starting Dick Hillard for second, but Dick out-braked himself into turn 3 and the red Merc was back through. Next Doak got into the back of Rab Forsythe, with the domino effect knocking Hillard right out of contention and earning Doak a black cross next time by.

Doak was still all over Forsythe like a rash, and got well inside down the home straight only for Rab to try to shut the door hard. It was all too late as Doak was already well in, but the resultant contact saw Forsythe spin to a halt on the exit of turn two, although luckily enough his stranded car was far enough out of harm’s way for racing to continue. Bell led Heatrick home to the flag to open his account for the day in style, whilst Doak held off the close attentions of a fast Shane Murphy over the closing tours to net third, but a two-place penalty for his earlier misdemeanour saw him wind up fifth.  Wayne Woolsey thus benefited too in fourth, having out-fumbled Wully Hardie in the dying yards amongst backmarkers.

Davy McKay joined the fray for heat two to give us the full thirteen, having been plagued with engine problems in practice, but it was Woolsey who set the initial pace in the NW Developments Mercedes. Murphy was keeping him honest though in second, the Cork driver adapting very well to the tight Co Antrim circuit. Hardie and Doak were also locked in battle behind, as were Bell and Heatrick. Glenn tried the outside line but couldn’t make it stick, before he bumped the #960 car into a spin exiting turn two. Glenn was sure Mark had lifted off in front of him intentionally, but the black cross penalty would still stand come the race’s end.

The next factor to be thrown into the equation was rain! As if we hadn’t had enough at the sodden British the night before, a shower quickly coated the track mid-race and left the drivers to exercise extreme caution and fingertip car control as they all coped admirably on slicks. Opposite lock was the order of the day all round, and Woolsey just held off Murphy for the win, with Doak third ahead of defending champion Keith Martin, who was having a very quiet afternoon by his standards.

Once the calculations had been completed, Woolsey had annexed pole by just 2 points from Murphy, with Bell and Doak on row two ahead of Martin and Heatrick on row three. The weather had changed completely by now, with wets all round the obvious choice. Woolsey set off at the green with the lead to defend, but Murphy held on around the outside where he was finding enough grip to grab himself the top spot. Doak soon did likewise to Woolsey to go second, but as Wayne went wide looking for the grip he thought the others had found he allowed Bell underneath him to third. Doak was now tracking Murphy for the lead, but whilst Shane was also of the belief that the grip was out wide, Stewart simply slid the Cirrus Plastics Tigra underneath him to take up the running. To complete the superb opening skirmishes, Bell got under Murphy too, and the lead trio soon began to pull clear.

That may have finished the major place changes of the race, but we were then treated to a fine exhibition of high speed wet weather driving by the trio, as they circulated together for the remainder of the race. Doak was able to cover any chance Bell had of netting the lead anytime the young pretender got close enough, and looked to have plenty in reserve too.

Doak reeled off the remainder of the thirty five laps to take the chequered flag, and his second title of the weekend from Bell and Murphy, with Woolsey, Martin and Heatrick next home in a race that saw only eight cars go the distance. It certainly was the dream ticket for Stewart over the two days, but although many have commented on his well-known wet weather driving skills, it should also be noted that he also broke the Nuttscorner Oval lap record in the dry first heat just to underline his superiority over the two days. It’s now over to Stewart to transfer that pace onto the UK and Republic of Ireland tracks when the other big events are up for grabs, and also just how long will it be before Glenn breaks his duck and gets his first ever major win having been bridesmaid yet again?

It certainly was an enthralling two days of action from the premier non-contact class of the ovals, which - as Colin Adair has stated in his British report - was very well received by the local fans, who turned out in good numbers for both meetings despite the poor weather. Let’s hope that in 2011 the two events can pull a much better entry, as the weekend has the potential to match any of the other National Hot Rod events across the British Isles. Darren Black
Heat one: 9, 960, 970, 50, 996(x-2), 72, 994, 977, 116, 777, 31.
Heat two: 50, 970, 996, 994, 72, 977, 9(x-2), 992, 31, 960, 116, 777.
2010 Irish Open Championship: 996, 9, 970, 50, 994, 960, 777, 116.
Paul Whelan’s photos

The 2010 NHRPA National Hot Rod British Open Championship
Stewart Doak 2010 British Champion
Ballymena Raceway, Saturday 18th September
Colin A. reports:  Stewart Doak was the worthy winner of the National Hot Rod British Championship at Ballymena Raceway on September 18. Doak split the qualifying heat wins with Northern Ireland Champion John Christie and then successfully fought a race long battle in the final with Christie and Glenn Bell to earn the right to carry the black and white chequered roof for the next twelve months.

Rain, rain and more rain was the order of the day around Ballymena on race day and it was a sodden track that greeted the nineteen entrants for the British Championship, which was kindly sponsored by SHP Motorsport in association with Hoosier Tires and Image Wheels. Although the rain relented at certain points during the meeting a light drizzle hung in the air and the track never dried up throughout the evening. Six visiting drivers joined thirteen from the province, with Dick Hillard, Steve Burrows and Willie Hardie making the trip over from the mainland and Shane Murphy, Des Cooney and Les Compelli travelling up from south of the Irish border. In the local ranks there was a surprise return for Will Scott after a long absence, Will having a play in his old Ford Fiesta.

Two reverse grid qualifying heats were the order of the day to determine the starting positions for the British Championship and all nineteen cars present took to the track for heat one. Unfortunately Corrie Beggs would only complete the warm up laps before retiring his Peugeot 206cc for the evening. Front row starters Burrows and Mark Heatrick were first to show in this one, but the whole pack was soon pulled up when Rob Forsythe rotated his Vauxhall Tigra on the exit of Suffolk bend, National Champion Murphy getting caught up in the melee and forced to retire. Heatrick assumed control at the resumption with Burrows going along nicely in second too, but Keith Martin was now into his stride and charged around the outside of Burrows and Heatrick to take it up. John Christie was soon following in Martin’s wheel tracks and once safely out front the pair got down to some serious racing over the lead. A wider outside line is normally the preferred route around Ballymena when the circuit is damp and despite Martin being well tuned into that particular groove Christie went even deeper into the bends and managed to haul himself up alongside Martin’s Vauxhall Tigra. The pair circulated side by side for a number of laps before Christie finally broke Martin’s determined but fair defence to pull clear for a hard fought win. Almost unnoticed behind that absorbing lead battle Stewart Doak had been on a fantastic run through the pack which carried him from the back row of the grid to third by the finish. Doak has always been one of the men to watch out for on a damp track and that performance certainly marked him out as a serious contender for the title. Glenn Bell was fourth with Cooney a solid fifth and Wayne Woolsey sixth in the NW Developments Mercedes SLK.

It was Doak and Woolsey who shared the front row for heat two where Davy McKay joined Beggs as a non-starter in this one. Doak continued his impressive pace from the first qualifier and quickly set about building up a safe cushion out front. The winner was never in any doubt in this one, Doak was home and hosed well down the road at the chequered flag, instead the interest lay on whether Christie could match or better Doak’s third place finish from heat one to have a shot at pole position for the final. First Christie had to find a way around Hardie before saddling up to the battle for second and third between Murphy and Woolsey. Neither was going to sacrifice their position easily, but Christie managed to split the pair in the closing stages to grab third behind Woolsey. Murphy was fourth with Martin and Heatrick fifth and sixth.

That left things all square between the two heat winners after qualifying so a draw was required to split them which put Christie on pole for the forty lap British Championship final, with Doak alongside. Row two consisted of Woolsey and Bell, with Martin and Hardie on row three. Chris Foster, taking part in his first ever international event in the Nationals, had driven well in the heats to earn a place on row four alongside Heatrick, with Forsythe and Murphy rounding out the top ten on row five. Compelli, Paul Crawford, Ian McReynolds, Burrows, Hillard and Scott completed the sixteen car line-up, with Cooney unfortunately unable to join the grid for this one after troubles during heat two.

As with the qualifying heats a rolling start was deployed for the final and once again this was perfectly observed by the drivers. The front row starters barrelled side by side into Fisherwick bend for the first time and that’s the way the pair circulated for a gripping opening series of laps before Doak edged his way ahead on the outside line. Christie dropped in behind the leader with Bell holding a watching brief in third. The former Stock Rod World Champion was able to run at a similar pace to Doak and Christie in this one and notably was also using a much more conventional racing line around the track than the front two who still preferred the wider line through the bends. Bell continued to make that tighter line work nicely and a few laps later nipped inside Christie to steal second. Bell was really pushing on now and had one serious look at getting through on the inside of Doak too. That scare was enough to convince Doak to change his line on the corners, the race leader noticeably tightening his line to cover Bell’s charge. The trio had pulled well clear of the rest and continued to circulate as one for the remainder of the race. One mistake by the race leader and Bell was ready to pounce, with Christie still working the wider line and well in contention too. That mistake never came however as Doak coolly controlled the pace from the front and never put a wheel out of place to claim the title after a masterful display. Bell was forced to settle for second again, just as in 2009, with Christie following closely in third and no doubt glad to at least reach the finish in one piece at Ballymena’s international event. For the past two seasons the #962 Tigra had left Ballymena in bits after big smashes at this meeting, but little did we know John’s wretched luck at the province’s international meetings would this year be transferred to Nutts Corner the following day.

Behind the top three Hardie, Martin, Heatrick and Murphy were engaged in a fine tussle for fourth and it was Murphy who took that place to continue his impressive result sequence in the majors during 2010. Martin, Heatrick and Hardie followed next with Woolsey in eighth. The former Two-Litre Hot Rod World Champion had taken a bold gamble to go with two slicks for the final in the hope that the track might dry up and bring him into play, but dropped down the field quickly in the opening stages and never recovered. Foster and McReynolds completed the top ten, with Crawford rounding out the finishers in eleventh.
Results:
Qualifying Heat One: 962 – 994 – 996 – 9 – 921 – 50 – 901 – 960 – 72 – 777
Qualifying Heat Two: 996 – 50 – 962 – 970 – 72 – 9 – 960 – 901 – 994 – 977
2010 British Championship: 996 – 9 – 962 – 970 – 994 – 960 – 72 – 50 – 901 – 977
It was certainly a very intriguing final where the outcome was in doubt all the way to the finish and also notable for the clean and fair nature of the racing on display. Considering the track conditions that is a great credit to the driving standards of all those that took part and a positive reflection on the steward’s contribution to the meeting as well. There still remains a great interest in and affinity for top line National Hot Rodding amongst the race fans in the province and this international weekend should be looked upon by everyone involved in the formula as an opportunity to nurture and encourage the sport in Northern Ireland.

Ballymena Raceway would like to thank those who generously contributed money to the prize fund for the event.


The 2010 NHRPA National Hot Rod National Championship
Murphy’s Law
Hednesford, Saturday July 31st/Sunday August 1st
Graham Brown reports: Shane Murphy improved his finishing position in the world final by one place to take an historic victory in the National championship, with the English drivers locked out of the podium places by Irishmen from both sides of the border. Murphy’s victory was historic in that it marked the first time that an ROI based driver has won a major championship held outside Ireland.

Despite some late-ish cancellations and a number of drivers giving the event a miss for one reason or another, there was still a highly respectable 50 cars on hand to contest the 47th National Championship.

A few items of interest to comment upon within that large entry, one of which was the return to the fold – however temporarily – of Mike Oliver. The Welshman was tracking his ex-Cooney 206cc but decked out in a very unusual dark green livery. Set off with black wheels, it gave the car at the same time both a rather NASCAR-style appearance, but also a quite menacing one.

Also back in a National was Wayne Woolsey, the original plan for him to be driving a Haird car for the weekend having been shelved somewhere along the way, Wayne giving brother Gary’s Tigra an outing instead.

And for all those who might have been asking the perennial question, “Where’s Ricky?”, the answer was, right here. Back in action and looking very quick in Friday’s practice, both before and after a badly fitted wheel spacer had caused some rear wheel studs to shear, Rick admitting that he had been very lucky to have got away without crashing and very little other damage.

He wasn’t the only one having a bit of a drama on Friday afternoon either, Wayne Woolsey having burst an oil line that caused some problems, not least for Dave Longhurst, who happened to be out in the absent Colin Gomm’s Merc at the time. A fairly severe spanking of the rear end resulted, Dave spending the rest of the afternoon fixing and straightening. Apparently, Dave rang Colin to tell him, ‘I’ve just smashed your car up’, to which Colin’s laid back response was something like, ‘Oh well, shall I bring the other one then?’. OK, it’s nice to be in a position to say that, but still, I suppose after all the years Colin has been in racing there isn’t too much that fazes you.

Six heats were required to sort the final qualifiers from those 50 cars, the first of them heading off into spitting rain with Des Cooney and Winnie Holtmanns at the head of the pack. The yellow flags got an early airing after Terry Hunn, Neil Stimson and Oliver had a bit of a clash coming off the line. Terry was immediately in trouble and limped to a stop on the entry to the West bend where John vd Bosch promptly ran into him.

Cooney was very slow away at the restart, allowing Holtmanns to nip past. The continuing danger of having even a small amount of anti-freeze laden water on the track was soon evident, with several drivers lucky not to crash after running over it on the West Bend, their cars behaving as if there was oil down. Holtmanns, who has often looked good when it’s wet or slippery, looked to have it safely under wraps until, with two laps to run, he showed the recovered Cooney rather too much inside line and he slipped through for the win.

Initially, Stewart Doak got disqualified from this, but a steward’s inquiry found that he was not actually to blame for one of the incidents he was involved with and the penalty was downgraded to a two place docking instead.

After David Brooks non-started and a bit of a delay in trying to get Dick Hillard’s car to play ball, Paul Crawford and Les Compelli were the first to show in heat two. However, Keith Martin swiftly dealt with both of them and cleared off at the front, eventually to the tune of almost half a lap. The battle for second raged all the way between Tom Casey, Jason Kew, Murphy, Gary Woolsey and Matt Simpson, with the rain now spotting down again. A late caution, brought about by Willie Hardie spinning at the East Bend and then getting clobbered by Tom Casey, put them all a lot closer to Martin, but the leader had four backmarkers between himself and the placemen so was never really in any danger.

Martin duly went on to take the win with Kew second over the line but dropped a couple of places for the contact that led to Casey’s incident, handing the runner-up slot to Murphy.

The sun was beating down by the third heat which was a totally cut and dried result for John Christie, who had the front row all to himself. Fellow Ulsterman Glenn Bell never gave up chasing him but, aside from when the leader had to deal with knots of traffic, never really looked like getting on terms. Hardie looked fully recovered from his earlier problems and got home third here, Willie apparently benefiting from some sterling pit work by Davy McCall among others. One can only wonder what changes he may have been making to the #72 car in light of recent developments…

Heat four looked like it ought to be as easy for Chris Haird as heat three had been for Christie, the world champion also having drawn a solitary front row start. He was already fairly well clear by the time the yellows were thrown for some spun cars (Carl Waller-Barrett, Terry Maxwell and Wayne Woolsey) on the East bend, but the caution naturally closed the field right up. That enabled Andy Holtby to occupy Bell’s position of the previous heat, Andy chasing the leader all the way to the end without ever managing to get in touch. Perhaps the most significant result in this one was the fourth spot recorded by Martin to go with his earlier win.

The fifth heat was a fairly critical point for both Christie and Haird, who both needed a good result and were lined up next to one another.

It was Mark Heatrick who led them away though and immediately under pressure from Murphy. Over and again Shane tried it on down the outside without being able to make the pass stick, his repeated attempts leading up the pivotal point of the entire weekend. Murphy made another huge effort going through the West Bend and lost it. The car had spun, no question, and it looked like the best Shane could hope for was to maybe get going again in a lowly place – until Doak came around the corner and ran into him, straightening up the 970 machine. Murphy seized this reprieve with both hands and kept his foot on the gas, cannoning off the wall on the exit and launching straight back into the race, obviously having to hope that nothing vital had been damaged. He promptly got into a fight with Gavin Murray over fourth, but wasn’t yet back on a sufficiently even keel to overcome the East Anglian.

Up front, Doak was second and reeling Heatrick in as the finish neared. Back in the pack, it was interesting to note that Christie was ahead of Haird and leaving him behind, while Murphy’s car was not only apparently unharmed, but enabling him to now mount a serious attack on Murray’s fourth spot. Doak never quite got up to challenge the leader (he was maybe two car lengths down at the flag) and ended up collecting a penalty that dropped him to fourth in any case. The Murray/Murphy dice had finally seen them touch in the West Bend, Murray not losing much in the encounter but the incident put Murphy up another position. Doak’s penalty gained him yet another, and so Shane wound up third when he could easily have been stone last or something like it, worse still if Doak or someone else had hit him a great deal harder or at a slightly different angle. So you can see what I mean by “pivotal”.

The last heat was probably the race of the day with the results for three Northern Irish racers – Woolsey, Bell and Martin – all going to be crucial.

It turned out to be Colin Gomm who led from flag to flag, but the in-fighting behind him was something else. Phil Spinks got passed by Gary Woolsey for second early on but then almost managed an outside sweep that would have taken him from third to first. In the end he couldn’t make it stick and Gomm went back to dicing with Woolsey and a whole host of others, including Dick Hillard, Matt Simpson, Spinks himself, Bell and Andy Holtby. Bell had already managed to get through quite well, while Martin was working hard on the same thing when a caution brought them all much closer together. The yellows had come out for Mark Fuller, who’d had a bang on the East Bend.

After that, Gomm, Hillard and Woolsey carried on scrapping over the lead with Simpson, Spinks, Holtby and Bell, with Martin driving a magnificent last five laps that lifted him from seventh to fourth and, ultimately, pole for the final. Woolsey’s second spot was going to put him on the outside front row.

National Championship final grid:
994 970 9 115 996 95 174 278 482 467 761 31 100 14 78 271
940 962 303 (960) 61 72 639 921 261 130 500 369 6 444 199 162 (960 dns)

Heatrick had, unfortunately, failed a weight check before the final and was therefore disqualified from the meeting, although that didn’t prevent him from trying to join the line up anyway! With Heatrick back in the pits, the rest made their first attempt at getting the race under way. And a pretty shabby attempt it was too, the stewards soon bringing them back to try again and blaming Martin for leaving too soon and Woolsey for not leaving soon enough.

A far superior second effort saw Martin assume the lead, pressed from the word go by Murphy. However, there was a small incident on the West bend early on – maybe two laps in - that was to have severe consequences for Martin, as Gomm and Holtmanns got together, leaving the German stuck down on the rumble strips. A couple of laps later Holtmanns tried to reverse away from his position. From where he was stuck, Winnie would have had little or no view of what or who was approaching the corner; unfortunately, he made his move just as the leader arrived. Martin was forced wide and ended up sixth in a trice.

Keith’s position was helped slightly by a caution soon afterwards, thrown when Waller-Barrett got into some sort of scrape and lost a wheel which Jason Cooper neatly fielded with his car! But Martin was still left with the next five fastest cars at the meeting running ahead of him.

Murphy was off like a shot when the green came out once more and was soon building a big lead that stretched to over a quarter of a lap at one point, depending on the traffic problems he was having at any given moment. But the places battle was keeping the rest busy in any case, with Christie taking quite a while to find a way past Woolsey and into second. The fight for fifth between Haird and Martin had ended with Haird closing the door on a challenge into the East bend in what looked like only a half hearted manner. When Martin drove into the gap the pair touched and Chris went spinning which then allowed Martin to spend a lot of laps finding a way past Woolsey.

Hardie was going well and running quite strongly in sixth but his car started trailing smoke which was steadily worsening. This eventually attracted a red and white flag and a disqualification when he failed to stop for it.

Interesting as all of this was, these various dices conspired to make sure that no-one was left with a free hand to try and go after Murphy. By the time Christie was firmly established in second, the leader was too far away, Shane picking his way swiftly and sensibly through the traffic to make sure he stayed that way. By the time he was putting some cars two laps down, it was essentially all over and his name firmly in the record books.

It was, in the end, a total Irish whitewash, with Christie, Martin, Gary Woolsey and Bell occupying the next four places, with Jason Kew interrupting as the lone Englishman in sixth, ahead of Cooney.

The Grand National…probably the least said about that the better. I had thought, after this year’s world final supports, that this tradition of finishing the meeting with a demolition derby was all behind us. How wrong can you be?

It all kicked off with a “too many cars in too small a space” kind of crash along the home straight, that saw Cooney in the wall and Holtmanns slam into the pit gate so hard that it not only completely wrecked the front of his car but also apparently ‘wrote off’ the pit gate!

Start number two ended when Tom Casey, Chris Harvey and David Casey all got together in another large crash on the West Bend exit which badly damaged all three cars.

A few more racing laps after another restart ended when Terry Hunn ended up in the wall on the West Bend exit, David O’Regan and Les Compelli both earning a black cross for possible involvement in the Corsa’s demise.

The drivers were warned over their radios that one more stoppage would be the last one, which came when John Holtby went head on hard into the infield embankment along the back straight.

According to the lap sheets, fourteen green flag laps were actually completed, but it certainly didn’t feel like it, and the whole thing was a bit of a low note on which to end what had otherwise been a great weekend of racing. Graham Brown
Results
Heat one: 921,467,50,95,996(-2),9,115,6,482,100,271,68,130,278,261,199,369,734,78,27,57.
Heat two: 994,970,940,174(-2),303,962,960,639,31,444,61,162,761,500,74,7.
Heat three: 962,9,72,482,639,761,174,369,970,777,444,960,961,467,74,278,100,68
Heat four: 115,61,261,994,500,6,303,940,95,996,14,78,130,921,31,208,7.
Heat five: 960,72,970,996(-2),130,95,962,199,115,639,261,174,761,78,208,921,777,444,734,74,39.
Heat six: 278,940,303,994,14,9,61,31,100,369,162,271,57,500,482(-2),467,7,963,27,160.
National Championship Final:
970,962,994,940,9,174,921,61,261,31,6,761,199,369,78,130,100,467.
Grand National: 208,777,27,74,115,369,31,482,303,9,996,100,962,130,970,500.
’Martin Kingston, Trevor Hill and Steve Westons photos

The 2010 NHRPA National Hot Rod Championship of the World
New World order
Ipswich, Saturday 3rd/Sunday 4th July 2010

World Final Support Races Graham Brown reports: Although the support car entry never approached the numbers some had hoped for, there was still a healthy enough number of cars on hand, ready and willing for their Best in Britain qualifying. This year they were to get two heats and a final, with the numbers of qualifiers split proportionally between support cars and world finalists, the theory being that 20 world cars would meet 12 support cars in a 32 car grid for the ‘Best’. The world finalists would have a reversed grid ‘revenge’ race, so that would be their ‘second heat’, with the best 20 aggregate scorers (on a Longhurst system) joining the first 12 finishers in the support car final. Complicated, but as fair as anyone could make it. There was a non-starter before the first heat even commenced, with Terry Maxwell having discovered that his engine was muddling up where the water and oil should be. 20 cars it was then, that set off for the first encounter, including a new paint job for Danny Brosnan and Corrie Beggs making his first NHR outing away from NI. Mark Fuller took the early lead, but his Merc still seemed as loose as ever, and he was soon forced to turn over the front spot to Tony Moss. As Fuller clobbered the wall exiting turn four, Tommy Maxwell took over second with Fuller still third and Mark Willis fourth, while Brosnan and Steve Burrows disputed fifth until Burrows clouted the wall along the back straight, putting him out of it, although he did rejoin later. Maxwell got up to dice with Moss for the lead shortly before Chris Harvey and Terry Hunn spun at the pit bend, bringing out the yellows. The reason for the spins turned out to be Scott Bourne laying oil, so with him removed they set off again. Willis quickly passed Fuller and looked to be on his way to the win for a while, before he was slowed by brake woes, plumes of smoke rising every so often from a locking right front. The leaders weren’t in any danger of being caught after that, Moss continuing to lead Maxwell all the way to the flag. Ray Harris headed the second heat away in the Audi, hard pressed almost from the off by Chris Harvey. Beggs lost third to Carl Waller-Barrett not long after the start, Corrie spinning out a few laps later. Meanwhile, Tim Moody had an ‘off’ and Graeme Callender retired, as did Willis with a flat in the left rear after something of an altercation with Gavin Murray. Waller-Barrett caught up to the lead pair and Murray was hurrying to join them as well just as the yellows came out. This was after Bourne had a huge moment on the pit bend and flew over the kerbs before collecting Hunn. Harvey went speeding past Harris when the green came back out. Although Ray came back at him hard in the closing stages without managing to get past, Chris was adjudged to have jumped the restart and copped a two place penalty, handing the win back to Harris. Moss stepped off the line first in the support final, chased by Waller-Barrett, Andy Lane and Harris. Obviously, it was imperative to do well in this if you wanted to be in the Best in Britain, but it didn’t look as though a place in the top 12 was going to either Willis or Murray, who got involved between turns three and four, with Willis half spinning and the pair ending up in the wall. Murray got going again but he’d lost a lot of ground. There was some place swapping going on at the front, where Luke Armiger had got in on the act too, as he managed to get past Harris and Waller-Barrett, who dropped back to fifth before losing out to Burrows as well. Burrows had just made it by Waller-Barrett when Armiger, Harris and Burrows all got together at turns 3-4, with Harris spinning, although we got away without a caution. All of that left Moss leading Lane by a fair old gap, with Andy over a quarter of a lap up on the dice for third, which now featured Waller-Barrett, Maxwell, Brosnan and Burrows. With the five lap board out, Lane was at last beginning to close down Moss and caught him virtually as they took the last lap board. It had been a big effort by Lane but Moss was still just ahead at the line, the pair finishing half a lap up on Maxwell who got past Waller-Barrett on the last lap. Murray, incidentally, recovered pretty well from his earlier problems and got home ninth. So, that was the support qualifiers sorted. That left the world finalists to have their ‘Revenge’ race, with the grid simply the reverse of the world. It was a very battered looking Les Compelli who led them away for this, with John Holtby swiftly relegating John vd Bosch to go second. Jason Kew, Neil Stimson and Keith Martin all took spins at the pit bend, with Stimson retiring soon afterwards along with Malcolm Blackman. Glenn Bell also went spinning after an incident was to get Colin Gomm disqualified. While all that was going on, it was quickly becoming clear that Chris Haird was truly on a mission, and looked very much like he’d set himself the target of winning his first race as world champ, even if it was off the back of the grid! He was already through to twelfth with only a handful of laps done. Up at the front, Holtby was now attacking Compelli’s lead with gusto. John was trying it on down the outside repeatedly although, at one point, this only looked highly likely to let the eager looking vd Bosch through again, as he was still very much in touch – as indeed was Laurens vd Velde. Haird was still on the march, passing Mark Heatrick and then Matt Simpson to move up to ninth, with the leaders now in sight. Cars were still falling by the wayside too, as Simpson went out soon after this, as did Stu Carter, but the fight for the lead was undiminished. Still Compelli was managing to hang on out front with Holtby all over him once more as vd Bosch got passed by Willie Hardie, vd Velde and David O’Regan in one bend and suddenly, Haird was in amongst this lot too! The 115 car sliced past the two Netherlands men to grab fifth with the five lap board being waved. A lap later and Haird had O’Regan. He was alongside Hardie with three to go but struggling now to get it done on the wide outside. Holtby was still trying to get by Compelli as they entered the last lap with Haird hauling himself past Hardie but too late to do anything about the front two. However, Compelli got docked a couple of places for contact during that lead dice, giving the win to Holtby with Haird therefore officially placed second in his first race as champ. That left just the Best In Britain – the race we never got last year – to round proceedings off. 29 cars were still fit or eligible by that stage, the draw placing Gomm on pole with Irishmen Des Cooney alongside, and Shane Murphy and James O’Shea sharing row two. Haird was stuck with row seven for this, but on his showing in the previous race, maybe that wasn’t going to matter too much… Gomm took up his expected lead at the off but Cooney went well wide at the far bend before slowing into retirement. That allowed Murphy to immediately jump on Gomm, but before they really had a chance to square up to one another, the yellows were flying for an incident on the exit of turn two, where Hardie had spun and got hit by Beggs and Lane. It was Gomm versus Murphy and O’Shea at the restart, with O’Shea somehow managing to catch Murphy napping to get by down the inside. Shane soon re-paid the compliment, but it cost him some time doing it. Luckily for him, Gomm hadn’t got all that far away by then and the two were soon at it again for the lead. This turned into a really tough race, with Murphy completely alongside for three quarters of lap before falling back briefly and then doing it again the following lap. It was all hard but fair though, with Colin giving Shane all the room he needed to try for the pass. Even when Colin’s Merc got a bit loose exiting the bends, he still snapped it back down to the kerb as soon as he could. They still nearly came to grief though, when Compelli went spinning on the pit bend exit, forcing Gomm wide momentarily. Fortunately, Murphy was able to get off the throttle a bit sharpish until they’d cleared the obstacle, whereupon it was game on again. Murphy had now given up the ‘dropping back inside for a rest’ tactic and just stayed outside permanently. This was because he was running out of laps. The five lap board brought a big effort, Shane diving into the far turn as hard as could be which did get him ahead – for about a second! He slid wide on the exit putting Colin back in front. Murphy hadn't given up, not a bit of it, and they were side by side again at the three lap board, again at the two lap mark and most of the way through the final tour as well. Gomm still had his nose just in front at the flag after a terrific scrap, one of those races where it was a pity either man had to lose. O’Shea won the places battle to claim third fending off a combined assault from Murray, Holtby and Haird till the end. GB Support Cars Heat One: 192,369,65,130,33,68,519,162,17,871,27,116,3 9,147,160,224. Support Cars Heat Two: 224,162,503(-2),95,130,99,192,116,369(-2),51 9,33,27,68,199,17,160. 503 dropped two places for jumping a restart. 369 dropped two places for contact. Support Cars Final: 192,130,369,162,116,33,503,27,95,199,147,39, 99,17,68,160,224. 519 disqualified for contact with 224. World Final “Revenge” 6,115,777(-2),72,208,78,66,305,100,74,921,96 0,(278),970,31,155,61,174,9,467. 777 dropped two places for contact. 278 disqualified for contact with 9. Best in Britain Final: 278,970,74,95,6,115,31,61,78,192,155,369,66, 27,208,39,116,33,77 960 disqualified for contact with 130.

Graham Brown reports: Chris Haird finally achieved every hot rod driver’s dream by lifting the world championship trophy for the first time after coming out on top of a race-long duel with Ireland’s Shane Murphy. Completing the story of an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman, James Jamieson got home in third. Defending champion Carl Boardley was eliminated after a twentieth lap brush with a spun car, putting an end to his bid to win five titles in a row.

Entry & Qualifying
No big surprises about the entry either in terms of who was there or what they were driving, although it was the first public chance to see Colin Gomm’s new-to-him ex-Hardie SLK. Now, you might think that’s a lot of car to paint in Colin’s traditional purple but, in fact, the colour scheme really suited the Merc and the car looked seriously good with its fluorescent green lettering laid over the rear quarters too.

The draw for the order of running in the hot laps put rookie Dickie Burtenshaw in the unenviable position of having to go first and, somewhat unusually, his quickest lap was his first. The next four cars all ran fastest on their third laps, which is a bit more normal, while the next four all went fastest on their second laps. Then they got scattered about a bit until nearing the end of the session, when no less than eight drivers in a row went quickest on their final lap.

There was a bit of a scare for Murphy just before hot laps commenced, the team having found a leaf floating about in the petrol tank that they couldn’t extract. Fortunately, it never found the fuel outlet and the young Irishman used a late draw to advantage, putting in a 14.50 to claim the outside of the front row.

He wasn’t the only one to get a scare either, as Boardley suffered a leaking axle seal that oiled his left rear tyre, causing him to clip the wall and abort his third lap as he coasted over the line.

“I knew the lap was gone, so I just backed off”, Carl stated later.

He hadn’t done any damage to the car, he’d still gone fast enough to get pole, and this little incident had happened on the Saturday of speed weekend rather than the Sunday, but it did just bring about a slight feeling that maybe the 41 car wasn’t quite as invulnerable as it usually is. Or maybe that’s just what the rest were telling themselves

As I say, it had been business as usual prior to all that in any case, the four time winner having grabbed the pole with his second lap best of 14.47.

The problems for both teams paled into insignificance compared to John Christie however, the Thunder 500 winner having set a less than spectacular time anyway (14.77) before failing the weight check that immediately follows the timed laps. A 2 Kg discrepancy was all it took to put one of the favourites out of the meeting on the spot.

There seemed to be considerable confusion about how exactly this situation arose. Let’s face it, they’d worked all year to qualify for the race and hauled all the way from Ireland to win the T-500 warm up. Then they’d re-prepared the car before hauling all the way back again to try for the big one as well. They’d also arrived at the track as one of the hot favourites, so to get disqualified for a technical irregularity before they even started, has to be considered a genuine class one 24 carat solid gold balls up.

Even now, I haven’t got to the bottom of it. Understandably, John appeared a trifle embarrassed when talking about it, although he seemed to think that adding the amount of petrol they had would have taken the car back over 700Kgs. Obviously, it didn’t. Or maybe, he was thinking about the amount it would have in it for the World, and forgot that it might only be carrying a gallon or so for hot laps? I’ve heard that the car was underweight when it was first presented at the T-500 too which, if true, should surely have suggested to them that their own scales read heavy, or at least, heavier than the official ones. John was certainly late arriving at the track Saturday morning (like father, etc) and I’ve also heard that the car was taken to the original (i.e. no penalty if it failed) Saturday weigh-in in the pits by his crew. It was found to be light then too, apparently, except no-one remembered to tell John!

How much of this is truth and how much fantasy, I still don’t know. What I do know is that it was a bit of a sickener, not just for John, obviously, but for all those (me included) who were looking forward to seeing him carrying the fight to Boardley, Haird and co. There is no way in the world that John would be trying to cheat, so I reckon what we are talking about here is a good old fashioned communications breakdown of some sort.

John actually took the disqualification with a good grace, pointed out that if 14.77 was the best he could do then getting loaded up wasn’t that much of an issue, and stayed around to collect his winnings for topping the points in Northern Ireland. He also swapped team shirts with Chris Haird (Chris was still wearing his when he won the race) and did a lap of honour with one of his crew carrying a bag of sugar to signify the amount of extra weight they’d needed, although it was a standard size bag of 2 lbs, or in fact, just one kilo, give or take. It would have needed to be the larger size bag to make up 2 Kgs. Ah, wait a minute…so they think, an object that only weighs 1 Kg actually weighs 2 Kg. That explains a lot… (Sorry lads, only joking!)

Grid:
41 115 155 305 9 61 734 467 278 303 996 72 208* 6 961 777 (*Did not start)
970 940 911 921 31 85 174 960 271 491 994 100 74 78 66 261

The Race – 75 Laps
Nothing but blindingly hot weather during Saturday’s hot laps led straight into another blisteringly hot sunny day for the race itself. The cars were all on the grid well before the start, but thankfully not as long before as last year, so there wasn’t quite so much time for cars or drivers to endure the sweltering heat before the off.

David O’Regan had already suffered a problem when his car refused to start when the command was given to start engines. Although that was quickly overcome, the warm up laps revealed something much more problematic. It turned out to be a broken driveshaft and, although some time would have been allowed to fix it, it was clearly never going to be enough and the young Irishman sadly drove slowly back to the pit lane to become a non-starter.

The first attempt to get the race underway was a typically chaotic world final opening, with a number of cars at or near the rear of the field colliding on the back straight, hurling wreckage in all directions. Matt Simpson lost his bonnet during the fracas, while Les Compelli lost his bonnet (which got smashed to smithereens) as well as quite a bit of other body damage. James O’Shea was also out, as was David Casey and Ralph Sanders, an ignominious ending for Ralph’s race after his prospects had been looking so bright following the last qualifier. He’d lost out to Stu Carter in the hot lap showdown to sort their group two tie, and now this.

The bonnet from Casey’s car was pressed into service – along with a large quantity of race tape – to get Compelli’s battered machine back in the hunt. The bonnets were off Des Cooney’s and Gomm’s cars as well (I think Des may have had a misfire), while Glenn Bell was another having some frantic last minute repairs or adjustments made.

Boardley had been leading initially but had just lost the lead before the race was stopped for a complete restart. It was something of a get-out-of-jail-free card for the pole sitter, his crew making some what looked like fairly critical adjustments to the rear suspension during the 10 minute repair period allowed.

“Carl looked like he was struggling with a bit of a push coming out of the corners”, Haird explained later, “I got under him then and he still had the push when he turned into the next one, and I got past”

In fact, Murphy had made it by too, but it all counted for nothing now as they tore away for the second attempt.

This time the front row men were rubbing even as they took the green flag, with Murphy making a determined effort to get ahead down the outside. Unfortunately, this only allowed Haird to dive under and into second, a move which ultimately turned out to be the race winner.

At this stage of the game though, it was still Boardley leading with Haird, Murphy and Gary Woolsey in close attendance and these four already beginning to draw clear of the rest. Lee Pepper had got forced backwards a long way as he got hung out to dry on the outside and any sort of fairytale result for him was now looking unlikely.

A stuck throttle on Colin Smith’s Z4 saw him cannon into Compelli, propelling both men hard into the wall. The shunt made a big mess of the BMW, with the incident seeming likely to make this race Smiffy’s swansong in the formula.

As the race settled down, Boardley started to stretch his legs a bit in an effort to break his pursuit. It’s a tactic that usually works, but this time Haird always seemed able to peg back any little advantage the leader opened up. Both he and Murphy were still just about in touch (despite Carl having just set the fastest lap of the race) but not right under Boardley’s spoiler, which turned out to be a crucial few yards of daylight when several cars got into bother at the exit from turn two. It’s not an uncommon situation in major hot rod races where something unfolds ahead of the leader. If that leader is right on top of it, he only has split seconds to decide what to do; the placemen have that tiny bit more warning and can often turn it to advantage.

Although Stewart Doak was also involved in this coming together, Boardley’s nemesis turned out to be Neil Stimson. As Stimson tried to get back in the hunt, Boardley appeared on the scene and was faced with the choice of going wide – and maybe gifting the lead to Haird – or staying tight but going much closer to Stimson. Carl chose to go inside, clipped Stimson’s car and it was game over, as Boardley slowed into retirement with deranged steering. The Drive for Five was at an end.

“There were a load of cars that had gone everywhere and I saw it when I came into the corner”, Carl explained later.

“By the time I got to mid-corner I’d eased off and decided that I was going inside. There was a gap there but by the time I got to the gap it had closed, we made contact and that ruined the left front corner”

It might have been game over for Boardley, but it was definitely ‘game on’ now for Haird and Murphy.

With the erstwhile leader out of it, understandably, Haird and Murphy now both saw their chance to snatch a maiden win. As third man Gary Woolsey got briefly delayed by a couple of backmarkers he found he couldn’t lap as easily as the lead pair had, he fell back into the clutches of Jamieson, and the two at the front were left free to get down to some serious racing, cutting though the copious quantities of traffic in no-nonsense fashion.

In fact, every passing bunch of back markers gave Haird a scant few more yards on Murphy. Shane seemed always able to make the ground back up when they returned to open road but as the laps dwindled away, it was beginning to look as though Haird had it won.

With around 25 laps to go, Jamieson finally overhauled Woolsey, and Haird still seemed to be getting more out of the traffic situations than Murphy. By now, they’d also lapped everybody up to seventh. Then Malcolm Blackman stepped aside to let them though, and they’d lapped everybody up to sixth. Then Matt Simpson signalled out the window that they should go by down the inside, and they did.

With everybody up to fifth now a lap down, Murphy might just have been wishing that they wouldn’t all be quite so polite, as a few moments baulking by an unwary backmarker was really what he needed. Chris of course, did not. And he was working on his lead advantage again too, opening out maybe three car lengths as they came to take the five lap board.

Nevertheless, four laps from home, Murphy was charging once more, and came right back up on Haird's rear bumper – and there were more backmarkers looming up ahead. It was going to be pressure all the way to the flag, but Haird kept matters totally under control and it didn’t really look like Murphy had anything much for him at the end.

That turned out to be the case, with Shane only fractions of a second behind at flag fall, but behind, he still was. Jamieson was a quarter of a lap back in a lonely but satisfying third spot while Woolsey got home fourth but collected a penalty for an incident during his dice with Andy Holtby that dropped him to sixth. That left Matt Simpson fifth, his valiant fight through from the tenth row one of the features of the race for anybody who’d been able to tear their eyes away from the lead battle. Graham Brown

World Final Result: 115,970,305,61,303,940(-2),911,174,921,72,278,31,961,85,100,78,960,66,155. NOF.
940 dropped two places for baulking/contact with 61.
Photos - by Martin Kingston and Brian Lammey


NHRPA National Hot Rod 2010 Thunder 500
Ulstermen dominate Thunder 500 thriller
Ipswich, Saturday June 19th 2010

Graham Brown reports: On a night that was more like the onset of winter than any kind of date in June, the Northern Irish National Hot Rod drivers came to Ipswich and well and truly threw down the gauntlet for next month’s world championships. After a thriller of a final that featured a race-long, multi-car, lead battle it was John Christie who led home fellow countryman Glenn Bell, with third man Gary Woolsey completing an NI rout.

It was the usual large (44 cars in the end) and cosmopolitan entry that turned up to do battle for the traditional world final warm up honours. It would have been 46 but for a couple of last minute enforced cancellations, Colin Smith having had a major oil leak develop during testing at Arena earlier in the day, the kind that requires the engine out and the rear crankshaft oil seal replacing. That obviously wasn’t practical in the time available, while Stu Carter had run into a bit of a domestic crisis that saw his car arrive with the Holtby’s but without him to drive it.

Those hoping for a glimpse of Keith Martin’s new Tigra were going to be disappointed, Keith enjoying the role of spectator and having, I suspect, a healthy regard for the all-too-common syndrome of T-500 winners having peaked around a fortnight too soon!

Even without those mentioned, and even spread over four heats, there was still never going to a shortage of cars on track. 31 English drivers turned out, enough for a pretty good meeting even without any visitors. Then, and leaving aside their present allegiances licensing-wise, we had six Northern Irish (Gary Woolsey, Glenn Bell, John Christie, Tommy and Terry Maxwell, and Stewart Doak), just two Southern Irish (David O’Regan and James O’Shea), two Scots (James Jamieson and Willie Hardie), two Netherlands racers (John van den Bosch and Laurens van der Velde) and a solitary German, Winnie Holtmanns.

In amongst those drivers, points of interest included Carl Boardley tracking his rarely seen SLK (the Tigra was still in the throes of world preparation), Mark Paffey making his long awaited return to the formula with another SLK, while Doak was out in a rather plain looking and obviously not quite finished paintwork-wise brand new Tigra.

So: four heats for them all to both qualify and sort out the grid for the final. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t look like it was going to behave itself. A series of mercifully short but nasty slanted sideways showers before the meeting even started, were backed up by a biting cold wind, and this was definitely not an evening for T-shirts…

With the track still damp from those earlier squally showers, it was no surprise that the first heat was soon interrupted by a stoppage when Danny Brosnan hit the wall on the fourth turn exit. It was Andy Holtby who led before the yellows and continued to do so afterwards as a big bright rainbow appeared directly over turns three and four! As Tim Moody spun into the wall at the end of the home straight, Dickie Burtenshaw and Woolsey squared up to one another over second spot, with Woolsey clearly getting the jump as the green came back out, only to have Dickie fight back impressively before Gary re-passed again a bit later.

All of that just helped Holtby get further ahead of course and, with the slippery track conditions rather similar to when he won his British title, it was a bit of a no-brainer to suggest that he was going to stay out front till the end. Probably the feature of this was the dice between Steve Thompson and Chris Haird over sixth/seventh places, a dice that had already seen Thompson black crossed. Haird eventually got the best of this by managing to box Steve in behind Chris Harvey. What Thompson probably wasn’t expecting, was that Bell would be able to do the exact same thing to him as well! Steve soon fought back, but Haird was gone by then, chasing down Vd Bosch for fourth and Burtenshaw for third, although the quarter of a lap he had to make up on Woolsey was never going to happen.

All in all, not a bad start then.

Paffey had drawn pole for heat two which, under normal circumstances, should have been game over right there. However, Paff hasn’t raced Nationals for quite a while now and he was sat in a new and very pretty but basically unsorted car to boot. Tommy Maxwell certainly tried hard to get in front at the green, but Paff surged ahead down the back straight and looked to be off and running. The track surface was still far from great, as evidenced by Doughnut, Luke Armiger and Mark Fuller all having spins or offs in quick succession.

Mind you, Fuller’s rotation was probably brought about by his Merc looking about as loose as any Rod I’ve ever seen, and probably only Keith Woods would really have enjoyed driving it like that! When Fuller rejoined right in front of the leader it looked like there could be trouble in store, but Paffey’s experience enabled that problem to be by-passed. However, there was a rare old scrap going on for second between Neil Stimson, Christie and Malcolm Blackman, with Christie and Blackman eventually managing to get past somehow, and JAC going ahead of Blackman at the same time.

There was quite an argument going on for fifth too, between Tommy Maxwell and Phil Spinks, with the former nearly getting spun at one point when he’d left it rather too late to slam the door.

Slowly but surely, Christie began to leave Blackman behind and soon it became more like quickly and surely as John began to close in fast on Paffey. As Spinks finally managed to deal with Maxwell, Christie caught the leader and a hard but fair fight followed, with Paffey giving nothing away but allowing Christie the room to get down the outside if he could. It turned out John could, and did, the Irishman taking an extremely well won victory to open his scoring for the night.

The third encounter certainly didn’t lack excitement either, even if it was run in the pouring rain. Fuller spun before he’d even taken the green flag this time, while outside front row man Mark Willis managed to beat pole sitter Boardley away. Carl didn’t look awfully happy anyway, as Jeff Simpson also went by fairly swiftly, followed by Jamieson.

This was another race that was going to suffer an early yellow though, with Steve Burrows, Burtenshaw, Moody and Lee Wood all getting in a muddle along the back straight.

The resumption saw Willis now having to fend off Simpson, Jamieson and Boardley. Slim went to the front round the inside of turn three only to have Willis re-pass along the back straight on the next lap, shortly before spanking the wall coming off turn four. That gave Simpson back the lead and, with Thompson having now latched onto the rear of this bunch as well, this was far from over yet.

Thompson was really having a go too, and took Boardley and Jamieson before Jamieson came right back at him and re-passed once more. He then set about trying to wrest the lead away from Simpson down the outside, the Scot going on to win despite smacking the home straight wall in an incident that was later to get Simpson disqualified. Indeed, I was amazed how JJ kept going, never mind well enough to overtake round the outside and see off all the opposition into the bargain, and can only conclude that whatever damage he did to his steering must have somehow improved the car!

Boardley started to struggle (on the wrong tyres, I’m guessing) as the laps wound down and began losing places as Haird and Christie both went by suspiciously easily. In Christie’s case, he was going to end up fifth here, which was enough to get him pole for the final.

The rain had stopped by heat four, leaving the track just wet and, with Matt Simpson on the fourth row, a betting man would definitely have had a flutter on 303 for the win in this one. Dick Hillard got away fast from pole, but it wasn’t long before ‘Slippery’ was on his tail and by as they rounded the pit bend, Matt taking his usual delight in these conditions.

Significantly though, he was very nearly caught by Bell in the closing stages, Glenn having started one row further back but on the next rank of cars, so he’d had a bit of ground to make up. When he went past Hillard down the outside with five to go it really did look as though he might be able to threaten Simpson’s lead before flag fall but, in the end, he ran out of laps.

The slippery surface pointed up one or two items of interest for form spotters, notably that Doak (fourth) is also handy in these conditions, that Scott Bourne (fifth) is going to be a force to be reckoned with and almost certainly not just in these conditions, and that Holtmanns (sixth) is another who usually shines when the track is anything other than truly dry.

With the oval greasy on the racing line and just plain wet on the outside by final time, it held no promise whatsoever of any particularly great racing. But in the event, it turned out to be an absolute classic.

Pole sitter Christie went straight into the lead while outside front row man Malcolm Blackman struggled with a seriously pushing car as Thompson and Matt Simpson forged past, Simpson and Blackman having collided in a small way at the end of the back straight. Haird was next to take advantage of Blackman’s predicament, Malcolm underlining the problems he was having with a huge ‘moment’, again at the end of the back stretch.

Christie and Thompson were soon locked in combat for the lead, with Thompson trying everything to get past down the outside and continuously hauling himself alongside. Then Christie ran a touch wide through the pit bend, Thompson cut straight back to the inside and managed to snatch the lead away just before a caution. The yellows came out for Andy Lane and Armiger, who were both in the wall at the pit bend, but chiefly for Harvey, who’d spun on the exit and become stranded on the kerbing there.

Simpson had managed to tail Thompson past the Ulsterman just before the yellows and now piled pressure on the leader when the green was shown once more. Andy Holtby took a spin in turn two after touch from Stimson, while Boardley and Paffey went in for synchronised SLK spinning at the other end – don’t think it’s an Olympic event yet though.

But the Thompson-Simpson fight for the lead through backmarking traffic - with both men taking huge risks either to get or stay ahead - would have been worth the admission money on its own. At one point, Thompson went three wide into turn three and so far outside of the backmarkers he was passing that he virtually scraped the wall. It was a big risk to try and put some space between himself and Simpson, but Matt stayed tight and got through the traffic as well, so it didn’t come off. But there was always more traffic looming up ahead and the two carved through it in increasingly reckless fashion. By now, the 303 car was trailing a small piece of smashed rear bumper, but other than that they both seemed unscathed by it all.

The only problem was, all of this hadn’t got rid of Christie! He was still there with them and, after keeping a watching brief for a while, John put a pass on Simpson down the outside and then did the same to Thompson to re-take the lead - momentarily. Steve hadn’t fought that fight with Simpson to give up the lead that easily and charged back at Christie down the inside to put himself in front once more.

There was simply no way to predict the outcome of this, and that prediction was getting harder by the minute, as Bell had now shown up behind the leaders too, with Woolsey also rushing to try and join in.

Again, Christie went for the outside pass, this time anticipating a chance to box Thompson in behind Vd Velde. In a trice, Laurens went spinning, the impact slowing Thompson just for a second which was all it took to put the 962 car ahead once again, with Simpson also able to pounce on Thompson. But Bell was sharper than all of them and sliced through the in-fighting to snatch second at the same moment as Woolsey darted past Thompson going into turn one, putting Steve from the lead down to fifth in only a few seconds.

Still, this was not over. In fact, the fat lady was only just warming up!

Now it was Christie versus Bell for the lead, two world champions in waiting if you like, and no way to say who was going to win out. The back marking traffic was still treacherous, a knot of three cars giving the leader particular pause for thought, but Bell was unable to take advantage of it. Indeed, back on open road Christie was starting draw clear and it was beginning to look like he had it won. Until, that was, he came round to lap Maxwell.

John found he couldn’t put an immediate pass on him and that was all it took to bring Bell tearing right back into contention. Maxwell stuck to his guns and the inside line and clearly Christie wasn’t about to risk an outside pass at this stage of the game although, as he was obviously miles an hour faster, I’m not sure why – maybe his tyres had had it? Equally though, quite why Maxwell – obviously a lap down and not involved in a dice with anyone else at that moment – didn’t just pull wide and let them through, I don’t know either. He got a prod from an understandably frustrated Christie and then found time to make rude signals out of the window! He still didn’t get out of the way though…

A fact not lost on Gary Woolsey! He’d made it through to third but didn’t look like he could ever catch the Christie-Bell duel. Now Gary closed in fast and was actually down the outside and ahead of Bell at one point before they all broke back onto clear road again.

With three to go, Christie was just starting to finally look like he had the upper hand on Bell with Woolsey falling behind again, when a multi-car crash on the back straight (Matt Simpson had gone spinning with several others involved in the aftermath) brought out the reds for an early finish, a conclusion that still failed to spoil a truly memorable race.

It was also a race that ended with three Northern Irish drivers in the first three places and Boardley – undoubtedly still seen by most as ‘the man most likely to’ - parked against the wall. So, what should we take from all that? Well, ‘heart’ in the case of the NI contingent for sure. But Boardley won’t be in the Merc come the day either. And, although he quietly confided that, win lose or draw, he plans for the 2010 World to be his last race (a revelation that came as no real surprise to some of us) you know he won’t be going there to do anything other than win again – it isn’t in his nature. One thing’s for sure, there has never been a world final anything like as tough as this T-500; perhaps this time it will be.

One final footnote.

On any other day in any other race, Bourne’s performance to claim sixth in this company and only his second meeting would have been headline news. I don’t think those headlines are all that far away anyway. Graham Brown
Results
Heat one: 61,940,115,100,66,170,9,303,72,305,130,116,996,78,199,31,333,65,963,503.
Heat two: 962,60,911,271,14,(95),369,174,41,162,482,208,3,74,39,467,192,68.
Heat three: 305,170,(3),911,115,962,41,65,162,130,503,39,482,369,208.
Heat four: 303,9,31,996,199,467,174,95,271,519,61,192,940,78,60,(74),66.
Final: 962,9,940,170,115,199,271,482,467,208.
95 disqualified from heat two for contact. 3 disqualified from heat three for contact with 305. 74 disqualified from heat four for contact with 66. 303 removed from final result for being the prime cause of the stoppage. Final result taken from last completed lap, transponder system u/s, no further places available.

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