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.


NHRPA National Hot Rod 2009 European Championship
Matt Simpson - 2009 European Champion
Tipperary Motor Speedway, Saturday 10th October 2009

Story – Darren Black:  Matt Simpson finally broke his duck in major title races when he secured the win in the European Championship at Tipperary Motor Speedway. With the meeting condensed into a one-day affair this year, many had feared that the entry might suffer badly. These fears were allayed when a quality 30 car field assembled to do battle.

Four half-car heats were the order of the day, with each driver racing in two. Amongst those gathered in the pits were a number of top quality visitors from both mainland UK and Northern Ireland. Points of note were World Champion Carl Boardley back in his Tigra with the Mercedes now for sale, and Gary Woolsey choosing to run his Mercedes this time.  Another interesting one was Glenn Bell aboard his new Tigra, as opposed to his more usual Peugeot CC.

The first heat started quite literally with a bang, as defending champion Shane Murphy and Jeff Simpson controversially clashed on turn one, lap one.  Jeff had got the better start from grid two to unwind the stagger to Murphy, but attempted to cut across before he was completely ahead. Even with their spat at the World Final still in the memory, Shane was never going to let Jeff in and the two traversed turns one and two locked together before sliding to the fence where Jeff’s car mounted the wall and ended up on its side after collecting a post.  It may not have been the fastest of accidents, but it was more than enough to finish Jeff for the night.  Murphy initially led the restart before World Champion Carl Boardley eased through for the win, despite Shane coming back hard in the closing laps.  Neville Stanley took third some way back, from Des Cooney, Colin Gomm and Stu Carter. One of the pre-event favourites, John Christie, departed the race midway through with transmission trouble whilst lying fourth.

Ulsterman Bell led from pole in heat two, with Jason Kew’s stunning Merc in second ahead of Mark Willis - back at the scene of his finest hour in National Hot Rods.  Keith Martin and Blackman soon relegated Willis who would eventually retire, before Malcolm put a superb outside pass on Martin to go third. Further back, Matt Simpson and Woolsey were making strides to the front, as David Casey ended up facing the wrong way in turn four. With Bell clear, Blackman was pressuring Kew for second, and he outfumbled him as they got amongst the backmarking Damien Mulvey and Eddie Wall to take the spot. The drama wasn’t finished though, as Bell’s Tigra spluttered to a halt almost within sight of the flag suffering from every driver’s worst nightmare – lack of fuel! That gifted the win to Blackman from Kew, with Bell just making it home in third from Martin, Simpson, David O’Regan and Woolsey.

Andrew Murray took them away from pole in heat three, with Tom Casey hanging on, on his outside, for a few tours before settling into second from Les Compelli. Simpson was soon challenging Les, whilst further back Boardley had his hands full trying to relegate a stubborn Stanley, and only succeeded in letting Blackman by.

Murray now had a gap at the front, and Simpson was all over Tom C having dispatched Compelli.  With three to go, the race was declared with a car stranded on the exit of turn four, giving Murray the win and an excellent reward for a week of hard graft after the extensive damage suffered at Nuttscorner Oval the previous weekend.  Tom C held off Simpson for second, with Compelli, Gomm and Blackman next up after Boardley lost a shedload of places late on, battling with Stanley.

Gary Woolsey stepped off pole to lead the final heat away, with fellow Portadown man Stewart Doak dropping in behind.  Gary was showing excellent pace as he quickly pulled clear, with Doak also rather lonely in second. John Hotby held third ahead of British Champion brother Andy, who was soon challenging him but just as he moved inside he seemed to get a tap from Mark Heatrick which lost him quite some ground. Heatrick soon got by John H, but had Andy H bearing back down on him before the #960 Merc retired with a very sick sounding motor. Woolsey eased to victory by a quarter of a lap from Doak, with Andy H, David C and Cooney next up. Martin got sixth after a titanic battle with Christie, Murphy and Carter.

The calculations had given Blackman pole, with Murray quite a surprise alongside, ahead of Woolsey and Simpson on row two, and Kew excellent value in fifth spot alongside Cooney.  Defending champ Murphy was on row four, with World Champ Boardley on row five.

As the pace of the rolling lap increased into turn three, Woolsey seemed to get into the back of pole-man Blackman, and the #940 Mercedes led them under the green.  Blackman was having none of that, and came back hard into turn one, with both going for a wild ride out wide, before coming back across the pack causing the mother and father of all accidents which involved almost the whole field.  The reds quickly got an airing, with Gomm minus a near side front corner and Tom C out too.  Probably the most unfortunate was Murray, who had been squeezed wide in the initial skirmish exiting turn 4; the resultant loss of places putting him right in the middle of the pile up and he was out too with driveshaft trouble caused by the impact.

After another false dawn when Stanley found the wall in turn four, the big race of the night did eventually get under way, with Blackman taking it up from his now lonely front row start. Woolsey dropped in behind ahead of Simpson. Kew was initially fourth, but an early clash of wheels had damaged his suspension and he careered headlong into the turn three wall. As if that wasn’t bad enough for Jason, the car would be collected very hard indeed later on by Steve Burrows, causing considerable damage.

The top three were circulating as one, with Simpson even looking alongside Woolsey’s outside at times. They were soon joined by Murphy and then Boardley, and the race was most definitely on. Woolsey was trying everything he knew to force Blackman into a mistake, but Malcolm was holding firm. Exiting turn two, a touch from Woolsey seemed to create the slightest of gaps, and when Gary went for it, the net result was Blackman spinning onto the infield and out of the race. In the midst of it all, Simpson took up the running from Woolsey, but Gary was immediately issued with a black flag for the demise of Blackman.

Despite numerous warnings over the Raceceiver system, Woolsey chose to ignore the signals and continued in the race.  As he was running between Simpson and the now second place man Boardley, the Steward had no option but to neutralise the race under yellows to remove him from the track.  Unfortunately for Simpson, this brought Boardley nicely onto his tail, and it was most certainly game on for the rest of the race.

The top two quickly pulled clear of the rest, with nothing between them at all. Further back, Christie was on another of his stormers after a poor qualification, relegating Cooney, David C, Andy H and Martin in quick succession to grab fourth.

Back to the front, and try as he might - including clipping the wall on the back straight - the World Champion had no answer to Simpson’s pace, despite asking all the questions over the late laps of the race.  Matt came home to take a popular victory and with it his first major in the Nationals. In the scrutineering bay the team were even peeling the stickers off the roof in readiness for the well deserved red and yellow chequers!  Boardley was a gallant runner-up ahead of outgoing champion Murphy, whilst Christie, Martin, Andy H, David C and O’Regan completed the top eight. Darren Black
Heat 1:  41 970  967 921  278 85 997  777 996(X-2) 308  294 nof
Heat 2: 911  174 9  994 303  208 940  960 261  61  961 6  420 955  nof
Heat 3: 997  961 303  777 278  911 174  9 208  967 41 308  nof
Heat 4:  940  996 61 261  921 994  962 970  85  nof
2009 European Championship Final: 303  41  970 962  61  994 261  208 996  85  308 nof  (940 disq)
Paul Whelan’s photos

NHRPA National Hot Rod 2009 British Open Championship
Andy Holtby - 2009 British Champion
Nuttscorner Oval. Sunday 6th September 2009
Story – Darren Black:  Not many English drivers can say they’ve won a major National Hot Rod title on Ulster soil, but Andy Holtby added his name to that list when he dominated the 2009 British Championship at Nuttscorner Oval on Sunday. On a day when the weather and track conditions just never played ball at all, Holtby steered his Tigra home to the chequered flag (and roof) ahead of local charger Glenn Bell and Malcolm Blackman.

Only 22 cars were available after Saturday’s bruising encounter at Ballymena, with the most notable absentee being John Christie, who would no doubt have been one of the hot favourites for the title. Of those who were on hand, it was most certainly a cosmopolitan entry from all corners of the British Isles. Amongst the eleven strong local contingent were the newly crowned Irish Open Champion Keith Martin, and the now two-time World Champion in the 2.0 Hot Rods, Wayne Woolsey. Wayne was quickly back in the groove as one would expect, behind the wheel of brother Gary’s older McCall-built Corsa. Damien Mulvey and Les Compelli represented the Republic, whilst Messrs. Blackman, Holtby, Simpson (x2), Brooks, Haird, Hillard and Burrows had made the trip from England. That just left lone Scot Wullie Hardie, who spent the weekend endearing himself to the locals in a Northern Ireland football top, and on such a crucial World Cup Qualifying weekend too! Welcome to the Green and White Army Wullie!

Brooks had been drawn on the front row for heat one, but he decided that with track conditions as they were that he would start off the rear. That left Mark Heatrick to slot his Mercedes into the early lead from defending champion Gary Woolsey. Woolsey got quite a surprise when Dick Hillard slid past him into second, the veteran looking more than handy with conditions tricky underfoot.

Matt Simpson, Holtby and Wayne Woolsey were all looking relatively sharp as they progressed forwards, whilst at the front Heatrick still held sway with Hillard now under pressure for second. As Gary W looked outside Dick to no avail, Chris Haird got under him, but when Dick was blue flagged to hold a better line to his credit he did so immediately. This only succeeded in giving Gary W the opportunity to make his high-line pass stick for good this time, and with it runner-up slot behind Heatrick. Hillard held on for third from Haird, Wayne W, and Holtby, who set the fastest lap time of the race.

The reverse grid second encounter paired Davy McKay alongside Glenn Bell on the front row, and with Davy much more at home now in his Tigra, he set off into the early lead. Malcolm Blackman was the big danger here, the experienced Englishman having coped with tracks like this many times in his long and varied career. He soon got under both those ahead to take up the running, whilst Terry Maxwell was having one of his best runs ever as he circulated solidly in fourth.

Holtby was again one of those catching the eye, powering past Tommy Maxwell with the #61 car sometimes still sideways as it passed the start/finish line. They say if you’re going sideways you ain’t going forward, but Andy was doing both quite well thanks very much!! Matt Simpson got around Hardie to chase after the front runners too, and many watched with bated breath as his father Jeff was next to have a go at the Scotsman given their recent history. It came to nought though as Hardie retired, ultimately for the day, and attention now switched to an enthralling battle between the Woolsey duo and Haird.

Gary W switched to the outside line to take brother Wayne, and it actually looked as though Wayne checked up into turn three to allow him to complete the move. But Gary seemed to cut in too early, suffering a glancing blow on his back right corner which in the conditions saw the #940 Tigra pirouette into the wall. I’m not sure what was said afterwards in the pits, but the words “a fly”, “wall” and “love to be” were certainly heard in many quarters! Gary did try to continue but to no avail, and with it his hopes of retaining the British were all but gone.

As Blackman continued to lead, another incident at turn three with three to go saw Brooks and Tommy M come together, and when another couple joined the party the reds were aired and the race declared. Blackman took the trophy, from Bell, McKay and Holtby.

When the calculations had been completed Holtby had pole for the British final with Blackman alongside, whilst Heatrick and Bell shared row two ahead of Wayne W and Haird. Gary W and the NW team had got his Tigra back out to defend his title, but all was far from right with the car which would eventually be sent across to Ludlow’s at the end of the meeting with the visitors for repairs. The rolling lap was far from exemplary, but it all fell into place just as they approached turn three and the greens were out and the race was on.

I’m sure Blackman was thinking the start was his real chance to nose ahead, but Holtby executed it perfectly to settle into the lead. Blackman slotted in behind ahead of Bell, as Heatrick and Haird had a set-to for fourth, swapping the position a couple of times before Chris settled ahead but with a black cross for his troubles.

Holtby continued to lead, and as we neared half distance the local crowd became more vocal as Bell got under Blackman to go second. At the edge of the top five Hillard and Wayne W traded paint, with Wayne taking the place, but soon after half distance he was out. The man making most strides forward at this stage was 2007 champion Stewart Doak, who was banging in quick lap after quick lap and gaining positions hand over fist from his eighth row start. He was slowed when his attempts on Terry Maxwell almost turned ugly, but was soon through and off in search of more places.

Bell was by now wringing the neck of his 206cc, and giving it everything in pursuit of the leader. Despite closing the gap down as the laps ran out, Holtby was always in control and crowned his fine afternoon with the chequered flag and a well deserved first title. Bell can only be pleased with the runner-up slot, his second in the last three majors. Blackman took the final trophy, ahead of Haird who went unpunished, Heatrick, Doak and Gary W with Steve Burrows rounding out the top 8 in only his first few months in the class.

Whilst the weather had tried its best to ruin the occasion, nothing can detract from an excellent performance from Andy Holtby, who I’m sure will wear the black and white chequers with pride for the next twelve months. If he can do that on his first Ulster visit, who knows what he’s capable of when he gets a few under his belt!

And so ended another Ulster championship weekend for the Nationals. The excellent entry provided two great meetings for the fans over the two days at the two tracks, even if there were a fair few talking points too. As others have said we certainly look to be getting international Hot Rodding in the province heading back to what it was in the heydays of the eighties. Long may it continue! Darren Black
Heat 1: 960  940 31 115  50  61  303 3  994 996.
Heat 2: 911  9 943  61  997 994  963 303  50  369
2009 British Championship Final: 61 9  911 115  960 996  369 940 116 943 994
Brian Lammey’s photos

NHRPA National Hot Rod 2009 Irish Open Championship
Keith Martin - 2009 Irish Champion
Ballymena Raceway, Saturday 5th September 2009
Story - BMR: Keith Martin proved to be a popular winner of the Haird Motorsport/Image Wheels National Hot Rod Irish Open Championship at Ballymena Raceway on September 5. Martin, previous winner of the event in 1991 and 2007, split the heat wins with Gary Woolsey and the pair proved to be the class of the field in the final where they finished well clear of Dick Hillard, the best of the visitors in third.

A dry track greeted the eleven visiting drivers from England, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland who joined the sixteen locals for the twentieth staging of the Irish Open Championship at Ballymena Raceway on September 5. The Open was very much the highlight of the province’s oval racing season back in the late seventies and early eighties, and there was a sense of those heady days around the place as the sizeable crowd mingled through the ‘old’ pit area from that era. The line-up of buses and transporters certainly made an impressive sight and prompted many a wag to scoff at any talk of a credit-crunch! English Points Champion Chris Haird headed the English visitors in his Peugeot 206cc. Jeff and Matt Simpson also made the trip along with perennial visitors Malcolm Blackman and Dick Hillard, while there were Raceway debuts for Andy Holtby, David Brooks and Steve Burrows. Scottish interest arrived in the shape of Willie Hardie’s Vauxhall Tigra and the Republic of Ireland representation was provided by Des Cooney and Les Compelli. In the local ranks Gary Woolsey not surprisingly stuck with his Vauxhall Tigra, which had been the car to beat at the venue in recent meetings, and Jason Winning brought along his new A&D built Peugeot 206 for its Ballymena debut. Tommy Maxwell went with his Haird Motorsport Peugeot 206cc, prompting brother Terry to have a try in Tommy’s other car, the ex-Keith Martin World winning 206. Everyone else appeared in the usual mounts and included Paul Crawford, making his first appearance since the National weekend at Hednesford, and Alvin Christie, his regular Peugeot 206cc sporting a dapper new green colour scheme.

All twenty-seven cars assembled on the grid for the first qualifying heat where the front row was shared by Martin and Compelli. This one didn’t get too far before the first incident of the evening occurred at the entry to turn three where the Vauxhall Tigra of Brooks was spun out. The car then received a further glancing blow from Haird’s 206cc as the remainder of the pack attempted to take avoiding action and with the #67 car going nowhere fast a total restart was required. Haird was the only one missing at the second start as Martin quickly indicated his intentions for the evening by powering away from the field. Tommy M, Hillard, Winning and Matt Simpson were next in line as the order settled down up front, while further back there was some terrific side by side action in the main pack from Jonathan Stevenson and Glenn Bell. This was interrupted when a caution period was required for Brooks again; his eventful introduction to Raceway continuing with a moment between turns three and four.  Martin shot away again at the restart, while Bell and Gary Woolsey both managed to nip under Stevenson before Woolsey repeated the same move on Bell a few laps later. At the flag Martin was well clear of Tommy Maxwell, who was also safely ahead of a train of cars consisting of Hillard, Simpson, Stewart Doak, Andrew Murray and Hardie. Woolsey’s excellent progress through the pack netted him a ninth place finish at the chequered, from a starting slot on grid twenty-one, while just outside the top ten Stevenson and Mark Heatrick provided another entertaining scrap over the closing laps.
Heat One:  994 – 369 – 31 – 303 – 996 – 997 – 72 – 992 – 940 – 9

Des Cooney and Brooks were both absent from the line-up for heat two where Jeff Simpson had the front row all to himself. Stevenson was an early spinner in this one as Simpson led from John Christie and Woolsey, but the leader soon found himself in defensive mode as defending champion Christie busily swarmed around the rear of the #3 car. Woolsey, Blackman, Haird and Heatrick had all joined the chain of cars at the front by the time the leaders caught the first of the backmarkers, Stevenson, and set in motion a sequence of events which would trigger the biggest incident of the evening. Simpson went about putting a lap on the #888 car around the outside at turn three and Christie immediately followed the leader’s path which provided an opening for Woolsey on the inside line. When Simpson did not complete the move until the exit of turn four it meant Woolsey and Christie were now side by side down the home straight, with Stevenson still in front of both. Woolsey eased the #962 car wide as they came upon the backmarker to make it three abreast into turn one. That middle road created by Woolsey proved a tempting proposition for those following too and they were still running three wide coming out of turn two with Christie stranded on the wide outside; Blackman, Haird and Heatrick attempting to come through the middle and the back marking Stevenson on the inside. Down the back straight the three elements combined to pitch Christie and Stevenson into spins; the Beggs Deliveries Vauxhall Tigra of Christie coming to rest at the entry to turn three where it was subsequently struck a sickening blow by those in the following group. Mercifully John was not hurt in the incident, but his car was definitely not taking any further part in proceedings and for the second year in succession Christie’s international adventure at Raceway had ended in a big crash. Matt Simpson, Andrew Murray and Burrows were amongst the others who didn’t take the restart as Jeff Simpson led away Woolsey and Blackman. The drama wasn’t over in this one yet either as the back marking John Steele tripped up the leader near the end which allowed Woolsey to squeeze through for the win. The other front runners had encountered problems lapping Stevenson and this allowed Holtby and Martin to join Blackman, Bell and Heatrick in a breathtaking scrap for the places over the closing stages. Martin eventually made it all the way from the very back of the grid to finish a superb fourth behind Woolsey, Simpson and Blackman, with the top six completed by Bell and Hardie.
Heat Two:  940 – 3 – 911 – 994 – 9 – 72 – 943 – 960 – 61 – 115

That mighty effort in heat two, coupled with his victory in the first heat, earned Martin pole position for the 35 lap final. Fellow heat winner Woolsey provided his company on the front row, with Hillard and Hardie on row two. Tommy Maxwell and Jeff Simpson made up row three, with the top ten qualifiers completed by Bell, Blackman, Heatrick and Robert Forsythe. Nineteen drivers set off on the rolling lap which Martin judged well to move into the lead. Woolsey quickly dropped onto the inside of the track to secure second ahead of Hillard, but fellow outside starter Hardie could not find a way into the chain of cars and was rapidly being railroaded down the field. The Scotsman eventually tried a desperate cut across the front of Heatrick’s Mercedes SLK entering turn three. That particular mission was always destined for failure as there’s probably more chance of Gordon Brown winning the X-Factor than there is of young Mark yielding ground and the inevitable contact sent both cars into the wall where they were joined a second later by Terry Maxwell having his own private moment. A caution period was needed to clear Maxwell’s car and at the resumption Martin and Woolsey gradually eased out a gap over Hillard, who in turn was clear of fourth placed Tommy Maxwell. This race always looked like it would develop into a duel between the heat winners and that’s how it panned out, with Woolsey tracking Martin closely for the first half of the final. Gradually however Martin started to pull out a small gap in the later stages and expertly completed the distance to secure the title for the third time after an impressive display. Woolsey was still good value for second in a repeat of their finishing order from the last Irish Open held at Raceway back in 2007. Hillard drove a somewhat lonely race to claim a well earned third; the Englishman not quite quick enough to match the pace of the two leaders, but comfortably ahead of the rest. Fourth went to Tommy Maxwell, who managed to withstand the close attentions of Bell for the duration to claim his best ever international result. This battle became quite fraught at one point after Maxwell received a hefty knock from Bell on the entry to turn one. Jeff Simpson was right in the mix at that time too and the ensuing scramble for track position between the three resulted in an early bath for the Englishman. Murray followed Bell home in sixth, just ahead of the English trio of Blackman, Holtby and Haird, with the top ten rounded out by Forsythe.

Ballymena Raceway would like to thank the visiting drivers who travelled to the province for the championship and also all our local drivers who attended. It was certainly the proverbial curate’s egg of a meeting, where some super racing was mixed with some unfortunate incidents. The two heats produced a pair of stunning drives from Woolsey and Martin, and some of the most gripping action witnessed here in recent years - unfortunately for both the right and the wrong reasons. The final was the tidiest and least dramatic of the three races, such is the paradox of Hot Rod racing sometimes, but a worthy champion was crowned and the signs are positive that the Irish Open is once again establishing itself as one of the major dates on the National Hot Rod calendar.
2009 Irish Open Championship:  994 – 940 – 31 – 369 – 9 – 997 – 911 – 61 – 115 – 992

NHRPA National Hot Rod 2009 National Championship
Boardley adds another
August 1st/2nd, Hednesford Hills Raceway

Words and pictures by Graham Brown.

Carl Boardley added another National Championship to his collection at Hednesford, leading every one of the 75 laps to make it two in a row and four wins overall, Ulsterman John Christie and English champion Chris Haird joining Boardley on the podium.

Most of the teams entered for the meeting took advantage of Friday’s afternoon practice session, with the track looking pretty crowded as a result. Nevertheless, several drivers recorded some extremely quick times, perhaps unsurprisingly given the near perfect conditions of cool damp air but a nice track on which to paste the extra couple of horsepower available. John Christie was fastest of the lot, and looked it too although, as John pointed out, what was a good set up on the Friday might not be so great come Saturday if the weather was to change.

And change it certainly did, but luckily the early morning rain had reluctantly given over to leaden skies but a dry-ish track by start time. The usual big entry (51 cars this year) featured drivers from all points of the National Hot Rod compass. Although most people were driving pretty much what you would expect, there were still a couple of points of interest in the field, most notably the appearance of Winnie Holtmanns in his new Tigra. It was also the first viewing for English fans of Davy McKay’s Tigra, and of recent ROI signing Pat O’Sullivan, this being his first foray this side of the water. And although not his first appearance in England, there was a rare outing too, for NI promoter Ian Thompson.

That large entry necessitated six hard-fought qualifying heats and, with the draw made for grid positions, battle commenced to determine the top 32 who would make the field for the 46th National championship.

Things did not start well for a number of people, not least Glenn Bell, who had to be pushed off the grid with a broken and seized diff. Mind you, that did save him from possibly getting involved in an early yellow when John Steele went spinning on the East bend and involved Willie Hardie, Ralph Sanders and Dick Hillard in the aftermath.

When the race got underway properly, it allowed Boardley to set out his stall for the weekend. It was not that he had it especially easy, but a draw that placed the multi-world champ on the fourth row meant that the race should be pretty much a foregone conclusion, and Carl wasted no time cutting through to the front.

However, Haird was also making huge strides in the right direction and latched onto Boardley’s tail as the leader was delayed momentarily by traffic. At first, Haird looked to have measure of Boardley, but gradually it became clear that while Chris was faster going into the bends, Carl was quicker coming out. It looked like a bit of a stalemate with the placement of backmarkers likely to be key in the final couple of laps. Haird tried it on down the outside as they exited turn one to start the last lap, but Boardley had no intention of finding himself boxed in behind the aforementioned backmarkers and moved wide himself at the same moment.

It ended up still being a narrow win for Carl over Haird, who had always been seen as one of Boardley’s closest challengers. But if that last lap manoeuvre had been defensive, that is not only unheard of these days from Carl, but also held out hope that maybe he was going to have to really work to hold onto his title. Maybe…

Heat two was going to be dominated by Irishmen South and North in the shape of Shane Murphy and John Christie. Murphy went straight for an outside pass of pole man Mark Fuller at the green, but couldn’t immediately make it stick, as Darron Lewis and David Casey queued up behind. Further back, Christie took a very wide line to go around Thompson, while John vd Bosch, Colin Smith and Brendan O’Connell all ended up in the wall on the West bend.

Murphy finally made it past Fuller, David Brooks took a spin entering the East turn and got hit by Ricky Hunn, and then Fuller went around on the West bend and into the wall, taking David Casey with him – this one bringing out the yellows. It transpired that Fuller’s rotation had been brought on by oil going down, oil which was in two thin lines all around the track. With the discovery that it was coming from Stu Carter’s car, he was forced to retire and the entire track dusted ready for a restart.

Murphy was now heading Lewis and Christie, until Christie got by the black Merc, Lewis subsequently losing out to Andy Holtby and the fast moving Jeff Simpson too. Simpson underlined his pace by taking Holtby as well, but he was running out of time to get any further up the order, as was Christie, despite having edged a little nearer to Murphy by flag fall.

The weather finally made good on its threat to turn nasty and it was raining hard by heat three. With wet weather exponent Matt Simpson off of row two for this one, the likely winner here was never in much doubt. However, Des Cooney (from pole) had a good go at stopping him. It took Matt a lot of laps to inch up on him and, even when he had the pressure on, Des stood it well, eventually necessitating a three wide pass by Simpson involving the backmarking David Newall.

Matt no sooner had the lead than Thompson ended up in the back straight wall, causing a yellow. The stoppage and sprint to the finish (over the last seven laps) brought Malcolm Blackman into the fight for the lead too, and he managed to nip past Cooney down the inside at the last minute. It was too late to prevent Simpson taking his expected win however, while a fourth spot for Haird looked as though it might be significant in the final analysis.

Conditions had improved not at all for the fourth heat and, as Tom Casey set off in the lead, several others – including his son – had spins at various points on the track. Baby Casey found himself stranded briefly by the start/finish, although not quite long enough to cause a caution, while Glenn Bell moved in on Casey Senior’s lead and took it up exiting the West bend.

When Tom’s car started to sound a bit sick (probably wet electrics) the guys behind were ready to take advantage, with Hunn moving up to second and Boardley to third. Hunn darted to Bell’s inside going through the West bend, with Boardley following through to set up what was likely to be an interesting battle for the lead – remember Ringwood?!  Bell dropped back to leave them to it, with Gavin Murray now fourth as he too capitalised on Casey’s problems.

As the Hunn-Boardley dice intensified, Murray went by Bell and then Brooks added to the fun for the leaders by rejoining the track just ahead of them along the back straight. The battle raged on unabated until the five lap board appeared, which prompted Carl to start trying for an outside pass, finally hauling himself alongside with three to go, and then in front as they rounded the East bend.

Ricky was clearly not done yet though and a lap later, Boardley got a touch from the backmarking David O’Regan going through the West bend. This forced Boardley wide allowing Hunn through again, but Boardley was clearly happy to come back down the outside once more. Contact between the pair at this point saw Boardley touch the wall and was ultimately to get Ricky, the winner on the road, dropped a couple of places for his pains.

That not only elevated the impressive Murray to second, but also made it two wins out of two races for the reigning champ.

Is Colin Gomm National Hot Rod racing’s “Mr. Enthusiasm”? When Colin Gomm’s engine blew in heat five of National championship qualifying, causing a huge oil-induced crash which involved seven cars and Colin right in the middle of it, his chances of making Sunday’s grid looked slim to say the least. Not so. Following an all-nighter, the purple Peugeot was once again ready for the fray by the following morning. “I was coming through from the back of the grid and had just passed Darron Lewis’ Merc coming across the start/finish and boom!” Gomm explained. “Next thing I know, I’m going into the corner somewhat faster than I anticipated, then I’m in the wall, and all the lads just followed me in. I feel really bad about it and keep apologising to them for laying the oil. Anyway, we had to change front wishbones, bottom arms, compression struts, shocker, three wheels and tyres, back axle, three link bars on the back, oh, and change the engine of course!” In order to change the engine, Gomm’s crew had first to remove the motor from his spare Colt to swap with the ventilated unit. “Yeah, it was two engines out, one back in and swap all the ancillaries too because they’re different between the two cars. We wouldn’t do it if we didn’t love it, and we certainly couldn’t have done it without all the great people who helped”. Colin was eventually forced out of the National ten laps from home with brake fade.

By the time heat five came around, the rain had stopped, a watery sun was peeping through and the track was dry once more. Not for long though!

Jeff Simpson had the pole start for this one and was soon busy trying to dispense with the attentions of Tommy Maxwell, Andrew Murray and Dick Hillard. They’d only run a couple of laps though, when Colin Gomm’s engine let go in a big way going into the East bend. Colin’s crash on his own oil would have been bad enough, but Simpson – by now the clear leader – found the oil at full chat and went straight on into the barriers the same way, soon to be joined by Maxwell similarly hard, Hillard, O’Connell, Neville Stanley, Lewis and Ralph Sanders. Not surprisingly, this was good for an immediate stoppage and, with so many cars damaged plus the need for a lengthy clear up, the decision was taken to postpone the race until later in the programme. Just the same, it was pretty clear Gomm, Lewis, Sanders, Maxwell and Simpson would be taking no part, whoever else made it…

Naturally, the heat six runners had a very dusty and messy track to contend with. Willie Hardie was the first to show, pressed by Carter to begin with, until Gary Woolsey emerged from the pack to breeze past the others and take it up.

As Hardie fell back somewhat he was passed by Kym Weaver who was looking really sharp as he overhauled Carter too and set off after the leader. Weaver was soon closing in fast and, although on paper this didn’t look like it should have been much of a contest, Kym’s Spedeworth Hot Rod experience has seen him take to NHR’s like a duck to water. He proved it here too, by pressuring Woolsey hard and then getting in front as they negotiated a big traffic jam.

Carter was right back in there with them too, as Woolsey fought back to regain the lead coming off the East bend. This was shaping up into a great race, but it all came to a halt when the yellows flew for Brooks, who’d got involved in some kind of altercation on the East bend with Tom Casey.

Sadly, by the time the restart came Weaver had been forced out with a flat. And, as the restart order had placed a backmarker between Woolsey and Carter, Gary wasted no time clearing off to make good on a win which had looked anything but certain prior to the hiatus.

Unsurprisingly, the re-run of heat five had a somewhat depleted field, which looked as though it might just play into Boardley’s hands. Stuck with a rear-of-grid start for this, it was already clear that Carl only needed a half reasonable result here to claim pole.

Andrew Murray led his fellow front row man Hillard into the first lap and for many laps thereafter, the pair appearing very evenly matched; Murray couldn’t get away but Dick couldn’t get past either.

With the two leaders fully engaged with each other, the places dicing was no less intense, with Andy Holtby holding down third against Mark Heatrick, Blackman and Matt Simpson. And anybody paying attention to the back half of the field would have seen Boardley go by Bell early on, then Gavin Murray, and continue relentlessly on forwards, demoting Keith Martin too along the way.

Murray didn’t manage to get himself even the smallest advantage over Hillard until the finish was almost in sight, by which time there was nothing much between any of the first seven. At the line, Murray had finally managed to get some daylight between himself and Hillard and, while Boardley’s last minute attempt to demote Simpson hadn’t come off, he was still home sixth, quite good enough to set the seal on pole for the ‘morrow.

National Championship grid:
41 940  303 31 95 997  994 921  192 960  (3) 519  9  261 761  777 78 943
115  911 962  61  970 639  72  85  208 967  278 (6)  961 (285)  209 333  66
Non-starters 3, 6, 285 replaced by reserve qualifiers 66, 78, 943

The Race – 75 Laps
Boardley’s pole position didn’t exactly bode well for anyone else’s chances, although no-one within the first three rows was ever exactly going to roll over and play dead. That’s not to say there weren’t some very determined drivers slightly further back in the field too. Gavin Murray and Shane Murphy for instance, sharing row five, had both proved that they meant business at the world final, even if the end result was not what either had been hoping for. And speaking of determination, the amount of work that had gone into getting Colin Gomm onto his eleventh row slot didn’t really bear thinking about either!

Boardley equals Nationals win record Carl Boardley’s victory last Sunday equalled John Steward’s all time win record for the event, of four titles. Did it all go according to plan? “Totally to plan. The second (qualifying heat) race was a little bit tricky, with the weather, but we popped the wets on it and the car was as good as it always is. So we had a couple of wins, and the last one was just a case of making sure we finished top ten or something and we knew we’d be at the front or thereabouts.” Restarts can be tricky but, like the world final, they didn’t seem to bother you today… “No. The first start, me and Hairdy had a dice, Gary Woolsey was there as well. That second start Malcolm (Blackman) was there and he had a bit of a challenge for a couple or three laps, obviously tried to put me under pressure straight away. But once we got some warmth in the tyres we got a bit of a gap, and then it was just about trying to maintain that gap.” How hard was it to keep John Christie at bay? “John kept me honest till the end, and we were always trying. If we needed to, we might have been able to go just a smidge quicker. But I didn’t need to and just eased up a bit at the end.” Would things have gone as well if you’d been in the Merc? “No. But if it had been in one piece, we would have brought it just to try and get some mileage in. We’ll be back to the drawing board with the Mercedes over the next couple of weeks and see if we can get that as good. Well, it’s got to be better, otherwise it’s a wasted exercise.” This win equals the win record for National championships, next year you get the chance to break that record, and equal the all time world final record. Are you still motivated to go for it all? “Yeah, we are. We’re enjoying it, the team’s enjoying it. While we continue to have fun and have a laugh along the way, we’ll keep going. I don’t want to be one of these people you class as a veteran or anything like that. But by the same token, while you’re still on top, going good and able to turn up at weekends like this and do what we’ve done again, it’s good and we’ll persevere”.

There was a school of thought that said Haird had better be in front coming out of turn one or he’d had it, as far as winning it went anyway. I don’t know if Chris had heard this opinion or simply formed it for himself, but he certainly went for it big time at the green! It didn’t get him in front although it wasn’t for lack of trying. The pair ran the first lap side by side, and touched lightly coming off the West bend for the first time, that small moment allowing Boardley to draw ahead.

Unfortunately, now came the time for Chris to pay the price for his bravery as his reward was to allow Blackman, Simpson and Christie through down the inside. Blackman found a way past Woolsey on the inside of the West bend with Simpson following through, but the writing was on the wall in big letters for the leader, as Boardley was already pulling a sizable gap on the rest with less than a handful of laps run.

Woolsey was now stuck on the outside and getting railroaded backwards as Christie, Haird and Hillard had all followed on behind the others, Gary finally spinning out of contention rounding the East bend.

Further back Carter had a front tyre go flat, sending him straight on and into Hunn, the impact carrying both men along the wall to the West bend exit, where Ricky got hit hard by Laurens vd Velde. As Laurens limped to the infield minus the left front corner, the yellows were already out for the first caution period.

During the wait for the restart, Simpson discovered his front brakes had seized on but, after a bit of fiddling about, he managed to take his place in the line up.

Boardley dominated the restart in his usual fashion, although Blackman stayed close to begin with. However, he was clearly in some kind of trouble soon afterwards, as he allowed first Simpson and then Christie and Haird through as well, finally falling out with a failed stub axle.

The leader certainly had plenty of traffic to deal with, but dealing with it he was, and once back on open road, really began stretching his legs to try and leave the Simpson/Christie/Haird dice far behind. Christie managed to take Simpson down the inside of the East bend with Haird going through in his wake. This was all shortly before Andy Holtby spun on the West bend exit, an incident which quickly involved Martin and O’Connell too, and left Holtby stuck on the rumbles at the exit from the corner. He was able to drive away eventually, but only at the expense of another yellow.

The restart order had left a backmarker (Davy McKay) in the line up between Boardley and Christie, enabling Carl to leap away at the green as per usual. McKay promptly stepped aside to let Christie and the rest through, but the damage was done and any chance of John mounting an immediate attack on the leader was gone.

Nevertheless, Christie was obviously not giving in that easily.

From half distance onwards, Christie was always chasing the leader, but Boardley appeared to control the race rigidly, in traffic or out. There were a couple of pretty serious jams for him to negotiate though, and it was one of these which allowed the 962 car to finally get within striking distance.

Boardley had obviously seen him coming however, and calmly placed a backmarker (David Casey) between them. Christie lapped him too. Boardley put another backmarker (Tom Casey) between them. Christie lapped him too. They played out the same game with several others, including Les Compelli, and still that tantalising and frustrating gap remained between them.

At last, it became clear; Christie was only getting as close as Boardley was allowing him to get. It was down to a couple of car lengths on the final lap, but still enough to ensure another win for Carl Boardley and with it a “double double”, World and National, two years running.

Christie’s second spot was still an excellent result, and it surely has to be only a matter of time before John wins himself a National, given his results at Hednesford in his relatively short career so far. Haird eventually claimed third, not too far back at all by the finish, Chris finishing over half a lap up on fourth man, Simpson.

In past years, the final race at the National weekend has either had a relatively poor number of starters or a relatively poor number of finishers! Thankfully, neither was true this year, with a full 30-car grid, including Vd Velde’s hastily repaired Tigra, complete with new front wing among other things. Mind you, they did all very nearly come to grief when an incident involving early leader Ronnie McKenzie, O’Sullivan and Maxwell saw O’Sullivan spin on the West bend and basically the entire field run into him! Fortunately, extremely prompt yellow flags and Raceceiver warnings prevented most people from crashing too hard into the pile up.

The yellows having been followed by red flags, a complete restart was deemed to be in order, with O’Sullivan leading this time but soon to lose out to Van der Velde exiting the West bend. O’Sullivan continued to run in second with John vd Bosch and Compelli next up, this quartet breaking well clear. Vd Bosch’s challenge for second saw both he and O’Sullivan spin out, leaving Vd Velde and Compelli to dispute the lead to the finish. Laurens was still in at front at the chequers to record a rare and welcome win for himself as some reward for all the travelling, with other long distance travellers in the next three places too, in the shape of Compelli, David Casey and O’Connell. Graham Brown
Results
Heat 1:  41 115  940 519  967 95 6(X-2) 734  208 31 369  209 960  72  192 921  294 333  601 23 78 74
Heat 2:  970  962 3  61  285 997  278 911  303 994  961 491  467 943  801 761  67  261 27 7
Heat 3:  303  911 921  115 192  994 278  209 61 940  997 3  74  285 72 7  601 6  78  27  761 187
Heat 4:  41 95 639(X-2) 31 9  961 970  962 85 467  777 208  960 369  66  333 734  967 943  261 67 23
Heat 5:  997  31  61  911 303  41  960 95 761  208 9  994 333  967 27 23
Heat 6:  940  85  72  115 962  639(X-2)  261 66(X-2)  970(X-2)  777 78 519  192(X-2)  921 6  601 74 67 943
The 2009 NHRPA National Championship result:
41 Carl Boardley 962  John Christie 115  Chris Haird 303  Matt Simpson  997 Andrew Murray  960 970  9 192  261 209  208 777  66  943
Grand National: 78 777  261 761  303 911  41  519 115  639 9  85  960 970  61  31  278 961  962 208  66 27 (72 disqualified, 369 disqualified)  Martin Kingston’s Photos


NHRPA National Hot Rod 2009 Championship of the World
Business as usual for Boardley
July 4th/5th 2009, Foxhall Raceway, Ipswich

Graham Brown reports:  Carl Boardley went into the history books when he took an unprecedented fourth National Hot Rod world championship in a row at the annual Ipswich speed weekend. The defending champion set a blistering pace in hot laps to bag pole before recording a flag-to-flag victory that was never remotely threatened even by numerous stoppages.

Behind Boardley it was quite a different story, with some of the hard fought major places decided in the steward’s box, never the happiest outcome for any of those concerned, be they drivers or officials.

Saturday morning dawned, as they say, bright and clear, and there was no danger of this years qualifying procedure being disrupted by the rain of 2008 with the re-introduced ‘hot laps’ taking place in baking hot sunshine. In order that the fans could be kept informed throughout the session, the re-introduction of the hot laps brought with it the re-introduction of the beam timer. This enabled display of the times via the large infield clock. Technically, it is apparently impossible to link this clock to the transponder computers, which were firmly turned off during the session so that there could be no possibility of a discrepancy between the two, or “second guessing” by anyone.

The cars and entry were all exactly as programmed, although there were new paint schemes in evidence, as well as the expected all-new Tigra for Andy Holtby with extremely loud Jeff Gordon inspired paintwork. There was however, a last minute scare for Stuart Carter, who returned from the morning practice session with his car making horrible noises. This led to a frenzied gearbox swap, with assistance from Steve Thompson and members of Andy Steward’s crew. They were up against it too, with Stu having drawn ticket number 18 for his hot lap run. Provided he was ready to go out in his allocated slot, no problem, but if he missed it he was going to be at the back of his group whatever happened.

There were also more very last minute problems (something to do with a wheel or tyre, not sure what) for Stewart Doak, meaning that he too was late on track.

With the timer checked for operation by the pace car (which was roughly seven seconds a lap slower than the slowest world qualifier, and if nothing else, showed why pace cars are not actually used for rolling starts nowadays) Keith Martin blasted away to lay down the benchmark for everyone else at 14.82 on his third lap.

The warm day and track didn’t appear to be doing anybody any favours when it came to the actual times recorded and nobody was able to better that until Malcolm Blackman ran a 14.60 For a while that was looking pretty good for a pole start, so two former winners had set the pace, which was really no big surprise. But naturally, it was the current title holder and hot favourite that everyone was really waiting on, and Boardley did nothing to disappoint – or everything, depending on your point of view! After his first lap put him in the 14.5’s the writing was already on the wall. Even his slower second lap would have been good enough for pole, while a further tour in 14.47 was just rubbing it in.

The only real hiccup during the session came when John Christie lost count of the laps he’d done and went round a further time, triggering the timer just as John Holtby was due to set off. It would have given John a first lap time of just under nine seconds, but he was waved off and sent to run last when any additional heat generated would be well and truly gone from his tyres. Christie’s penalty for this (decided before anybody knew where he was on the grid) was that he would start from the back of whichever group his best lap time would have put him in. As this turned out to be last in group one anyway, the penalty became merely academic – this time.

As for the others, Phil Spinks, who many people were looking to as a man likely to make good use of the new wild card ‘fastest man goes from pole’ rule if anyone could, never got anywhere near it and was therefore stuck in group four. That Gary Woolsey and John Christie joined the group one English drivers came as no shock, but rookies Glenn Bell and David Casey topping group two was something of an eye opener. And the fact that David used his dad’s old car to outrun Tom in the new one by such a wide margin could be considered jolly cheeky actually!

John vd Bosch’s ability to go faster than numerous Irishmen (and get in group three) was also noteworthy, while Rudy Myburgh’s appearance in group four was none too shabby either.

What would surely rate as “disappointing” were Tom Casey and Stewart Doak’s times, which placed the two Irish points champions firmly in the back four rows of the grid.

Following the lap times, Bell’s team discovered a blown head gasket on the cc, which they set to changing.

Grid
<- 41 115  940 261  95  61  72  994 66 734  14  127 6  996 961  174 467
<- 911  303 962  9 31 278  155 85 427  3 921  519 970  78  955 761  960

Early Sunday morning, the rain was pattering down but it soon cleared and, once the sun broke through, it looked as though a similar day to Saturday – if not quite as hot – was in prospect.

The Race – 75 Laps
Boardley clearly got the jump when the green flag came out, while Woolsey was already rolling to a stop on the infield with a sick sounding and broken engine well before the rest of the field had poured into the scoreboard bend for the first time. Fellow countryman Christie was also suffering with a sick motor as Boardley led Blackman, Chris Haird and Matt Simpson around.

Haird nearly got by Blackman along the back stretch on lap two, and another lap or so later both Haird and Simpson got under Blackman going through turns three/four. Then Simpson grabbed second through turn three shortly before the first caution, thrown for Sanders who’d spun and become stranded on the kerbing in the pit bend.

Those expecting some sort of desperate attack by Simpson on Boardley’s lead at the restart were to be disappointed, with Carl still able to leap away from Matt at the green. But they were soon into further yellows when Austin crashed on the home straight. Jay had actually got himself away from the barriers by the time the flags came out, but such is life.

Two caution periods then and only ten laps done.

Another restart saw another good one by the leader, but Haird was slow away this time and soon gone with a broken driveshaft, Andy Holtby spinning in the aftermath of this as the rest swerved around the stricken 115 car.

They’d still only reached lap 14 before a multi-car crash sparked off another yellow. Hillard and Spinks had touched exiting turn four, Phil spinning as vd Velde and O’Connell piled into them.

All these stoppages might have proved just a little unsettling had Boardley not seen it all before, but at the next resumption the leader simply tore away again.

It was clear that Simpson couldn’t stay with him, and it became all about a race for second place - just like last year in fact – with the order from third backwards now reading Blackman, Bell (looking good), David Casey (ditto), Murray (the same), Hardie, Martin, Carter and Jeff Simpson. The battle for third thru seventh was pretty hot too.

It was at this stage, with 20 laps done, that Matt Simpson began leaving Blackman and actually started to close on Boardley for the first and only time. Perhaps Boardley had just eased up a bit, but Simpson leaving Blackman behind suggested otherwise.

With traffic now looming up for Carl as well, maybe we were going to get a race for the lead after all?

Lap 25 was when Murray impacted with the back of Casey, sending him spinning out of turn four but, that aside, it was beginning to look as though the various retirements had now left us with a manageable number of cars on track.

Not so.

A further caution was in the offing, after Heatrick and Sanders tangled in turn four, leaving Ralph in the wall and Mark disqualified for causing the fracas.

No further yellows blighted the race. Yet again Boardley leapt away at the green, with the order behind now Matt Simpson, Blackman, Bell, Murray, Hardie, Martin, Jeff Simpson, Carter and Murphy. A brief exchange of paintwork saw Murphy past Carter on the pit bend, a similar exchange taking Murray past Bell at the other end.

Way down the order, Cooney pulled out, while Tom Casey and Carter were having a fine old dice around 11th/12th spot. Casey got by down the inside of the pit bend, only to find that Colin Gomm had zapped the pair of them on the exit!

With 25 to go, Hardie departed the fray and it was noticeable that there were a lot fewer backmarkers for Boardley to deal with now. There were still some though. He lapped Mulvey with no problem, but then came up on the minor places fight going on between Doak and Kew. It didn’t look like they were going to give the leader an easy ride, Boardley eventually being forced to go wide around them down the home straight, clipping the wall as he went.

With the leader back on open road, Doak crashed the wall on the back straight and his race was over. But now Simpson found he couldn’t overhaul Kew either (despite Jason being told, not in so many words, to stay out from underfoot over the Raceceivers), which gave Blackman and the fast closing Murray a shot at Matt’s second place.

Blackman went spinning across the start/finish during this altercation (one of several incidents that led to Murray’s disqualification) and Simpson finally made it past Kew, taking Murray through with him.

However, this was the final nail in the coffin of anyone else’s chances of challenging Boardley, who took advantage of the situation to stretch his lead out to over a quarter of a lap for the first time.

Matt Simpson’s second spot was in real danger now, as his motor had gone ‘fluffy’ (later traced to a broken battery terminal) and a tyre blow off valve had given up into the bargain. While Murray swarmed all over him with Bell still snapping at their heels, the other Simpson – Jeff – was also in trouble. He’d gone spinning across the start line right in front of race control, an incident which was going to get the challenging Murphy black flagged.

With less than two to go, Murray finally got under Simpson through the far bend, taking Bell through with him.

But by now the finish was in sight, and the flying # 41 was just about half a lap to the good with no repeat of last year’s motor problems to prevent him going into the history books with another record.

Murphy and Murray had both made huge strides forward from lowly grid positions, eventually winding up second (Murray) and fourth (Murphy) before both got disqualified for various incidents of contact along the way.

Stock Rod world champion Bell had proved to be the revelation of the race, by coming home third (second after penalties), but by the finish the only questions on everyone’s lips were, what does it take to beat Boardley and, can he possibly make it five?

Support Races
Although the support car entry never approached the dizzy heights some had suspected it might, there was still a healthy enough number of cars on hand ready and willing for their Best in Britain qualifying heats.

A so-called ‘Incarace’ grid formation was used to line them up for the first one, where the cars come out in any order, then the pole man draws a ticket from a box, the number on the ticket determining which row will start at the front. The order is then reversed for the second race.

Dickie Burtenshaw thus took off from pole to lead the first race with Ronnie McKenzie managing to chop ahead of fellow Scot Graeme Callender to snatch second.  But Callender and David O’Regan were quickly all over McKenzie, Graeme going by down the inside before the rapid looking O’Regan darted down the Honda’s outside.

Colin Smith was right in among this lot too though, Smiffy nipping into second before passing Burtenshaw as well. Callender had obviously just been getting into his stride, as he too nipped under Burtenshaw around the pit bend.

With the Z4 now pulling clear at the front, O’Regan was the man to watch as he took Callender on the outside down the back straight, and then Burtenshaw on the inside through the far bend.

This left the young Irishman free to chase after the leader, but Smith was a long way clear, so attention once again switched to who might be coming after them. To no-one’s surprise it turned out to be Steve Thompson, who’d wasted no time at all getting through from well down the grid. Steve was eventually able to catch and pass O’Regan. He was also closing on the leader as the finish neared but, despite Smith having been slowed by traffic somewhat, there was too much of a deficit for Thompson to make up in the available laps.

The second heat kicked off with Terry Maxwell spinning on the pit bend and Paul Crawford clouting the wall at the same spot. As Crawford appeared to be in trouble, this brought out the yellows, although the steward was none too pleased when Paul promptly jumped out, apparently in perfect health!

Neil Stimson led away something of a ragged restart, with Mark Fuller and Tony Moss disputing second as the flying Thompson tore past Billy Bonnar to attack the leaders.

Moss went by Fuller, with Thompson soon in hot pursuit, although they still looked like they might have a job on their hands to close down Stimson. That was, until Neil’s car started playing silly beggars, going sick one minute and running perfectly OK the next. It sounded like a case of intermittent fuel starvation and only the fact that Moss and Thompson were busy with each other prevented them from overwhelming the leader a lot sooner.

It all came to a head on the last lap, when the 271 car picked just the wrong moment to throw one of its fits, Fuller’s coming out in sympathy as he too spluttered to the line. Thompson had managed to get by Moss in the ensuing scramble to apparently take the win, but he was adjudged to have jumped the restart. A two place penalty thus elevated Moss to the win, with Stimson placed second.

World Final “Revenge”
With the World final itself deemed to be ‘heat one’ for the drivers who were in it, a further race with the grid reversed from the world final was going to be their second heat. This had hardly started when Murray rounded off a less than great day by spinning out in a very NASCAR-style fashion, his motor having let go and pouring smoke out of every available hole as he went round. With Tom Casey, Lee Pepper and Spinks all getting into trouble up at turns 3-4, a stoppage and complete restart was considered in order.

With the green flag out, we were presented with the unusual sight of SLK versus SLK, as Heatrick and Kew squared up to one another for the lead. They carried on this dice for quite some laps, with Winnie Holtmanns, Mulvey and John Holtby at it for the next few places.

Kew was looking more at home in his new car now, and finally worked his way past Heatrick around the inside of the far turn shortly before it all kicked off at the other end. Mulvey went spinning, with Myburgh going around too before Matt Simpson, Christie, Blackman and Haird all piled into them, a torn off wheel from Christie’s car rolling across the track. The yellows were out long before it could cause any more trouble, mind you…

Simpson was able to limp away from the scene, but soon discovered he had a busted oil cooler and retired to the infield. Unfortunately, this was after he’d driven most of a lap, so a lengthy cement dusting and clear up ensued.

With the race back underway, Heatrick immediately re-passed Kew and shot off into the distance. Mark clearly likes tracks covered in oil and cement dust (unlike Colin Gomm, who went in on the back straight) because he was off like a long dog now. In fact, the red Merc looked a far cry from how it had been in hot laps, when it had so much under steer I did briefly wonder if maybe it was front wheel drive!

Kew fell back a way but was still running a safe second with Jeff Simpson third until Slim was forced out with a flat in the left front. That put Martin up to third and Boardley – who’d started last, naturally – fourth.

That left everybody itching to see how the support cars and world finalists would fare when they all met up (and probably hoping for an interesting draw that put the likes of Boardley and Thompson somewhere near the back!) but it was not to be. Steven Jackson’s unfortunate crash in the Supers delayed the meeting significantly and something was always going to have to give, with that ‘something’ turning out to be the NHR final. Graham Brown.

Results
Support Cars Heat One:
491,170,208,100,198,209,601,997,871,333,369,192,777,844,74,7,68
Support Cars Heat Two:
192,271,170(-2),68,(491),198,74,369,844,209, 997,777,333,601,100,(208),871,963,27
170 dropped two places for jumping a restart.
491 disqualified for contact with 844.
208 disqualified for contact with 7.
7 loaded up for causing an unnecessary yellow flag period.
World Final:
41,(95),9,(970),303,994,155,961,278,85,955,3,174(-2),519. NOF.
95 disqualified for contact with 261,911 and 303.
970 disqualified for contact with 3 and failure to observe the black flag.
960 disqualified for contact with 734.
174 dropped two places for baulking the leaders while being lapped.
World Final “Revenge”
960,174,994,41,155,115,961,467,261,911,519,66. NOF.
Best In Britain Final: Cancelled.

Spedeworth Motorsports would to thank you all for coming to the party! Drivers, mechanics, race fans, our staff and contractors, thank you all for making Spedeweekend '09 one of the best!


Thunder 500
Ipswich, Saturday June 20th 2009
Blackman’s world final warm up

Graham Brown reports:  2004 world champion Malcolm Blackman set himself up nicely for another crack at the title by winning the traditional world final warm-up event, the Thunder 500. Blackman qualified on pole and led every one of the 40 laps, chased all the way by new English champion, Chris Haird.

It was the usual slightly odd mix of entrants that we have come to expect for this meeting, with out-and-out potential candidates for the next world champion, mixed in with guys who just wanted to have a race. Thirty-three of them in total filled the original part of the newly expanded National Hot Rod pit area with, as you would expect, teams from all points of the NHR compass.

Naturally, it was the unusual visitors that attracted most of the interest from fans wandering the pits, where they found ROI drivers Tom Casey, Brendan O’Connell, David O’Regan and of course James O’Shea, although he doesn’t really count as an ‘unusual visitor’ just presently!

From Northern Ireland we had Mark Heatrick, Gary Woolsey (both in SLK’s), Glenn Bell, John Christie and Tommy Maxwell.

Officially or otherwise, James Jamieson and Willie Hardie represented Scottish interests. Interestingly, Willie was still opting for the Tigra over the Merc.

Continental flavour was added by Netherlands racers Laurens van der Velde and John van den Bosch, Germany’s Winnie Holtmanns joining them.

Unsurprisingly, the lion’s share of the attention in the pits was being paid to Carl Boardley’s SLK right from the moment it was unloaded. It was most people’s first chance to see it in the flesh, and if a car could be worn out by having cameras aimed at it, that could just have been a contributory factor in what happened to it later!

Three split heats with drawn grids were the order of the day to determine grid positions for the final.

The opening race draw had placed Colin Smith and the Z4 on pole, and no doubt even Colin would have counted anything other than a win from there as a bit of a disaster.

He immediately set off at a great pace with Jamieson soon the man giving chase once he’d dealt with Lee Wood. But Jamieson was not being given a free hand to try and close down the leader, Casey and Colin Gomm having latched onto his tail.

Those who were paying attention to what Boardley and the Merc were up to – and there were probably plenty who were – would have seen him go straight onto the outside line to try and get to the front in his usual manner. It quickly became clear that the car was not up for this at all, as it skated about all over the place, Carl losing a whole bunch of places in the process.

Meanwhile, the places scrap saw Gomm fall back from the Jamieson/Casey dice, Colin falling victim to Hardie and then Chris Haird.  Now the fight for second was really warming up, as Casey repeatedly took to the outside to try and dislodge Jamieson. This went on for some time until it appeared the SLK might have gone off a bit and the Irish points champion fell back, eventually losing out to the fast finishing Haird, who’d already passed Hardie along the way.

Smiffy had established a lead of just about half a lap by this point, so he was never in any danger. But Boardley’s SLK had suddenly woken up after about ten laps, and from that point looked absolutely electric as he re-passed all the people who’d overtaken him earlier as well as quite a few who hadn’t. It was some recovery from such a poor start, and in the end only the winner, Jamieson, Haird and Casey finished ahead of the 41 car.

After snatching an early lead in the second heat, van den Bosch got into a four way scrap with Dick Hillard, Woolsey and Blackman. Boxed in initially by vd Bosch and Hillard as Dick tried to get by down the outside, Woolsey eventually fought his way to the front.

Gary looked to have it sewn up for a while after that, but had to lift rather sharply when Tommy Maxwell, recovering from a far bend spin, rejoined right in front of him. It was nowhere near enough of a problem to lose Woolsey the race, but it did allow Blackman – who’d been inching up on the leader anyway – to mount a last minute challenge which Gary had to fend off in order to secure the win.

Matt Simpson got home third in this, after a sterling effort to get to the front of battling bunch that involved Hillard, Kym Weaver and Gavin Murray as well.

A front row start seemed likely to provide an easy heat three win for Steve Thompson, but this one eventually developed into the best race of the evening.

After some rubbin’ at the start between Thompson, vd Velde and Stu Carter, it was Thompson who established himself in the lead. While the rest were sorting themselves out, Matt Simpson smacked the wall hard exiting turn four (he wasn’t the only one to find it a touch slippery there during the course of the evening) and slowed to a halt on the pit bend. Then Weaver (who looked like he’d tagged the wall somewhere, judging from the ‘bite’ that was missing out of his left front wheel) stopped in the middle of the far turn.

The two stationary cars were sufficient to bring out the yellows. Boardley was blatting down the back straight at the time, saw the cars ahead slowing up for the yellow flag and smacked the brakes on. The Merc showed its disapproval of this sort of treatment by breaking a front calliper off at the lugs. This then tore off a brake line as it rotated with the disc, ripping the shocker off its mounting and breaking a rose-joint. That was enough to cause the car to pop its front springs out with a ‘boing’ that sounded suspiciously like Zebedee before sliding helplessly on its belly, brakeless and steering-less, into the wall.

Don’t worry, I didn’t figure all that out at the time – Carl told me later! I just thought the front suspension had collapsed….

That was game over for the new car which went straight back in the truck, not to be seen in anger again, I strongly suspect, until after the world has been won or lost by its stable mate.

With the various stricken cars and drivers removed to safety, off they went for the restart.

Now, I had been pretty impressed by David O’Regan’s showing in his earlier heat, where he’d managed a passing fair ninth spot in some good company. He was looking ready to well surpass that in this one, as he took the restart fifth and was clearly after better things too. Unfortunately, he did exactly what Simpson had done earlier, and slid bodily into the barriers exiting turn four. It looked like the impact might have displaced the rear axle too, and the Irishman immediately fell back.

Back with the leaders, Thompson had of course led them all away again for the restart, but now with John Christie hard after him once he’d dealt with vd Velde, the Dutchman proving to be far from easy meat here.

A long and absorbing dice for the lead now ensued, with Thompson looking easily fast enough to hang onto it, while Christie looked racey enough to get by at any moment too. A few failed stabs (or maybe feints) up the outside eventually saw Christie pull off the pass of the night, getting by down the outside and immediately cutting back down to the inside to swerve around the backmarking Andy Steward.

The move was pure class and, although Thompson never dropped back far, a well deserved chequered flag was definitely going Christie’s way once he was in front.

The pace of the front runners had carried them half a lap clear of the rest, where vd Velde’s gritty drive finally saw him having to give best to fast finishers Bell and Blackman right near the end.

O’Regan’s fight back from his earlier problem – and the car certainly wasn’t handling anything like right after its bang either –got him home in ninth. However, a tangle with Colin Gomm saw the silver Tigra spinning hard into the wall as they raced past the flag, an incident which was always going to attract disqualification for Colin.

It was going to take something pretty special from anyone else to dissuade Blackman from winning the final after he’d qualified on pole.  And the driver who nearly came up with it turned out to be fellow front row starter, Chris Haird.

There was just one little problem before the start. With the stadium curfew already looming up, and the F1 Grand National still to run after the ‘rod final, a last minute decision was made to cut the planned distance from fifty to forty laps.

To no-one’s surprise, Blackman leapt straight away into an immediate lead from his pole start, with second row men Jamieson and Smith both going past Haird as he got stuck on the outside.

Once he had some heat in his tyres though, Haird soon re-passed the Z4 down the inside of the pit bend, taking a lively looking Casey through with him.

But Tom was unable to stay with Haird, who next set about catching Jamieson.

Further back, Thompson was looking very good indeed, as he tore confidently up the outside of Woolsey to claim seventh spot for a matter of a second or two. Unfortunately, Steve went way too deep into turn one almost immediately, allowing Gavin Murray, Woolsey and Matt Simpson all past.

Then Smiffy went by Casey down the outside exiting turn two, while Haird began piling the pressure on Jamieson. Chris was completely under the Scot at one point and looked to be through, but after a lap of side-by-side running, JJ managed to haul himself back ahead to cut back to the inside line.

Exciting as all this was, Blackman probably loved it as he pulled further and further clear of that second place dispute, which continued to rage on. In fact, there was really hard racing going on almost everywhere you looked.

A check on the order now had Blackman a fair way ahead of the Jamieson/Haird dice, followed by Smith, Casey, Murray and Woolsey, who was now having to square up to Thompson again, Steve having already re-taken Simpson.

But a touch between Woolsey and Thompson rounding the far turn was enough to let Matt by the pair of them this time.

Up front, Haird finally found a way past Jamieson down the inside and was free to set off after Blackman, albeit from nearly a quarter of a lap deficit. It had taken Haird a long time to fight his way past Jamieson, but now an intriguing battle took place, with Blackman seemingly better through the knots of traffic, but Haird making ground every time they were on open road.

If you could spare the time from watching Haird desperately trying to narrow the gap, Thompson was now well worth a look as he really got into the groove. He re-passed Simpson and then Murray before launching an attack on Casey’s fifth place, snatching it away down the outside as they left turn two.

Smith was now up with Jamieson and trying for third, with Thompson rushing to join in. Haird was still chasing and closing on Blackman, but they were all running out of time now.

Shortly before the finish, Christie had worked his way up to the Murray/Simpson/Woolsey fight over seventh. Sadly, at this point John mis-cued while trying to pass the backmarking vd Bosch and hit the #66 car hard, spearing off left across Woolsey’s bows and then hard into the wall.

The stewards were interested in what part vd Bosch and/or Woolsey had played in this incident. Video evidence totally exonerated Gary from any part in it and, to his immense credit, when interviewed John blamed nobody but himself for the crash. He is clearly still going to have a lot of work in front of him to get the Tigra back in world final winning trim, however.

With the finish all but in sight, Thompson darted past Smith down the inside of the pit bend to go fourth, and Haird cleared his final bunch of backmarkers to put Blackman firmly in his sights. And at that point, out came the chequered flag.

Had that last minute decision not been made to cut the distance by ten laps the outcome could have been a great deal closer but, as it was, Blackman still held a significant advantage at the end.

As one seasoned observer put it, “That was a race that raised more questions than answers”, and I know just what he meant. Had the SLK done enough in its first heat to tempt Boardley into using it? Would he have won if he’d been in the Tigra? If that had been the world itself, would Blackman just have won it, or would Haird have been able to pass him in a straight fight?  Would Christie have got to the front in a longer race? And could Thompson have been a contender had he qualified? Not much doubt about that one, I think.

There was another thing too. Many of the combatants got out of their cars completely exhausted after the final, most complaining that the new tar was giving so much grip, their arms were ‘hanging off’. Seeing that this was only forty laps, what state will they all be in after seventy five?  In a close fight to the finish, it could just come down to who is actually fit enough to win.

Aside from that, all the usual sort of queries.  They shall not remain unanswered for much longer… Graham Brown
Heat one: 491,305,115,961,41,72,95,278,208,198,3,9, 940,962,467,170,333,74,761,100,66
Heat two: 940,911,303,115,95,31,961,209,6,66,100,74,85,(78),271,333,369
78 disqualified for contact with 271.
Heat three: 962,170,9,911,78,6,305,208,(278),491,271,369,85.
278 disqualified for contact with 208.
Final: 911,115,305,170,491,961,95,303,940,9,6, 209,278,369,271,208,74,100,78,66.
Keith Duke’s PHOTOS. 

Irish Grand Prix
Tipperary Motor Speedway, April 19th 2009

Tom Casey won the first-ever one-day Irish Grand Prix, the 50-lap marathon providing the crowd with some thrilling side-by-side racing as Casey valiantly defended his lead from fellow front-row sitter - the very courageous - John Christie.

Seventeen cars were on hand, the Tipp regulars joined by semi-regular Mike Oliver from Wales, England’s Stu Carter and Northern Ireland’s John Christie. His fellow Ulsterman Gary Woolsey was also in attendance but used the NHR sessions for testing purposes to get some mileage on the new SLK. 

On the domestic car front, Les Compelli finally debuted his new Tigra, beautifully presented with some Polish airbrush-work on his name and numbers, over stunning metallic blue paint.  Stock Rodder Pat O’Sullivan raced the “who owns it this week?” ex-Mark McKinstry 206 - once again still very much presented as the Ulsterman’s car but with the correct 294 numbers on the finplates.

The grid for heat one was:
208  906 761  955 85 970  921 261        940
961  967 57 420  962 923        294        777
Casey easily emerged quickest into the race from the rolling start to take a lead he was never to relinquish.  David O’Regan though put down a marker as the latest young talent to emerge from Co. Cork with a very mature and controlled race to finish second. Neville Stanley was putting up a good defence in third for a sizeable part of the race until an incident with Orey Stanley caused the silver CC to drop significantly down the order. Mike Oliver and Shane Murphy had a big moment when Oliver’s brakes went awry causing the demise of both pilots for the rest of the day - Murphy having significant damage to the front and back of his CC as he finished in the wall.
Result - as seen trackside and not confirmed:
961  208 962  923 420  921 294  85  261 967  940 906

Heat two grid lined up like this:
923  962 420  967 961  261 294          777
921  85  955 906  208                         940
After a couple of laps holding the wide outside of Orey Stanley, Des Cooney emerged as leader, a lead which increased as the race unfolded into a comfortable victory. Orey slipped down the order a bit as a good battle took place between Stu Carter and John Christie - Christie making it tell in the final analysis. Tom Casey was the driver making the most progress in this race, a small nudge on the Eddie Wall SLK getting him a significant (for the final grid) fourth spot.  Damien Mulvey and Eddie Foott were unable to capitalise on their mid-grid starts, and Christie, though he closed on Cooney towards the chequered flag, remained comfortable in second.
Result - as seen trackside and not confirmed:
921  962 85 961  420 923  955 967  261 777  208 940  294

So the grid lined up for the 50-lap final in this order:
961  921 85 420  261 955          777
962  208 923  967 294                940
Nobody in the crowd expected anything less than Casey taking the advantage at the start, which he duly did, with Christie, Cooney, Carter and O’Regan filling the next few slots.  Sensibly, with the longest race so far this year ahead of them, no-one did anything rash in the opening laps, Christie having the odd look at Casey’s outside and Cooney doing likewise to Christie.

The yellows got an airing as David Casey had a small moment, followed not long afterwards by reds for Orey Stanley’s car on which something had failed catastrophically, and a small fire burst out where it came to rest in turns 1/2, These events caused some disruption to the battle for the lead, Christie proving at the restarts that when there was space between himself and the 961 SLK, he easily had the legs to close down the gap.  Passing Casey was a different story altogether, but the onlookers were treated to some classic outside-line racing by the young Ulsterman as he battled the wily Waterford ace lap after lap.  At one stage along the back straight the black Tigra got three-quarters of the way past, and that proved his best chance but Christie was unable to completely close the door on Casey. 

Meanwhile Cooney had slipped back and into ultimate retirement as his detached rear aerofoil became a wind-brake, slowing the CC on the straights and making it unpredictable in the bends.  Stu Carter took up third, and David O’Regan took a big spin to spoil his chances of an even greater finish to an impressive day.

The fifty laps decimated the number of cars on track as just seven finished, Casey taking a valiant and worthy victory - dishing out a lesson to anyone who needed it on the art of defensive driving.  Christie might have regretted perhaps not being a little more aggressive at certain stages, but he not only made the race a memorable one, he also gave great entertainment as he continued his sometimes lonely pursuit of exhibiting the art of “proper” Hot Rod racing.  Carter’s third place was some vindication of the time, expense and effort invested by the Peter Carter Transport team in supporting the event. Gary Woolsey and Eddie Wall’s SLKs sandwiched Pat O’Sullivan, O’Regan completing the finishers. NR.  Paul Whelan’s photos in the Gallery
Result - courtesy of tipperarymotorspeedway.ie
961  962 85 940  294 420 208
© nationalhotrod.com 2009

Winternationals
Ballymena Raceway January 1st 2009
Darren Black reports:  With the Tigra he severely damaged at Tipperary’s European Championship back in October now returned to pristine condition, Gary Woolsey reeled off a superb double at Ballymena on New Year’s Day to collect the Winternational Championship. An excellent sixteen cars raced in this the second running of the event in NI, a much improved turnout on last year’s inaugural event.

Four visitors joined the locals in the excellent new pit area (make that old pit area, as we returned to the ground behind turns 3 and 4 for the first time in many years), being led by English-exiled local Wilson Hamilton, who just enjoys bringing his National along when he heads back home to visit the folks. There were also three from the Republic, no doubt looking for some action now that Tipperary’s usual year-round season has disappeared. Damien Mulvey made his Ballymena debut, as did Brendan O’Connell who was back in his older 206 and not the ex-Clein 206cc campaigned recently. The other southern runner was Sylvia Tobin in her excellently re-liveried Tigra.

Of the twelve locals, John Christie was back in his old Fiesta, and as mentioned Woolsey’s Tigra was repaired and back in tip-top condition. There were also two newcomers on hand, as following the false start to his Nationals career late last year, former Stock Rod World Champion Alastair Calvin finally took to the track in the Mark Keys 206. The other debutant was Portadown’s Paul Cregan, fresh out of the 2-Litres and behind the wheel of the ex-Dilly/Hanna Haird Motorsport 206cc.

Two reverse grid heats were the order of this dry but rather chilly day, and Davy McKay had pole for the first of them. He lost out to the fast starting Glenn Bell however, and had to be content with second, ahead of defending champion Stewart Doak. Alvin Christie had a spin, before impressive looking second man McKay retired for the day with an incurable electrical problem.

The race then went under waved yellows as Cregan became stranded on the exit to turn two, and as ever just as the caution was called he got moving again. This wiped out Bell’s advantage, but as they set off again with just five to go, he too ground to a halt on the back straight - again with electrical gremlins. Doak was gifted the lead and duly accepted the chequered flag from Christie, Keith Martin and significantly Woolsey, right from the rear of the grid.
Result:  996, 962, 994, 940, 904, 960, 761, 404, 49, 369, 935, 87.

Heat two required an early restart, as first time of asking contact from behind sent Gurney into a half spin on turn three. As he gathered it together many more got involved, and by the time they had reached the home straight Alvin C got sent up the wall and almost into orbit! That was both Alvin and Davy out of the restart.

Woolsey again set the pace at the second time of asking, as there was more drama entering the back straight. Mulvey went round under pressure from John Christie, and as John lifted off he too got shovelled out of the way onto the grass by those behind. Tommy Maxwell had settled into second, as Mark Heatrick and Hamilton battled for third for the remainder of the race, being joined in the scrap by Martin nearing the end. Woolsey took an easy win, from Maxwell, Heatrick, Hamilton and Martin.
Result:  940, 369, 960, 904, 994, 996, 49, 993, 761, 87, 962.

A first and a fourth gave Woolsey pole ahead of Doak, with Martin and Heatrick sharing row two. Hamilton and Maxwell occupied row three with Christie back on row four and bell on row five.

Woolsey, as expected was first to show, and he and Doak wasted little time putting fresh air between themselves and the pack. That pack was headed up by Heatrick, whose determined inside-line driving was keeping all-comers at bay. First Martin had a real go, and almost made it but not quite, before falling back and allowing young gun Bell the opportunity. He too gave it one hell of a shot, but just couldn’t muster enough to break clear despite many laps on the high side of the Heatrick 206cc.

During all this that battle for third had also consisted of Hamilton too, and latterly Calvin, who had settled quite nicely into his first National meeting. They don’t give Stock Rod majors away for free, so we all knew he would be able to pedal the thing quite well, and he proved us right by running right on the pace in this one. He did however have the mother and father of all tank-slappers down the back straight at one stage – let’s hope he got the usual underwear for Christmas as I’m sure a new pair was required after that one!

It looked all over as the front two were miles clear of the rest, but second man Doak was now sensing that he could push leader Woolsey right into the battle for third, hoping that it might just create the opportunity he needed to get by. Sure enough they were soon picking they’re way through it and Doak was right on the leaders tail. The Raceceivers were being used, but with Bell right alongside Heatrick looking for third there was no way he was going to just give it up!! So we had the most intriguing sight of the third and fourth men battling side-by-side, with the first and second side-by-side right behind them!

Woolsey soon got under Bell, and then used his years of experience as he knew that his old adversary Heatrick could be the big player in the outcome of this one, and overtaking him needed to be avoided at costs. Gary slowed the pace and kept Bell outside him for a couple of tours as we neared the end until Heatrick pulled clear and with that right out of the mix. Woolsey rode home to take the flag and the title after a pulsating encounter, with Doak a gallant runner up. Heatrick got third and Christie fourth after Bell went spinning on the final bend. Hamilton inherited fifth ahead of O’Connell and Cregan. As well as the trophy, Woolsey also received two new tyres kindly donated by Tommy Maxwell, on behalf of Maxwell Freight Services, and Ronnie McMillan, on behalf of Max Meyer Refinishing Products. Darren Black
Result:  940, 996, 960, 962, 904, 761, 993, 994, 87

The 2008 NHRPA European Championship & Davy Evans Memorial Trophy race
Murphy’s Law
Tipperary Motor Speedway, Saturday/Sunday October 11/12 2008

Graham Brown reports:  Shane Murphy may not have managed a win at Tipperary until Sunday's Timms Autoteille/Great Stuff Catering European final, but that was the one that mattered, the popular young Irishman utterly dominating the 50-lapper to win his first major title. Carl Boardley drove a stormer of a race in defence of his crown to eventually claim second spot, with John Christie matching every move the world champion made to wind up third.

With a large and cosmopolitan entry on hand, four heats were run on Saturday to determine Sunday's grid. It is a measure of how popular this event has become, that if we were to look at all the individual entries in detail, the resulting copy would fill half the website! Suffice to say that there was never going to be any shortage of cars, with seriously strong representation from all centres of National Hot Rod racing. Perhaps it would be easier to list the top guys who weren’t there, really one from each area, Steve Thompson, Mike Riordan and Stewart Doak, the latter only crying off at the last minute.

Although I’m sure there were other tales of woe after practice, some we noted were Carl Boardley having to change a transmission and Willie Hardie suffering braking troubles. Worst of all, John Steele’s meeting never got started, running problems with his Corsa finally being traced to a cracked carb. body. He at least made it as far as the track, while Les Compelli’s car did but he didn’t – or at least, not until it was too late to take part in either of his heats.

The draw immediately threw up what looked like being an interesting battle in heat one, with Colin White getting pole and Christie the outside front row. Anyone licking their lips in anticipation over that one was soon to be disappointed however, as John was very slow away at the green. By contrast, Whitey left the line like a bullet out of a gun and probably didn’t concern himself with his mirrors until the yellows flew a few laps in.

The caution was brought about by Trevor Stroud spinning along the home straight and coming to rest by the second pit gate, giving a number of those following the chance to demonstrate how good their reactions were. Fortunately, in all cases, they were very good indeed…

The caution made precisely no difference to Mr White, who was soon off into the lead again. Prior to the yellow, Damien ‘Drifter’ Mulvey had been running a good second, but afterwards his car began trailing smoke and he slowed dramatically. That put Keith Martin up to second, but under attack from Murphy, Matt Simpson and Christie. Murphy went past Martin too and, even though Keith was in his Haird car rather than his own more familiar equipment, that had to mean Murphy was really motoring. The writing was really on the wall once he not only caught up with White, but challenged the three time world champion hard throughout the last five laps. The fact Shane was prepared to try it up the outside told us more than a little about his level of confidence, even if he never actually made it past.

Pretty good stuff for an opening race then. But could that standard be maintained? Certainly, if heat two was anything to go by. This featured a pretty much flag to flag lead dice between front row starters Malcolm Blackman and Clive Richardson. They went at it hammer and tongs, and while Blackman always had his nose in front, Richardson always looked as though he might just get past.

By contrast, Ronnie McMillan had a somewhat lonely race in third, finishing a quarter of a lap back but still well ahead of impressive fourth man, Jason Winning.

Stuart Carter went straight into the lead in heat three, but they were all brought up short by a multi-car pile up on the back straight. Tom Casey had been running second, but suddenly slowed, throwing those following into confusion.

Gary Woolsey came out of this worst, riding the wall and obliterating the front of his Tigra, bending it upwards at a highly incongruous angle and then limping back to the start/finish with the bonnet buckled up, smoke pouring out everywhere, and damage to the rear as well. All very NASCAR, and all very disappointing for Gary as this was another early exit from a major championship for him, and that’s without the colossal damage bill this little lot is going to incur. Late on Sunday afternoon, the twisted Tigra was seen being loaded into Colin Gomm’s spare space in his transporter, hitching a ride to an English ‘hospital’.

Gary wasn’t the only one to get involved however, as Des Cooney’s qualifying run was also at an end as a result of the shunt, his rear axle severely bent and wheels facing in all the wrong directions.

The completely restarted race saw Carter immediately assume the lead again, initially pursued by Eddie Wall, Barry English and Chris Haird. None of them were going to get anywhere near Carter however, and by flag fall he’d opened out a yawning half lap gap over the rest. They were headed home by Haird, who’d looked jolly handy going by the other placemen – as he often does at Tipp – with Jeff Simpson, Colin Gomm and Christie all looking similarly handy in the rest of the major places.

Orey Stanley got away first from pole in the last qualifier. But, following a brief fight with Stanley, it was going to be another flag to flag jobbie in this one for winner, Carl Boardley. It wasn’t going to be entirely plain sailing however.

Back in the battle for sixth/seventh/eighth/ninth places, Murphy had to survive a scary moment when a wayward Brendan O’Connell had him riding the lower apron of the wall exiting turn four. Then White’s car got all loose coming into three, Colin drifting out onto the marbles. Maximum oppo-locko looked like it was going to save the spin for a moment, but didn’t. Similarly, Willie Hardie got loose in more or less the same spot, clobbered Andy Holtby, and sent Holtby into a wild spin down the home straight which brought out the yellows.

The resumption saw Boardley unfazed by the interruption and soon leaping away into a commanding lead once more, while Stanley drove well to keep an insistent Mark Heatrick at bay. The defending champion was around a quarter lap to the good by the finish, while Stroud got home fourth in this one, only to lose a couple of places to the steward for spinning O’Connell near the end.

Unusually, all the race winners had very poor results in their other heats. Boardley’s ultimately unsuccessful fight with Casey in his first race had put paid to a great overall result for him, while White’s spin meant he’d finished stone last in his second race. Thirteenth wasn’t a terrific finish for Carter in his other race, similarly, twelfth in his other race hadn’t done Blackman any favours either.

All of this meant two reasonably good results were enough for the front row. Murphy’s second and fifth got him pole, while Matt Simpson’s brace of fourths put him alongside. Jeff Simpson and Richardson shared row two, with Gomm and Martin the next rank. Proving conclusively that winning and doing not much else isn’t a great idea under the trusty Longhurst points system, the furthest forward winners were Boardley and Blackman on row five.

With Gary Woolsey obviously a non-starter, and Neville Stanley unhappy enough with his car to rule himself out, that brought non-qualifier but ‘best of the rest’ Sylvia Tobin onto the back of the grid. Although Cooney’s car was now re-fettled and he too would have been eligible to run, he elected not to start from so far back, letting Hardie into the race instead.

The Grid Front

(Outside) (Inside) 303 970 976 3 278 994 115 962 911 41 718 85 348 923 983 944 961 369 95 960 402 9 61 420 6 955 31 984 72 87

The race was really won and lost on the opening lap, as Murphy beat Matt Simpson to the punch at the green flag, with Jeff Simpson, Richardson, Martin and Christie all slotting in behind.

Simpson stayed in touch for a time, but the leader was soon edging away and extending his advantage, at first to around a quarter of a lap. It was entirely indicative of the way the win was ultimately going to go. That might sound like it was a dull race, but it certainly wasn’t, with the fight for the places raging throughout.

And why wouldn’t it, with those places reading like a who’s who of hot rodding. Second thru eleventh started out as Simpson (M), Simpson (J), Richardson, Martin, Christie, Boardley, Blackman, Carter, White and Haird. 

Martin went out with a blown gearbox, before Boardley came into the picture, taking to the outside to pass Christie before towing the Ulsterman along with him after the others ahead. White went by Carter exiting turn two, and then a serious dice ensued, as Jeff Simpson fought to stay ahead of Richardson, Boardley and Christie, the quartet all the while wading through copious traffic.

Boardley got down the outside of Richardson along the back stretch, Christie needing no further example of what to do from the world champ and swiftly following suit.

Richardson had more trouble in store as Blackman and White were chasing to join in too. But first, White managed to put a superb three wide, back straight pass on Blackman as they rounded the back marking Wall car. Colin was obviously loving the three wide stuff, and did it again to take Richardson, this time involving the lapped Stroud car.

By now, Jeff Simpson was having to square up to Boardley and Christie, and this battle was as hard as it comes, Carl riding the wall along the back straight at one point. He came out of the clinch in a shower of dust, with his driver’s door hanging open briefly and still refusing to back off! But the moment had allowed Christie his chance, John darting under Carl in yet another three wide encounter, this time involving Heatrick.

As the brakeless Richardson pulled up on the infield, White finally caught up with the Simpson/Christie/Boardley fight – as if it wasn’t warm enough in there already!  And somewhere along the way, Boardley must have found time to re-fasten his door into the bargain, as it was no longer gaping open either. That problem solved, Carl immediately set about redressing the situation with Christie, before once more taking to Simpson’s outside, this time making the pass stick as they tore out of turn four.

Leaving Slim to face up to Christie and White, Boardley set off after Matt S, still running some way ahead and at last closing the gap to the leader as Murphy encountered more and denser traffic.

Christie took to Jeff Simpson’s outside to go by as they crossed the start/finish. That left White to try the same thing, providing a sight I never expected to see again, old rivals Simpson and White in door-to-door action! They touched just once, very gently rounding turn three, White sliding out wide and losing little ground. It seemed inevitable that it would be only a matter seconds before they were at it again, but suddenly Colin was falling back into Blackman’s clutches once more, the 718 car having also run into brake fade problems.

Boardley’s chase of Matt Simpson was briefly interrupted by having to lap Tommy Maxwell but, having survived that, it was soon 303 v 41 for second spot. Boardley tried every avenue of attack until he finally got through down the inside leaving turn two, with Christie once again close enough to copycat the move, hard on Boardley’s bumper.

Had Boardley and Christie not left themselves so much to do after qualifying, it might have been a different story. But all that hard dicing had simply allowed Murphy to open out his lead again, to half a lap by flag fall, and so he deservedly took his highly popular big win after a few near misses in the past.

I know I seem to say this every year, but it may be that the less said about the Davy Evans Memorial race the better, really. As one team member remarked in the pits “It’s just like the last race at the speed weekend; they all take their brains out”. Quite.

Anyway, in amongst the spinning and, in some cases, crashing, Compelli finally got himself on track and jolly nearly made it count too, as he led for lap after lap. Even when Cooney – clearly the danger man here for the win – caught him, Les still gave a good account of himself. But when Hardie, Gavin Murray and the flying Boardley caught up, it got really tough up front.

Cooney took over the lead, with Murray forging through to second, followed by Boardley. Carl tried his damnedest but couldn’t quite manage to get an outside pass on Gavin, particularly not when Hardie ran into Murray on the last bend, scattering the lot of them. Cooney still had a well taken win though, with Murray and Christie (pure class again throughout) second and third after Hardie’s two place penalty, Boardley having to settle for fifth.  Graham Brown
Results:
Heat 1:  718 970  994 303  962 278  940 95 921  9 31 955  151 420  943 967  87  402
Heat 2:  911 976  944 983  369 3  348 61 115  961 41 6  85  984 923  761 960
Heat 3:  85  115 3  278 962  961 994  420 9  6 984  911 967  944 87
Heat 4:  41  923 960  303 970  402(X-2)  348 976  95  955 369  983 72 61 31 718
The 2008 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP result: 970  41  962 303  3 718  911 115  85  61  72  923 961  348 31 369  955 960  984 420  402 87
The 2008 Davy Evans Memorial result  921 95 962  72(X-2)  41  718 61 777  151 369  348 278  420 923  967 955 


2008 NHRPA Irish Open Championship
Nuttscorner Oval, Sunday 21st September 2008
Darren Black reports:  Crumlin’s John Christie produced an emphatic display throughout the day to claim a commanding victory in the Irish Open Championship at Nuttscorner Oval on Sunday. After the heats had been shared by World Champion Carl Boardley and newly-crowned British Champion Gary Woolsey, Christie swept all in his path to claim his first major victory in National Hot Rods and a title which his legendary father Ormond held on five occasions.

We had twenty-one cars available for this one, following the previous night’s British at Ballymena. From the visitors we lost Stu Carter with engine problems, and Wilson Hamilton too. We did however, gain Damien Mulvey from the Republic in exchange in his superbly presented 206. Of those who had hit trouble the previous night, Doak had another motor fitted, whilst Cooney and Martin had both rectified their troubles. Bell was back on full song with his oil leak sorted, but by far the biggest effort had come from the Christie camp, who had been hard at work ‘til 5am on the stricken Tigra to leave it race ready once again. Woolsey interestingly had stuck with tradition and swapped his Tigra for his favoured Corsa around Nuttscorner Oval, while Tommy Maxwell joined the fray having been at a wedding on Saturday.

Des Cooney had drawn pole for heat one, but he was woefully slow away at the drop of the green flag, baulking those immediately behind him. This allowed Boardley to set off into an early lead from Wullie Hardie, whilst Doak’s disastrous weekend continued when he was tipped into a spin, possibly by Alvin Christie, in the early shake-up.

Keith Martin put the woes of the previous evening behind him as he quickly slipped under Gavin Murray to go third, shortly before Murray retired from the action. Christie was already on the move, and the Beggs Deliveries car looking in fine fettle as he sliced through from grid eleven with ease. When Hardie retired from second, Christie was right up there and soon relieved Martin to head the charge after Boardley.

Behind the lead trio, Heatrick was heading a great battle comprising Bell, Casey and McMillan, but ran into trouble when he came to lap the backmarking Terry Maxwell. Mark opted to go outside, but it just didn’t happen for him and soon the rest were inside both him and Maxwell. Heatrick was in serious danger of getting rail-roaded right out of it, and tried to get into the queue in front of McMillan. There was contact entering turn one between the two and both spun to a halt mid-turn. A whole host of others lost time along with them, especially Gary Woolsey who got trapped right in the middle of it all.

It soon cleared as most got back underway, but Boardley was almost home and dry by now – Carl taking the chequers ahead of the impressive Christie, defending champion Martin, Bell, Casey and Murphy.
Result: 41 – 962 – 994 – 9 – 961 – 970 – 31 – 921 – 369 - 115.

Cooney was once again in trouble at the start of heat two, this time stalling, but fortunately right at the back of the field. Despite waved red flags and Raceceiver warnings, Bell somehow still managed to clip the stranded #921 car, rendering Des a spectator for the rest of the day. Glenn meanwhile was able to rejoin for the restart after work on his car by his team – and promoter Davy McCall – got it back into a race-worthy condition.

Woolsey made no mistake from his lone front row start to lead them off at the restart, with Tommy Maxwell initially giving chase, but soon falling back behind Hillard, Casey and Murphy. Things were much worse for the other Maxwell though, as Terry slammed the wall between turns 1 and 2 all on his own, causing considerable damage but fortunately he was able to drag the car to the safety of the infield without any need for a caution.

Christie was again looking good, and he went right around Heatrick, something not at all easily done, to head after the lead pack, then ducking under Murphy to go fifth. There was a titanic battle going on at the bottom reaches of the top ten too, where Doak finally got it together to run right round the outside of Boardley, Haird and McMillan to net himself ninth at the line.

Woolsey was home and dry, taking the win from Hillard, Casey, Bell and Christie, while Murphy’s chances of another decent championship grid position evaporated when he retired with rear suspension failure on the final lap.
Result: 940 – 31 – 961 – 9 – 962 – 960 – 369 - 994 - 996 – 115.

Once all the calculations had been completed, Christie sat his Tigra on pole for the Irish Open final, with Casey alongside. Bell and Hillard filled row two, with Boardley and 2007 winner Martin rounding out the top six.

Everyone could sense that Casey knew his best chance was off the line, and he almost pulled it off. He tried to slot in front of the #962 car into turn one and there was contact between the two allowing Christie to hold the initiative and leaving Tom struggling on the outside. Tom eventually cut in hard on Woolsey looking for a way back into the train, but couldn’t help but knock Hillard into a spin, where he was hit by the once again hapless Doak. It was all very messy, and the reds were given an airing as an unsatisfactory start.

Casey was in some trouble though at the rear end of the Corrado, and was doing his level best to effect repairs in time for the restart. Promoter McCall was involved again, while it was very sporting to see Doak helping to get Tom’s car fit for the restart, once he had realised that he wouldn’t be able to rejoin himself.

At the second time of asking Christie made no mistake, and basically that was the last most of the field would see of him. Bell got the jump to nab second early on, ahead of Casey, Hillard and Boardley. Carl soon got under his fellow Englishman to go fourth, just as Casey forcefully found a way past Bell for second. Any chance Tom may have had of catching Christie was very slim, but he was soon out anyway with mechanical woes.

Hillard was the next to depart the scene, as Boardley was heaping the pressure onto young pretender Bell. Carl soon found a way through to second, but his only view of the leader was across the infield as Christie was by this stage half a lap or more to the good.

As Christie ran down the laps, it was becoming a race of attrition and we were down to just seven runners as the 50 laps drew to a close. Bell in third soon went a lap down too, and as the chequered flag fell on one of the most popular victories seen in Ulster in many a while, victor Christie had the second placed World Champion in his sights such was his lead. Boardley had to be content with the runner-up spot on his first ever Nuttscorner Oval visit, with Bell taking third spot for the second time in two days – certainly one to look out for in the coming months and years. Defending Champion Martin took fourth, with Haird, Tommy Maxwell and Jason Winning rounding out the finishers.
Irish Open Championship Result: 962 – 41 – 9 – 994 – 115 – 369 – 983.  Darren Black

2008 NHRPA British Championship
Ballymena Raceway, Saturday 20th September 2008
Darren Black reports:  Portadown driver Gary Woolsey lifted the British Championship title for the third time in his career at Ballymena Raceway on Saturday night, after holding off a late surge by English star Chris Haird. Gary led the race all the way from his pole position start, whilst qualifying heat wins fell the way of Ronnie McMillan and Mark Heatrick.

There was a pleasing entry of 24 cars present for the 2008 staging of the British, as the NI weekend once again starts to have a bit of a presence about it and attract some decent fields. Of the travellers, most eyes were fixed on triple World Champion Carl Boardley on his first Tigra-mounted trip to Ballymena, and the car certainly attracted plenty of interest from the enthusiastic Ulster fans in the pits. Joining Carl on the journey across the Irish Sea were perennial visitor Dick Hillard, Stu Carter, Chris Haird (with the VW engine under the bonnet once again), Gavin Murray and former Raceway-favourite Wilson Hamilton, of course now based in the Midlands. Also making the trip, but from Scotland, was Wullie Hardie, who is of course no stranger to Ulster and indeed Ballymena from his Stock Rod and 2.0 Hot Rod past.

There was also a welcome trio from the Republic of Ireland, with ’08 Irish Grand Prix winner Tom Casey being joined by Shane Murphy and Des Cooney in their 206cc’s.

The drama started even before the racing had began in earnest though, as defending British Champion Stewart Doak had his motor part company with its oil pump belt in practice. There was only ever going to be one outcome to that, and that saw a tightened engine and the Cirrus Plastics crew watching from the sidelines – but only after the power unit had been removed ready for a replacement for the following day. Cooney was another in trouble too, but he at least tried to make the heat one grid before pulling to the infield with trouble that would finish his night.

Ronnie McMillan quickly turned his pole start in heat one into the lead ahead of Haird and late entry Hamilton. Outside front row starter Rab Forsythe was trailing lots of ominous looking blue smoke from his Corsa during the warm up laps, and he eventually fell back and withdrew from the action for the weekend.

Dick Hillard soon nipped under Hamilton to go third in his Tigra, a feat repeated by Shane Murphy a few tours later, with the added measure of the back marking Thomas Dilly making it a hairy three-abreast moment for the Tervas 206cc. Interestingly at the same time, Woolsey showed his first signs of what was to come as he nipped under Boardley to go sixth.

Back up front and McMillan was being thwarted by backmarkers, but even though Haird drew close as we neared the end it was still first blood to Ronnie. Hillard was third over the line, ahead of Murphy, Hamilton, Woolsey and Boardley.
Result: 944 – 115 – 31 – 970 – 904 – 940 – 41 – 961 – 95 – 994.

Relative newcomer Dilly had pole position for heat two, and actually made an excellent start to lead them off. John Christie settled into second but was soon looking to grab the lead around the outside, before things went horribly wrong entering the home straight. The Dilly 206cc ran very wide exiting turn 4 – a devastated Thomas would later maintain this was due to contact from Mark Heatrick behind – forcing the Christie Tigra into the wall where it would trail right down past the startline before coming to rest minus a wheel and with all other sorts of damage. Dilly was black flagged and loaded up from the meeting as the large crowd in the grandstand vented their anger in his direction as one of their favourite sons had been eliminated for the night .It certainly was not the cut and dried decision many had initially thought…

Heatrick meanwhile, was soon back in the groove at the restart to grab the initiative, ahead of Jason Winning and Jonny Stevenson. Race one winner McMillan’s hopes of a decent final start all but disappeared when he ground to a halt with an intermittent electrical problem of some sort, and he was soon joined on the centre green by former British winner Keith Martin with handling troubles he was finding difficult to trace.

Glenn Bell was making strides forward, nipping under both Stevenson and Winning to go second. Further back, a train of Woolsey, Murray, Casey and Boardley were all moving through at great pace towards the higher points scoring positions, with Tom and Carl soon moving ahead of Gavin in the four-way struggle.

It all went pear-shaped though for Casey soon after, as a very robust manoeuvre up the inside of Davy McKay when there didn’t really seem to be room saw the two clash. As McKay speared off onto the grass and retirement, he clipped Casey sending the Corrado back across the track where it came to rest against the wall facing the oncoming traffic. Bad memories of Keith Martin and Jock Burgoyne at Hednesford a number of years ago came flooding back, but good marshalling and the Raceceiver system meant Tom fortunately escaped unscathed this time as we went under waved yellow caution flags.

As Heatrick led them back to green from Bell, Woolsey and Boardley quickly demoted Winning and Stevenson to give chase, before another incident at turn 3. Somehow Hardie, Hillard and Carter all tripped over each other, with Hardie and Hillard both going around; Dick with another of the heart-stopping inside-out spins after touching the grass. Fortunately again they were all able to resume.

As the flag came down Heatrick held on for the win, but Bell was really all over him like a rash as we finished, while Woolsey and Boardley were closing fast too in third and fourth. Murray took a creditable fifth spot ahead of an impressive Murphy once again.
Result: 960 – 9 – 940 – 41 – 95 – 970 – 888 – 983 – 115 – 85.

When the points were totted up, Woolsey had netted pole spot for the British final, with surprise packet Murphy alongside. English stars Haird and Boardley sat menacingly on row two, with young Ulster chargers Heatrick and Bell making up row three. It was however a depleted field that came under starters orders for the 50-lap showdown for a number of reasons.

As Woolsey executed the clutch start to perfection to lead them away, Bell had done even better as he cut in ahead of Heatrick and under Boardley into turn one, to end up in third spot behind Haird, as Murphy completely fluffed a favourable grid in a major not for the first time to end up in eighth spot after just a couple of tours.

The top three were pulling clear, leaving Boardley to attempt to find a way past the stubborn Heatrick, whilst next up was a tight four-way battle between Murray, Murphy, McMillan and Hillard. Murray survived a massive tank-slapper down the home straight whilst under pressure at the time from Hillard, but pressed on regardless.

As Bell had Haird under the cosh, Woolsey was beginning to eke out a bit of a lead. The crowd were soon on their feet as Bell got under Haird to go second – Glenn most certainly a Ballymena favourite given his Stock Rod history and two World title wins at the Showgrounds track. To all intents and purposes it looked as though he could run the leader down, but almost as soon as he made second his own, a blue oil haze began from the rear of the 206cc. Oil was leaking onto his tyres, and he quickly had to divert his attentions back to Haird as opposed to Woolsey.

As Boardley retired from fifth after a frustrating battle with Heatrick, Bell could hold Haird back no longer, and the Cambridgeshire driver nipped back up to second, but still the most of a straight behind leader Woolsey. That looked to be that, but that was without figuring the backmarking trio of Stevenson, McKay and Alvin Christie into things…

As Woolsey approached them the laps were running out and grip was at a premium with Bell still laying down oil. The trio were engrossed in their own battle, and though they sorted themselves out with some vigorous blue flags from Mr Starter and no doubt communication over the Raceceiver system, in an instant Woolsey’s lead was gone and Haird was right on the rear bumper of the NW Developments machine. He very, very nearly got underneath Gary out onto the back straight, but the Thunder 500 winner thwarted his efforts to bring it home for his third British Championship success following wins in 2002 and 2003 – although Gary would want to argue that it’s his fourth success following his controversial disqualification back in 2000 after a post race skirmish with John Steward. Haird was very good value in second spot, with Bell making the podium in his first championship event despite his problems. Heatrick, Hillard and Murphy completed the top six.
British Championship Result: 940 – 115 – 9 – 960 – 31 – 970 – 95 – 944 – 983 – 888.  Darren Black

2008 National Championship
Boardley adds another
Hednesford Hills, Sat/Sun August 2/3

Graham Brown reports:  Carl Boardley added the National Championship to his collection at Hednesford, taking the lead from Steve Thompson during an early incident which brought out the yellow flags, and never being headed again. Thompson claimed Boardley passed him when the yellows were already out, but the steward was adamant that this was not the case.

Despite there having been much discussion prior to the meeting about the entry being limited to ‘only’ 50 cars, what with various cancellations etc, in the end pretty much everybody who wanted to race did get in, with 51 cars eventually racing. Perhaps the most notable cancellation was Northern Irish champion, Stewart Doak.

Those who did race included yet another visitation from John vd Bosch, the Dutch racer becoming quite a permanent (and very welcome) fixture lately. Brendan O’Connell was back for another English outing, this time driving his recently acquired ex-Malcolm Clein 206cc, rather than the 206 he had at the world. Ulster racer John Steele was making what I believe to be his debut this side of the water. Surprisingly or otherwise, in a field of this size, everyone else was driving their usual cars.

Six heats were scheduled to sort out the qualifying process, with each driver getting to do three of them, proceedings kicking off with a scrappy first couple of races, both interrupted by cautions.

With the odd rain drop falling, David Newell led heat one at the outset challenged by Joey Butler. Further back, Chris Haird was heading in the right direction as he went under Ricky Hunn on the West bend but, despite losing a further place to Des Cooney soon afterwards, Ricky was looking pretty useful himself.

Haird went on to overhaul James O’Shea for third not long before Butler’s final assault on Newell’s lead unfortunately ended with Newall spinning into the barriers, gaining Butler a black cross. The resulting shake up put Haird into the lead with O’Shea bursting out of the chasing pack to go second, leaving Butler to argue the toss with Phil Spinks, Stu Carter, Hunn, Andy Holtby, Des Cooney and Matt Simpson. Butler picked up another black cross and soon afterwards, the yellows were waving for Billy Bonnar and Cooney.

Billy had stopped out by the West bend wall and Des somehow managed to run wide and slap into the 844 car, knocking Billy B out and severely damaging both cars. The incident was ‘game over’ for both teams.

The restart over the final four laps looked fairly easy meat for Haird, who duly ‘hared’ away at the green to take the win.

While Tommy Maxwell was busy leading, a hefty collision between brother Terry and John Christie on the East bend exit eliminated both men only four laps into heat two, giving rise to another yellow. After that, a terrific lead dice ensued between Tommy Maxwell, Shane Brereton and Steve Thompson. With Brereton trying the outside pass, Thompson was kept boxed in behind until Shane ran wide two laps running at the West bend, allowing Thompson out of his cage.

Steve then got up the outside of Maxwell and, after several laps of side by side running, dragged himself in front. Just as Steve completed his great pass, Maxwell and Brereton collided leaving the West bend, Shane spinning in the aftermath. All of that left Thompson well clear of Maxwell by the finish, with O’Connell home third.

The conclusion of this race saw another expected front runner, Gary Woolsey, confined to a spectating role for the rest of the weekend with a blown engine.

Heat three kicked off with Gavin Murray leading until passed by Ronnie McMillan and Malcolm Blackman. Meanwhile, at the back of the grid Thompson had made a really demon start, Steve no doubt realising just how important each respective driver’s ‘rear of grid’ result was going to be in the final standings.

McMillan eventually went spinning on the West bend exit – gaining Murray a black cross – the rest of the race featuring a fierce scrap between Murray, Blackman and a revitalised Dick Hillard, who has definitely got the Tigra sorted now. After a last lap side by side with Blackman, Murray still got home first but wound up with a hefty four place penalty, elevating Blackman to the win.

John Holtby quickly took charge of the fourth race from John Sibbald, but found himself swiftly relegated once Boardley had worked his way through from the third row. Holtby stayed second, even surviving a yellow flag period brought about when Jeff Simpson and Brereton both spun at the same moment. John still looked likely to hang onto his runner-up slot until he got swamped in a blanket finish that pushed him back to sixth. Barry English – who’d been third until near the end – also lost out in this when he got severely railroaded to the outside, Carter blasting through for second ahead of Keith Martin, Hunn, English, John Holtby and Christie.

Christie’s crew had worked a minor miracle putting the badly smashed up Tigra back to rights in the nick of time, the car having been still up in the air with no axle in it and a host of other bits missing, not that long before the race was called. It all seemed a far cry from John’s National championship debut when he towed the Fiesta in behind a travel stained Fiat and worked on it with one helper and what looked like a load of tools bought at Woolworth’s and slung in a rusty cantilever tool-box. OK, maybe it wasn’t quite that bad (he did finish third remember) but he still seems to have come a long way in a very short time – hats off to ya, JAC.

Heat five was one of the races of the weekend. It opened with Joey Butler collecting another black cross, for belting O’Shea this time, as Tom Casey assumed the lead, attacked straight away by Thompson and soon afterwards, Jeff Simpson. Although Casey led from flag to flag, he was under the cosh all the way. Simpson – despite driving in some pain – managed to sucker Thompson into letting him past as they negotiated the back marking Neville Stanley. Steve went by again with four to go, just before Simon Bentley went straight into the wall on the West bend exit, an incident for which Hughie Weaver got loaded up.

Thompson put in a huge effort to dislodge the leader on the final lap, Casey only just getting to the line ahead of Steve, with Slim still glued to the pair of them.If the previous race had been one of the races of the weekend, the final qualifier was right up there with it. It started out with Andy Holtby leading and going well clear in the early going. Shane Murphy quickly established himself in second and when the leader got boxed in with traffic, closed in fast. Holtby was naturally desperate to break free of the jam, but could find no way through and Murphy caught right up, even putting his nose in front for a moment or two as he stabbed up the outside line. But there wasn’t really anywhere for him to go either, and Holtby kept both his head and the lead, breaking away again once he finally found the relief of relatively open track ahead once more.

With two to go, Boardley was back in eighth spot which, in all honesty, looked to be about as far as he was going to get here, especially with McMillan, Matt Simpson and Blackman directly ahead of him. But, there’s a reason why the driver of that 41 car has just won three world championships on the bounce, and here he drove an absolutely inspired last lap that took him across the line fifth – a highly significant result as it turned out.

Sunday morning’s scrutineering session led to a number of cars being barred from taking part, after checks on the thickness of the metal in parts of their roll cages revealed some that were too thin. This was a measure Deane Wood had been planning for some time, but it would be fair to say, even he wasn’t expecting to uncover a problem as extensive as this one! A driver’s meeting was called to try to establish whether the competitors wanted the illegal cars in or out of the main event, but when the meeting failed to reach a clear cut consensus, it was left to the NHRPA to make the final decision. Obviously, it was not an easy one – nobody wants to bar travellers like John vd Bosch from competing in the race they’ve actually come for. But, with it being a safety issue and given what had happened to Boardley at Northampton the previous weekend, in the end strict enforcement of the rules seemed the only option.

With several non-qualifiers called in to take their places, the grid formed up with Thompson on pole and Boardley alongside, suggesting a similar lead battle to last year's Blackman-Boardley dice might be on the cards. It certainly always looked to be between the two front row men whatever else happened.

They were brought back after the first attempt at a "go", when Thompson was deemed to have gone too soon. The restart still saw Steve the first to break, with Boardley, Martin, Andy Holtby, Murphy and the rest streaming out behind. Then, with only a handful of laps gone, O'Shea and O'Connell crashed into the wall on the East bend exit.

Thompson slowed momentarily, thinking he'd seen a yellow flag that was not yet out and to avoid fluids running away from the damaged cars. Boardley took an even tighter line to avoid the mess and, in so doing, went by Thompson a hair's breadth before the expected caution was thrown.

Once the race was back underway, Boardley simply eased further and further ahead throughout to take an emphatic victory reminiscent of his similarly dominant performance in this year's world final. And when drivers of the calibre of Thompson and Blackman can only just about keep the leader in sight, and there are only four cars on the lead lap at the finish, you can see what we mean here by the word ‘dominant’, right?

That’s not to say there wasn’t something worth watching throughout the race, and for the most part, that something was Christie. Yes, his was the last car unlapped by the leader and, even if Carl was coming up behind him at the end, young John had still driven a noteworthy race. Probably the highlight was his three wide moment with Holtby and Spinks going down the home straight when John moved up from sixth to fourth. But there was no doubt that when the battered and taped together black Tigra parked on the winner’s ramp after the race, it definitely deserved to be there, trophy or no trophy.

Finally, a couple of ‘incidentals’. Thompson later lodged a protest about Boardley’s original pass, which failed to reverse the result, particularly after video evidence was viewed. Also, an off-the-ball, after the flag, heat three incident involving Neil Stimson and David Brooks saw Neil get loaded up. As this took him way over his penalty points limit too, it could be a while before the # 271 graces the grids again… Graham Brown
Results
Heat one: 115,74,14,639,61,303,994,911,151,95,944,6,31,66,777,(271),27,3.
Heat two:  170,369,761,67,970,41,961,734,278,519,960,72,(210),53,427,984,967,179,629,348.
Heat three: 911,31,278,944,95,115,170,960,61,303,14,761,961,369,66,67,967.
Heat four: 41,85,994,639,984,6,962,734,970,629,72,151,519,74,59,179,777,943,27,963,198.
Heat five: 961,170,3,994,67,960,278,639,85,761,27,74,369,151,943,967.
Heat six: 61,970,14,72,41,944,303,911,962,31,95,984,115,179,348,66,734,519,601,198.
National Championship Final: 41,170,911,962,61,639,944,303,67,348,3,960,519.
Grand National: 14,911,278,72,639,74,67. NOF.

Statement by David Haird, Haird Motorsport
"First of all, I would like to offer my sincere apologies to all of our customers whose cars failed this check. It is an embarrassment to me personally, I hadn't realised some of our cars didn't meet this rule, and I hold my hands up.

"We have let an awful lot of people down, and I am truly sorry. It has never been the intention of Haird Motorsport to cheat the rules, and it never will be.

"Deane Wood was 100% right in carrying out these checks, and is 100% right in all that he is trying to do for National Hot Rod racing and checks on rule compliance. I wholeheartedly back him in this.

"Once again, I'm truly sorry, to all of our customers, and to anyone who feels that their weekend was spoilt due to the smaller grid for the racing on Sunday." David Haird

Statement from Deane Wood, promoter of the National Championship
"A couple of things I'd like to say to everyone. Firstly, I apologise to the paying spectators that a number of cars were barred from racing in the National Championship as they failed scrutineering.

"I'm also told that the spectators weren't told (on the PA) what had happened when the grid lined up short of a few cars. My fault, and I apologise again, and that's why I'm taking this opportunity to tell you what happened. There's nothing else that could have been done about it, the rule book is the rule book.

"I'm sorry and very annoyed about the poor entry for the Grand National race, and I'm making some changes to improve that for next year. In 2009 I'm talking to Paul (Gerrard) about bringing the GN race out earlier in the afternoon, and there will be a rule that all drivers have to race in this or they'll get no money.

"Next, I've seen some rubbish in the Forum about some driver stitching up another driver with the checks we made on Sunday. Not true, it was organised a week ago, and it was not at the say-so of any driver. And on that, I couldn't get the guy there on the Friday, and even if I had, not all the drivers were necessarily going to be there then anyway. It also had to be at this meeting when so many cars from so many places are all in one place.

"There's lots to be sorted out in National Hot Rod racing, and this weekend was just the start. It's one of those things where there's going to be some pain, short term. But long term it's my ambition to make and keep National Hot Rods as a top class, and I'm going to keep on with this work."  Deane Wood

***

22/07/08:  Addendum to NHRPA World Final Scrutineering statement (below):

Deane Wood would like to add the following clarification:

”The statement dealing with the alleged issue with the cylinder head on car 303 was not intended to imply that National Hot Rod heads supplied by Toovey Road & Race Engines are illegal. The cylinder head loaned by John Toovey was for comparison purposes only.

The item under investigation on the 303 car was not supplied by Toovey.

The NHRPA trusts this clarifies any misinterpretation of the previous statement.”

Deane went on to say that people should think carefully before posting in the FORUM any further speculation relating to the above engine supplier against whom no allegations are made nor should they be inferred

19/07/08:  Statement: 2008 Kent Cams/Hoosier Tyres National Hot Rod World Final Scrutineering

The NHRPA has been investigating alleged irregularities concerning the cylinder head / engine of the 303 Matt Simpson car, which was placed second in the above event. The investigation has centred upon two areas, firstly the addition of eight small holes in the head and secondly, the addition of two small non-standard “oil pipes”.

The investigation has established the following:

The scrutineer responsible for stripping the engines, Mick Reece, approached engine builder John Toovey Road & Race to arrange the loan of a standard or hot rod cylinder head for comparison purposes, to enable easy identification of any non-standard modifications. In error, Toovey’s supplied a cylinder head destined for use in the Pick-Up Series. These heads are drilled /bored with eight “steam holes” and are also equipped with the extra pipes.

Mick Reece carried out his inspection, including a comparison of the Matt Simpson head with the Toovey head and found no reason to declare the Simpson head anything other than legal.

A little later another engine builder had sight of the head and pointed out that the head from the 303 car was “not right”. Mick Reece told him that it compared favourably with “his” head and that he could find no way in which it contravened the regulations.

Unfortunately it was subsequently discovered that the Toovey head was in fact not a National Hot Rod head and therefore there was a discrepancy with the 303 head.

It is obviously not possible to take retrospective action on scrutineering issues and therefore the race result will stand. Matt Simpson has been advised that the head must not be used in future.

The NHRPA apologise for this oversight and assure all drivers that every effort will be made to ensure that there is no repeat of such an event in the future.


2008 NHRPA National Hot Rod World Final
Boardley’s three-peat
Saturday/Sunday July 5/6 2008. Foxhall International Raceway, Ipswich

Graham Brown reports:  Carl Boardley took his third National Hot Rod world championship in a row at the annual Ipswich speed weekend, equalling the record for back-to-back titles set by Colin White. Boardley totally dominated the 75-lapper, with runner up Matt Simpson and Irish racer Mike Riordan completing a clean sweep for the Tigra drivers.

Entry & Lap Times
Everybody was in the cars they were expected to be driving, even Colin Gomm, who was fairly certain after the Thunder 500, that he would be using the Peugeot. Dick Hillard was in his new Tigra, which again was no surprise – he’d said all along that this would be his mount for the race, providing it was ready. His adoption of an orange roof meant that the car looked quite a bit different to his usual 206 however.

This was the first chance for English fans to get a look at the Ronnie McMillan Tigra, and very pretty it looked too in it’s pale blue and white livery. It was also their first opportunity to see Brendan O’Connell on these shores (unless they’d been at Press Day). Both men were world final rookies, and there were a fair number of those in the race this year, with John Sibbald, Gavin Murray, Jay Austin, Orey Stanley and Mark Heatrick as well. The two Netherlands racers, Laurens vd Velde and John vd Bosch, completed this happy throng.

O’Connell ran into a little problem in scrutineering when his exhaust failed to pass muster, but this was soon sorted out as Matt Simpson was carrying a parcel of spares.

Lap times….well, they were thrown into disarray when the accurate predictions about rainfall in the Ipswich area came horribly true. The rain had stopped by the scheduled start time, but the damage was done and with a now drying track there was no way to guarantee a level playing field for all runners.

It would seem obvious that the solution to this, is simply to postpone the laps until later, maybe run a few races and then do it. Unfortunately, logic does not and cannot enter into it. The meeting schedule, once agreed with the council, virtually forms part of the planning consent and cannot be changed. I believe races can be cancelled altogether, but that’s about it.

For everybody who says, ‘They should have a plan B’, of course, we do. And it was executed to the letter. The plan to put the top NI and ROI points scorers automatically into group one was ditched months ago*, so no, 996 and 970 should not have been added in there. Simon Bentley and Phil Spinks sorted out their group three tie during their timed laps. Thus Bentley was enabled to join in the gp.3 draw, with Spinks still automatically at the head of group four (as usual in a tie-across-groups situation). And if anyone thinks that Boardley getting pole out of the group one draw was a fix, I was right there, and I can tell you he didn’t really even draw the ticket; he drew last and it was simply the one everybody else left in the pot!

No, of course it isn’t the best way to do it. The best way to do it (aside from going back to three hot laps for each car individually, which still gets my vote) is for the weather to play ball. Unfortunately, even DW cannot guarantee that! 

All cars ran in the lap times, as they had to do the race on the same tyres upon which they did the timed laps, the intent being to ensure everybody’s rubber had the same amount of wear. Of course, the best laid plans and all that, because when the non-English session was hit by rain, they had only done about five minutes-worth of lappery! But what they might have gained on the swings, they probably lost on the roundabouts, as some of these drivers looked to be holding back early in the session, with the intention of giving it a big push towards the end. If that was the case, it was a gamble which didn’t pay off.

Whatever, it was only these drivers times which counted for anything, and then only to determine where they would be placed in the grid draw. In any other year the times set in their session would have been pretty crucial, and were still fairly eye-opening anyway. When it was done the two places in group one were in the hands of the Southern Irish, with Des Cooney fastest – he was quick on Press Day too remember – and Riordan around a tenth of a second slower. Mark you, even Des was only sixth fastest overall.

Keith Martin and Gary Woolsey were forced to take their chances in group two, with John Christie and the impressive vd Velde back in group three.

With the draw done, the first three rows of the grid had certainly taken on an interesting cast, with defending champ Boardley on pole and Andy Holtby to his outside. The second rank comprised Simpson and Steve Thompson (something of a disappointment for Steve, as his lap time would have given him pole), leaving Cooney and Riordan saddled with row three.

Grid:
41 303  921 911  115 85   95 59 491  14    67    25  66  960 761  629 923
61 170  142 994  940 278  78  962 277  996 970  31  427 944  467 961

The Race – 75 Laps
Fears about race day weather proved largely unfounded, with the grid lining up in warm sunshine alleviated by a light breeze.

The first attempt at getting the race underway saw Holtby just the first to break at the green, Boardley and Holtby racing side by side for two laps with Thompson tucked in behind before a crash in the rear of the field brought out the reds.

This shunt involved at least five cars to some degree, including Dave Brooks, Hillard, Tom Casey, Winnie Holtmanns and Orey Stanley. The incident was to have unfortunate consequences for Dick, who’d got a punctured tyre and, much more seriously, a bent track control arm out of it all. It was all hands to the pumps as mechanics swarmed over the stricken Tigra to try and beat the time limit for getting him back in the race but, in the end, all to no avail.

Cooney too was out of it, Des having pulled up even before the stoppage with a broken rear disc.

So, with reserve Ralph Sanders now into the race at the tail of the field, the grid formed up again at the same time as some ominous looking storm clouds formed up all around the stadium.

The front row men were at it again on the restart, but this time Boardley was the first to break. Holtby stayed right with him though, as Simpson and Thompson duelled for third and fourth ahead of Riordan and Malcolm Blackman.

Quite suddenly, Boardley managed to get clear, leaving Holtby to pay the price for his heroic effort up the outside as Simpson got through to second. With Carl pulling away fast, Simpson, Holtby, Riordan, Thompson and Blackman were left to squabble over the places. With Simpson soon established in second, Riordan too managed to demote Holtby. I have often said that Mike has yet to show us his best at Ipswich, and it was beginning to look as though this might be the day we were finally going to see it. Little did we know that those first three places, established so early on, were the way they were going to stay.

Vd Bosch had stopped on the outside of the far bend and Boardley had just begun to stretch his legs a bit, when Sibbald’s motor let go, dumping oil right in front of the leaders. Somehow, most people stayed out of the barriers, with Boardley and Simpson doing particularly well not to crash when they both took huge slides towards the wall, but the resulting mess cued a caution period and a clear up.

When the restart came, the leader tore away this time when the green came back out. It soon became clear that Simpson couldn’t stay with him, and it became all about a race for second place. Stewart Doak took a spin along the back stretch while Simpson continued to fend off Riordan in their fight for second spot. Boardley, meantime, was now lapping back markers in what almost amounted to a casual manner.

But Simpson was going to get another shot at the leader though, because more yellow flags were in the offing after Andy Burgess and vd Velde got together between turns three and four. With Burgess stuck there, the steward threw a yellow just as Riordan went spinning down by the start/finish following a challenge from Blackman.

The steward decided to put the cars back in the positions they were in on the lap prior to yellows, giving a relieved Riordan back his third place. “We just came round on a back marker”, Mike explained afterwards. “I presume Malc had a go down the inside and it ended up….the way it ended up! I seemed to get a big shunt off, thought that the car was wrecked, came back out and tried it down the back straight. It seemed fine, I got caught back up to my position, which I have to say I was very glad about, and she ran fine from then on”.

The results of this further restart were no different however, with Boardley marching off in determined fashion, leaving a veritable freight train of placemen in his wake, with Simpson still fending off an insistent Riordan, Blackman, Thompson, Holtby, Chris Haird and Keith Martin.

As this war raged on, Boardley was left alone to work on extending his lead further and further. By the time it was up to around half a lap and with the finish looming up, it was clear nothing was going to stop Boardley making it three in a row – unless something happened to the car.

Actually, something already had. At about half distance, Carl had suddenly found that the throttle had jammed most of the way open!

“I don’t know what’s happened, but I couldn’t get any less than about 6,000 rpm. It was a matter of just blipping the throttle down the straights, then get the car through the corner on the brakes, and just try and keep it smooth”, Carl said later.

With around 25 laps to run, Doak called it a day. Simpson and Riordan were still dicing for second, with Blackman, Thompson and Haird locked in combat over the rest of the places. Thompson gave Blackman a hefty shove exiting the pit bend, but backed out of it to let the former champion recover. Steve’s patience on this occasion was rewarded, as he got by quite legitimately soon afterwards, taking Haird through in his wake.

Behind them, Keith Martin was gradually dropping off the pace, eventually heading onto the grass when his fading brakes finally gave out altogether. Soon afterwards, Blackman was on his way to join him.

As the laps wound down, vd Velde took a couple of spins – one right in front of the placemen. As if this was some sort of cue, Thompson started really trying to upset the finishing order, making serious overtures down Riordan’s outside several times. Spurred on by this, Mike very nearly made one of his inside stabs at Simpson come off along the back straight. Thompson, still sticking to the high side, managed to let Haird through, but re-passed him by punting Chris on at the pit bend a couple of laps later. It was this incident that was to get Thompson penalised in the final analysis.

By now and nearing the finish, Boardley was so far in front he even had time to slow and steer around the half spinning car of Shane Murphy. “I was watching my mirrors, I knew where everybody was, and obviously it worked my way”, commented Carl shortly after climbing from his car, following what had undoubtedly been an emphatic victory.

Simpson withstood the onslaught from behind to claim second with Riordan recording a career best third, fourth spot falling to Haird after Thompson was penalised two places for the incident with Haird near the end of the race.

In fact, probably the closest Boardley came all day to losing his crown, was in post-race scrutineering. His car had appeared to fail the ride height check just after the race. But, with the car parked on the totally flat area where the scales are normally set up, the required amount of daylight was found to exist beneath the cars front spoiler, much to everyone’s relief.

Carl’s was not the only car arousing technical interest post race, with certain aspects of another placeman’s engine currently the subject of an NHRPA investigation.  Graham Brown

Result:  1 41 Carl Boardley 2 303 Matthew Simpson  3 142 Mike Riordan 4 115 Chris Haird  5 61 Andrew Holtby, 6 170 Steve Thompson (X-2), 7 278 Colin Gomm, 8 14 Phil Spinks, 9 85 Stuart Carter, 10 491 Colin Smith, 11 940 Gary Woolsey, 12 95 Gavin Murray, 13 962 John Christie, 14 67 David Brooks 74 laps, 15 944 Ronnie McMillan  74 laps, 16 734 Ralph Sanders  74 laps, 17 427 Jay Austin   74 laps, 18 25 Keith Woods  74 laps, 19 923 Orey Stanley  73 laps, 20 78 Lauren Van Der Velde   73 laps, 21 761 Brendan O'Connell   72 laps, DNF 970 Shane Murphy   73 laps, DNF 911 Malcolm Blackman   56 laps, DNF 994 Keith Martin   54 laps, DNF 960 Mark Heatrick  48 laps, DNF 996 Stewart Doak  47 laps, DNF 961 Tom Casey   40 laps, DNF 277 Andrew Burgess  24 laps, DNF G467 Winnie Holtmanns  22 laps, DNF 629 John Sibbald   9 laps, DNF H66 John Van Den Bosch  8 laps, DNF 59 Simon Bentley   0 laps, DNS 921 Des Cooney  0 laps, DNS 31 Dick Hillard  0 laps, Penalty: 170 Docked two places for contact on 115 

Support Heat 1: 1 291 Mike Thurley, 2 369 Tommy Maxwell, 3 198 Andy Steward, 4 210 Hughie Weaver, 5 38 Richard Smith, 6 271 Neil Stimson, 7 348 Shane Brereton, 8 308 Jeff Simpson, 9 6 John Holtby, 10 402 Trevor Stroud, 11 191 Iain Grayson, 12 187 Ronnie McKenzie, 13 844 Billy Bonnar, 14 734 Ralph Sanders, 15 8 Tam Rutherford, 16 777 Les Compelli, 17 10 Simon Smith, 18 519 Luke Armiger, 19 103 Alan White, 20 35 Neil Muddle, DQ 151 Joey Butler 25 laps

Support Heat 2: 1 348 Shane Brereton, 2 74 James O'Shea, 3 72 William Hardie, 4 9 Glen Bell, 5 519 Luke Armiger, 6 844 Billy Bonnar, 7 308 Jeff Simpson, 8 38 Richard Smith, 9 151 Joey Butler, 10 402 Trevor Stroud, 11 191 Iain Grayson, 12 27 Mikey Godfrey, 13 10 Simon Smith, 14 8 Tam Rutherford, 15 963 Terry Maxwell, 16 35 Neil Muddle, 17 777 Les Compelli, DQ 271 Neil Stimson 

Support Heat 3: 1 74 James O'Shea, 2 308 Jeff Simpson, 3 9 Glen Bell, 4 369 Tommy Maxwell, 5 844 Billy Bonnar, 6 6 John Holtby, 7 348 Shane Brereton, 8 72 William Hardie, 9 151 Joey Butler, 10 271 Neil Stimson, 11 777 Les Compelli, 12 103 Alan White, 13 191 Iain Grayson, 14 402 Trevor Stroud, 15 27 Mikey Godfrey, 16 35 Neil Muddle, 17 38 Richard Smith, 18 8 Tam Rutherford, 19 187 Ronnie McKenzie, 20 967 Neville Stanley 

Support Final: 1 271 Neil Stimson, 2 308 Jeff Simpson, 3 348 Shane Brereton, 4 9 Glen Bell, 5 74 James O'Shea, 6 210 Hughie Weaver, 7 191 Iain Grayson, 8 6 John Holtby, 9 72 William Hardie, 10 777 Les Compelli, 11 10 Simon Smith, 12 8 Tam Rutherford, 13 369 Tommy Maxwell, 14 27 Mikey Godfrey, 15 103 Alan White, 16 187 Ronnie McKenzie, DQ 38 Disqualified for contact

Out of the Hat Final: 1 9 Glen Bell, 2 191 Iain Grayson, 3 38 Richard Smith, 4 308 Jeff Simpson, 5 10 Simon Smith, DQ 66 Disqualified - Contact, DQ 78 Disqualified - Contact. More stats at www.mylaps.com

*  * *

2008 NHRPA Thunder 500
Woolsey’s warm up
Ipswich, Saturday June 21st.

Graham Brown reports:  Gary Woolsey went away from Foxhall having taken victory in the traditional world final ‘warm up’ event, the Thunder 500, with runner-up John Christie helping underline the strong possibility of another Ulster world champion in the near future.

The entry was the usual cosmopolitan mix of drivers that this meeting attracts. Although it was a touch disappointing to see that none of the Southern Irish racers were in for this (and they certainly weren’t all doing the Hoosier Challenge!), the North had some powerful representation. English fans got their first chance to see John Christie’s Tigra (Fiestra, Tig, Git, whatever) in the flesh, while Gary Woolsey was back to reacquaint himself with Foxhall in his Tigra, the pair being joined by young William Buller in his totally immaculate version. So immaculate, in fact, that the writer had difficulty telling that it had ever actually been raced!

Wherever is William Buller, Alfie Buller (Rockingham’s owner) is generally never far away. On this occasion, he arrived a little late and obviously did not know where to find his son, giving rise to the sight of a mint late model Bentley being driven slowly around the National Hot Rod pits – not something you see every day.

And, you know what they say about thinking policemen are all looking younger, is a sign of getting old?  Well, when you see the likes of Buller and Luke Armiger roaming about the pits in their driving suits, you know you are. In fact, I still think of Gary Woolsey as being ‘young’ – it came as something of a shock to discover he’s just turned 40!  Never mind Gary, you’ve still got plenty of years on me…

Anyway, with those three on hand, there was no danger of the Ipswich regulars thinking they were going to get things all their own way; that was for sure.

The international flavour of the event was well and truly maintained by welcome appearances from Dutchmen Laurens vd Velde and John vd Bosch, as well our almost resident German, Winnie Holtmanns. A Scot too, in the shape of Willie Hardie, had made another long trek south. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before – but should have – that this team’s transporter really is a piece of kit worth a look the next time you’re in the pits. From its acres of gleaming orange panel work to the Braveheart mural on the roof, it’s absolutely superb.

Then too, we had the return of Jeff Simpson to a short oval, ‘Slim’ having enjoyed his Mallory outing so much, he’s decided to make a regular thing of it. It was Jeff’s first time out at Ipswich in eight years.

Not missing for quite as long, but still very welcome back, was Trevor Stroud, finally getting the chance to race a Tigra after never having raced his original NEC show car of a while back. Then there was Shane Brereton, another who hasn’t been seen at Ipswich in a long while, and proved it by his crew getting lost on the way to the track(!), the entire ensemble arriving with only minutes to spare.

Although we knew Colin Gomm had acquired a Peugeot 206 to use for the T-500, ostensibly because he didn’t want to damage the Colt this close to the World, I have to say we were expecting a ‘cheapie’ stop-gap sort of a car. Maybe not with taped on numbers and stuff, but in that vein. Colin had obviously been kidding us along, because the beautifully prepped ex-Brooks car looked not only brand new, but every inch a full member of team ‘purple people eater’.

From first sight, I decided the car looked ‘odd’, but couldn’t really say why. It was only later that the truth dawned – it’s no longer really a 206 at all, but a Tigra wearing 206 clothing! No doubt Mr Longhurst has had something to do with this piece of cross-dressing but, however it came about, the re-vamped machine was to prove mighty effective…

Not having Stuart Carter and Malcolm Blackman on hand as well was a bit of a downer and, right in the same category, came Chris Haird’s practice blow up which sidelined him for the night.

Nevertheless, with the warm overcast bucking the weathermen’s dire predictions, and notwithstanding a remarkably dusty track, it still looked like an interesting evening in prospect.

Vd Velde had pole for the first heat, but got a monster push as he charged into turn one, putting Jeff Simpson quickly down the inside and into the lead.

The race settled down to a four car lead dice, with Neil Stimson, Buller and Gomm (already right at home in his new car) all involved too. Buller was looking really sharp and managed to slip by Stimson along the home straight with Gomm still well up for it and glued to the youngster’s back bumper.

In the end, Buller managed to get away from Gomm a bit and closed down the gap to the leader, so it came down to Simpson against Buller for the win. ‘Buck’ was heaping on the pressure towards the end, and oh so nearly snuck underneath the 308 car at one point, in a repeat of the trick Buller had pulled on Stimson earlier, coming off turn four. Slim needed all his years of race craft to hold onto this one, but ultimately, the seasoned campaigner just managed to hold off the new kid on the block.

Peter Blood was the early leader in heat two from Ralph Sanders, before Ralph went too deep into the far turn, losing out to Carl Boardley’s new Duratec motivated Tigra. Once Carl had similarly relegated Blood on the pit bend, that pretty much looked to be game over, but not a bit of it.

Woolsey worked his way past Sanders and Blood into second, and then got up to pile pressure on the leader, five laps from home. Carl looked equal to the task of containing this challenge for a while, but appeared to hesitate momentarily when lapping Alan White, enabling Woolsey to out-fumble the world champion in a superb move as he slipped between them to take a seriously classy win. Looking back, the moment was a touch reminiscent of how Carl overtook Christie in last year’s world final.

Speaking of Christie, a pole start in heat three for John duly led to a fully expected ride on the pace car, with Andy Holtby just managing to fend off Matt Simpson for second at the flag. Along the way, Buller exited this one after a far turn clash with Gavin Murray left the 302 with a flat, while Woolsey and Colin Smith swapped plenty of paintwork in a couple of incidents which saw Smiffy get black crossed.

They weren’t the only ones tangling either, with vd Velde and vd Bosch getting together on the pit bend, the latter taking a spin as a consequence.

All of this set up a final grid which looked set to produce a classic second generation Woolsey versus Christie duel. With those two sharing the front row (Woolsey on pole), a second rank of Jeff Simpson and a revitalised Gomm almost guaranteed an interesting race. Brereton deserves a mention at this point too, having driven well all night to get on the inside of row three in a quite unspectacular manner – not at all like his old self!

At the green, Christie cut straight down to the inside to block any immediate attack from behind while Gomm made a lightning start to try and catch the others napping down the outside. He didn’t make it, but did manage to nip past Slim going through turns 1-2 a couple of laps in.

By then, Woolsey was leading Christie some way ahead of the other two. John appeared to be holding back somewhat, and continued to sit a few car lengths back for a long time, but eventually closed in to mount a serious challenge.

Gommy, meanwhile, was being frustrated by an intermittent misfire, but the car finally made up its mind to stay on four cylinders nearing the finish. This enabled him to close in fast on the leaders, and it was at this point that Woolsey’s handling started to go away, the car looking looser with each passing corner. Naturally, Christie immediately pounced and was all over the leader like the proverbial rash.

With three to go, Gary was having to defend for all his worth, as Christie looked inside, outside, anywhere for a way through. And now, Gomm was rushing in to have a go at both of them! The thought dawned that if Gary and John were too engrossed in what they were doing, they might have forgotten all about any threat that might be coming from behind…

But in the end, even the extended 40-lapper wasn’t quite long enough, and they ran to the chequers with the trio still in the same order. Jeff Simpson managed to fend off Andy Holtby’s advances to stay fourth, with Matt Simpson and Buller next over the line.

So: was all this a precursor to world final day, and has the time arrived for another Ulster based winner? Could be, although as far as the defending champion goes, I don’t think he’ll be in that car on the big day, which will likely count for a lot. The new one clearly hasn’t got it in horsepower terms, not yet anyway, never mind it’s questionable reliability so far.

Mr. Blackman might just have a point to prove also, and there are so many other imponderables (no Stuart Doak to compare with at this meeting, nor any ROI drivers), that a clear judgement of who will win is very difficult.

It is also worth pointing out that Steve Thompson, although mentioned not at all in the above report, spent all night deliberately running off the back and trying his hand at seeing just how many cars he could overtake – it was a lot.

In the dark horse stakes, better watch right out for that man Gomm. He’s a group two-starter now, don’t forget, and while he might have struggled to make much of that in the Colt, I reckon he can now wipe out that previous best finish of a 12^th nearly ten years ago. Who knows – maybe he’ll even win it.

Not that it matters in world final terms, and it might seem a rash thing to say at this stage, but I reckon I’ve seen the new Ian McKellar, and his name is Buller. Hot in a Stock Rod, great in a 2.0 Hot Rod, this boy has ability (and the equipment to go with it, to be sure) in buckets. Unfortunately for us, while McKellar didn’t discover road racing until after he’d become world champion, ‘Buck’ is already in it up to his young neck. His Formula BMW Europe schedule is due to take him to Silverstone (supporting the British Grand Prix, thus no world final support races either), Germany, Spain, Hungary, Italy (Monza) and the famous Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium in the coming months.

As mentor Davy McCall recently pointed out, William races something, somewhere, at least four times a week, and will sadly never have the time to commit to qualifying for a world final. Indeed, he can’t even make it to the Nationals to show us what he could do there. Pity. Graham Brown
Results
Heat one: 308,302,278,271,491,78,348,38,66,61,72,25,402,467,27,92,519.
Heat two: 940,41,734,348,25,95,14,278,962,303,271,170,198,210,291,467,427,103,519.
Heat three:  962,61,303,291,31,14,72,940,27,308,41,170,491,734,38,95,402,427,103,78,66
Final: 940,962,278,308,61,303,302,170,491,271,14,734,291,78,95,402,27

2008 NHRPA Irish Grand Prix
Casey’s cruise
Tipperary Motor Speedway, April 19/20

22 cars were in attendance, though only 21 raced after a practice-collision with the wall for Anthony Butler. Winnie Holtmanns was the furthest travelled entry, other visitors being from the North: Stewart Doak, Keith Martin and Tommy Maxwell, and from England: Chris Haird and Stu Carter

Heat 1 grid:
761 996 961 921 467 74 994 967
923 369 200 970 115 420
Stewart Doak made pretty easy work of this one, a good battle behind him involving Tom Casey, Shane Murphy and Des Cooney. Orey Stanley was docked two places for excessive contact in a couple of instances.
Result: 996 961 970 921 761 74 967 994 923(X-2) 115 200 467 369 420 nof

Heat 2 grid:
967 115 970 200 925 87
142 151 57 925 85 777
An entertaining and controversial race, Tipperary-style. The race required a caution early on as Trevor Cusack clouted the home straight wall, and then did a lap of coating the already greasy track from the misty rain, with oil. Neville Stanley quickly showed a good mastery of the conditions, leading from start to chequers, but behind him was the story. Late on in the race, Haird was trying daring outside line passes on Mike Riordan, but came unstuck when they came upon a slowing Joey Butler. Haird was spat out and into the turn 3/4 wall, and a caution period ensued. With just over one lap remaining the race went green as apparently decided by the starter though not communicated via raceceiver to the drivers. The majority of the drivers were watching the flags and lights however, and Murphy and Mike Oliver swept past the 142 Tigra dropping Riordan from 2nd to 4th.
Result: 967 970 57 142 85 777 200 923 151 nof

Heat 3 grid:
777 85 925 57 151 142
420 994 74 467 921 961 761 87
This was stopped and completely restarted as Holtmanns and Eddie Wall collected the home straight wall. Both made the restart, and Holtmanns was quite the revelation of the race, holding down third position for the majority of the race until he too spun onto the infield. Conditions were well slippery by now, even though the drizzle wasn't heavy. Keith Martin put on a good show in the conditions to head the race almost from the start, Carter putting some serious pressure on him in the closing laps. Casey made good ground too, putting a pass on Cooney for third, Doak and Riordan battling away behind.
Result: 994 85 961 921 142 996 761 151 777 57 74 467 420 87 nof

Final grid:
970 996 967 994 761 777 151 200 420 369 925
961  85 921 142  57   74 923 467 115  87 179
Although Tom Casey won the Irish Grand Prix with relative ease, it might not have been the case had pole-sitter Shane Murphy not blown his diff just as the green flag dropped on the rolling lap. Tom took full advantage of the ensuing confusion to pull off into an unchallenged lead for the entire 40 laps, but there was plenty happening throughout the race to keep the spectators on the edge of their seats.

We lost Mike Oliver early in the day with a broken front left stub axle - irreplaceable at short notice apparently - although Anthony Butler made the grid for the first time of the weekend. The tie for pole position had been resolved in Shane's favour after he and Eileen Casey tossed a coin, and we were all expecting a cracking tussle. Alas the Murphy diff ate itself and Tom took a comfortable victory from Des Cooney, who, with third placed Stuart Carter, gave those of us who enjoy "proper" Hot Rod racing, cause for optimism. Carter held the advantage for much of the race, Cooney regularly having looks at the outside of the 85 Tigra. Eventually he went for it and after several laps on the edge, he made the pass stick.

Behind them, Stewart Doak and Mike Riordan had been having a similarly exciting race, the Riordan Tigra eventually calling it quits with no brakes left. Keith Martin and Chris Haird completed the top 6, Haird particularly impressive given his lowly grid position after a disappointing qualifying session Saturday.

Neville Stanley had been in the mix too up to the halfway point, when the crank broke and his engine was left in many small parts on and around the raceway. Some shenanigans involving James O'Shea and Orey Stanley saw the steward exercise his black cross in the direction of car 74.

Irish GP official result:
961 921 85 996 994 115 151 200 761 467 925 179 87 420 923

The meeting final is best left unmentioned, managing to disappoint those of us who appreciate Hot Rod racing. You can't have it twice in one day I suppose....
Meeting final: 151 74 200 777 925 179 87


2007 NHRPA European Championship
Boardley adds another
Tipperary Motor Speedway, October 13/14

Graham Brown reports:  Carl Boardley added the European championship to his world title at Tipperary, with Chris Haird again having to settle for second after a typically hard fought Rosegreen encounter.

Although minus a few Ulster based cars (due to Darren McKinstry’s pis…erm, stag night), there were still more than enough cars for this, the last major championship of the year.

35 of them in all, which at a quick round up, I reckon to be made up of 14 ROI drivers, 12 from England, 6 NI, and one each from Scotland, Wales and Germany. In the ‘notes for anoraks’ dept., James ‘O Shea was out in his superbly presented not-very-ex-Julian Arnold Fiesta, the one seen as # 33 at the NEC early this year, although Arnie never actually raced it.

With all due respect to James however, the entry which brought a glint to the eye of a few fans, was Colin White, now armed with an ex-Jamieson Tigra. Very smart it looked too, in traditional 718 turquoise with pink numbers, even if it did seem to be missing a little black paint. No matter: those who have been waiting to see if Colin’s less than stunning performances of late have simply been due to the lack of a decent ride were about to have their questions answered.

The car is, incidentally, the later of JJ’s two Tigra’s (and please don’t complicate matters by pointing out that there’s three of them, you know what I mean), the one James never really cared for that had the orange prismatic lettering on the rear quarters.

Colin christened his new toy by whelping the wall in practice and busting all sorts in the front end, but by then, he’d already been going fast enough to prove that the three time world champion is definitely still a force to be reckoned with.

Everyone else was driving pretty much what you’d expect, and with the draw done, the field was split into four groups, with each driver racing in two of the four heats.

Heat one had a couple of false starts, when we all discovered that the traffic lights at the rostrum weren’t working in harmony with the starter. During one of these, Barry English pulled off the track, not to be seen again until Sunday.

Eventually, the race got underway for keeps, with Mike Riordan leading a powerful local trio comprising himself, Shane Murphy and Tom Casey. After a few laps, Chris Haird became the only UK driver to threaten them when he managed to get on terms, but by this stage Riordan and Murphy were starting to stretch their legs.

As the lead pair got steadily further clear and nearing the finish, the battle for third intensified, with Stuart Carter getting in on the act too. After a bit of physical in the dying seconds, it was Carter who came through to collect third spot, only to get docked a couple of places for his manner of passing Haird and Casey, handing third and fourth back to them.

Dick Hillard and Brendan O’Connell quickly established themselves in the premier places in heat two but with Carl Boardley rapidly carving through the pack to come after them. But when Boardley went spinning on the pit bend and got collected by Jay Austin, yellow and then red flags came out.

Under normal circumstances, a yellow flag caution would have been all that was necessary for this situation. Only when it soon became apparent that there was going to be no way of determining the running order of the placemen from about 8th backwards, due to the closeness of the racing back there, was the subsequent decision made to go red. This is no reflection on the lap scorers, who, with the best will in the world, were always going to be caught 'on the hop' by this incident. With no transponder system yet in operation at Tipp either, there was little option but to take the restart in lap sheet order from the last recorded (note that I didn't say completed) lap, with all cars back in their positions at that time.

Of course, everybody was always going to say that Boardley was very lucky indeed that things turned out the way they did. With computerised scoring to rely on, and whether he was deemed to be the cause of the stoppage or not (he wasn't incidentally, Austin was), Carl would have had to restart a lap down. Naturally, Jay  benefited from this situation too, but I notice nobody was talking about him restarting seventh - odd that!

I believe it was Richard Petty who once said, "If I could be lucky or good, I'd rather be lucky". On this occasion, the world champion was both.

So Boardley was certainly fortunate that the restart enabled both he and Austin to go back to their previously held places. But he was still going to have to prove that his car hadn’t suffered any ill effects from the incident, and pass the ones still starting ahead of him.

He wasted no time overhauling O’Connell to get up with Hillard, Dick giving Carl a good run for his money, as the pair raced side by side for a couple of laps. Boardley eventually made his outside pass stick as they crossed the start line, carrying on to notch up his first win.

Meanwhile….

…as the cars took the restart, Blackman got the jump on White to snatch eighth place, with White chasing him hard immediately that happened and probably not happy about being caught napping. Colin's car was absolutely flying and looked quicker both into and out of the corners than almost anyone. He piled the pressure on Blackman until finally a muffed inside pass saw the 911 car go spinning and White collect a black cross for it. This was eventually going to see 718 dropped two places in the final analysis.

After the finish, O'Shea protested that he had been in front of Stewart Doak up until the time of the stoppage, but that the race order for the restart was incorrect as Doak was started ahead of him. As the drivers ran to the finish in the exact same order, the steward decreed that the only reason Doak finished ahead of O'Shea, was that the line up had been incorrect, and reversed their finishing positions.

All of which added up to one of 'those' races, pretty messy all around and not the way I like things to run at all. Our good friend Darren Black recently remarked of an event, "everything that could [go wrong] seemed to go wrong". Believe me, I know just what he means.

By contrast, heat three was undoubtedly the race of the night. Mike Oliver got away fast and first to set up an exciting four way dice between his aging (but still quick) Peugeot 205, Malcolm Clein’s 206cc, White’s new Tigra and Boardley’s similar car.

White got his flame spitting car up to second and then tried for the outside pass on Oliver while Boardley battled to pass Clein. Then White and Boardley swapped places a couple of times before Carl finally managed to get up the outside of Oliver and away.

White was forced back to fourth, but had still recovered to second by the finish, eloquently demonstrating the pace of his new mount, while if Boardley had enjoyed an "easy" win first time out, this one certainly made up for it!

The final qualifier was marred by an early pile up after Simon Bentley lost an oil line going into turn one, a number of cars crashing into either him or each other, including Andy Steward, who required medical attention as a result. Fortunately Andy was basically only winded, but it was all enough to keep him out of Sunday's race. Des Cooney, who was right in the middle of this lot, also took a heckuvalot of damage.

At first, Bentley was not aware of what had happened, but he certainly was by the time he'd driven round to the pit gate. As the line had first parted company just after the start/finish, this meant there was now copious quantities of oil virtually all round the track, necessitating a lengthy cement dusting operation.

The restarted race saw Andy Holtby making all the running, hotly pursued by John Christie, once he’d impressively managed to leave Blackman behind in third.

Christie tried very hard indeed to wrest the lead away from Holtby – including one highly ambitious outside swoop through turns one and two, but in the end wasn’t quite able to make the pass.

Boardley (pole) and Haird shared the front row of the grid for the 50-lap final, and ultimately the race was going to be all about these two. But first, they had to shake off the attentions of row two starters Casey and Riordan, the four of them haring around together for a number of laps.

Others were not going so far or so fast, however. Tommy Maxwell had a spin coming up to take the green flag, Ronnie McKenzie headed for the infield almost immediately, then Shane Brereton was out before Winnie Holtmanns had a spin and then retired. Eddie Wall had an 'off' and Orey Stanley also pulled out.

None of which bothered the front runners of course. Eventually, the gap between the first two and third and fourth grew inexorably wider and the race settled down to Boardley versus Haird, Casey versus Riordan, with all four pursued by Doak.

Haird never gave the leader a moments peace and when they encountered the inevitable traffic (33 cars started), Chris piled the pressure on in an attempt to reverse the world final result, even looking up the outside at one point. Carl never put a foot wrong though, and they'd just got back into clear air when the yellows were waving, O'Shea having come to a halt in mid-track.

Just prior to this, Blackman had sent White spinning out of ninth place, an incident which was going to have consequences later.

Following the restart, little had changed for the front runners, with the lead pair still able to go immediately clear. But now Haird definitely looked the quicker of the two and, as the laps counted down, was pressing harder than ever. With less than four laps to go, they came upon a backmarker, and Haird so nearly unseated the leader with a dive up the inside. But Boardley just about had the situation covered, only to find the yellows waving once more for a spun and stalled car.

The sprint finish turned out to even more of a sprint than anyone had bargained for as, following the caution, there was only just about time for the green to be shown before the chequered. Obviously, the scorers had been counting the laps run under yellow - certainly not illegal, I even checked the rule book - just not quite what we were expecting.

Whether another couple of green flag laps would have made any difference, we'll never know, but I daresay Chris Haird would like to have found out! As it was, Boardley beat Haird into second in a major championship again, but you now have that inescapable feeling that it is only a matter of time before Chris wins a biggie.

Casey always managed to keep ahead of Riordan in their fight for third, with Doak and Clein next up as they had been for most of the race.

The White-Blackman feud carried on after the race and ended with the 718 car well and truly planted in the wall by the pit end, the ramifications of this meaning that both drivers are barred from taking any part in world qualifying action for the rest of the year.

As has become traditional, the Davy Evans Memorial race saw the grid lined up in reverse order to the European, thus giving those who haven't done so well out of the meeting up to this point, a chance to shine.

Things didn't start ever so well, with English spinning out of turn two on lap one, a very bad time for that, with the still tightly bunched pack close behind. He was hit hard by Holtmanns and Shane Murphy, with Brereton also out of the restart.

Simon Bentley made a great start but not great enough to carry him past Richard Spavins, who assumed an immediate lead. 'Dodgy' stayed in front despite Bentley clamouring for a way past all the way, these two having left Joey Butler a quarter of a lap adrift.

The steward wasn't keen on Spavins' line however, and after numerous warnings about this over the Raceceiver, he finally allowed Bentley past up the inside three laps from home.  Graham Brown

Results
Heat one: 142,970,115,961,85(-2),994,369,348,923,59,962,57,151,198,420,187.
Heat two: 41,31,761,74,996,921,985,427,718(-2),777,992,61,3,911,467,943,87.
Heat three: 41,718,985,961,996,369,348,31,467,427,57,87.
Heat four: 61,962,911,967,115,85,992,74,142,761,930,151.
European championship: 41,115,961,142,996,985,61,962,911,970,718,85,31,                          151,967,427,777,467,87.
Davy Evans Memorial: 59,3,151,142,74,923,985,962,992,31,761,777.


Motorfest 2007
The Butler did it!
Rockingham Motor Speedway, September 15/16

Graham Brown reports:  Joey Butler emerged as the surprise winner when the National Hot Rods took part in Rockingham's Motorfest 07 event, the Irishman doing some sterling work to fight off stiff challenges from Matt Simpson and Carl Boardley.

28 cars eventually made up the entry for the two-dayer, an entry which certainly had a real cosmopolitan feel to it. Simpson, Boardley, Stu Carter, Carlos Perez, Chris Haird, Gavin Murray, Richard Spavins, Colin Gomm, Neil Stimson, Andy Holtby, David Brooks, Dick Hillard and Steve Burgess represented the 'English' element of field. They were joined for the first time in a long time by Shane Brereton who, like Boardley, was doubling up with his SCSA racing. Shane was in the Corrado he used when he was last racing Nationals, but superbly turned out in new livery which rendered it looking much like his big stock car.

There was a touch of Scottish representation, in the shape of Robbie Burgoyne (in the ex-Alan Conroy Mini) and Ronnie McKenzie, although Ronnie is of course a registered English racer.

Mark Heatrick, Wayne Woolsey and Davy McKay were the NI visitors, while ROI were out in force with Butler being joined by Les Compelli, Tom Casey, James O'Shea and Neville and Orey Stanley.

The continentals, perhaps spurred on by the impressive showing from John vd Bosch last year, were showing more interest this time around, with John being joined by Wolfgang Pawlaczyk (#8) in a 206 and Laurens vd Velde, his smart lhd Tigra carrying #75.

The cars were allowed to come to the grid for their first race in any  order, with whatever grid they came up with being reversed for the second heat.

Burgoyne had pole for the first outing, but his car staggered off the grid at the green and was very slow away indeed, suggesting it might have been in the wrong gear. His failure to re-appear further suggested that whatever was wrong, it was terminal, although he did make it to the finish.

It was Butler who leapt away at the off, with Simpson - the defending champ - and Haird immediately disputing second. McKay had a spin and Boardley, left with nowhere to go, ran into him, the incident putting paid to both men's races on the spot.

Haird got the best of his dice with Simpson to set about Butler, but they hadn't managed to drop Simpson and once they were joined by vd Bosch, these four drew clear, still engaged in a right old battle. Haird got past Butler going through turns one/two, only to have Joey hare past again coming onto the back straight, Simpson getting towed along into second.

Next time around, it was Simpson who zipped to the front as they left turn two, and immediately began to pull out a bit of an edge. Haird again put himself in front of Butler, only to find Joey going quicker in a straight line.

By this point, Holtby and Hillard were already parked on turns three and four respectively, and they weren't the only ones in trouble either, as Haird was forced to let vd Bosch, Heatrick and Casey all past before pulling out.

Coming into the last couple of laps, Simpson and Butler were well established in the premier places, leaving Heatrick third ahead of vd Bosch and Casey, although Tom found a way past vd Bosch along the home straight with two to go.

Colin Gomm looked to have sixth wrapped up as the chequers neared, only to have his gearbox break almost in sight of the flag, the Colt coasting to the finish and managing to eventually drift across the line plus a couple of feet, but minus eleven places!

Vd Velde shot away from pole to lead heat two, with a repaired Boardley making an even better getaway to charge through from the third row to second place on lap one. It wasn't long before Boardley had the lead down in turns one/two but nobody else was in a position to tackle the Dutchman, who was giving every bit as good an account of himself as vd Bosch last year.

As Brereton fell by the wayside, Simpson was storming through the pack after starting well back.

Holtby and Spavins collided with each other and the wall exiting turn four, while another going in the right direction was Casey, who'd overtaken Heatrick shortly before the latter's retirement, and then Woolsey.

Nearing the finish, Brooks - running third - inched his way up to vd Velde to mount a real challenge for second spot. As Stimson departed the scene on the last lap in an ominous cloud of smoke, vd Velde and Brooks fought tooth and nail over second, with the Dutchman just getting there first and Brooks similarly just managing to stay ahead of the very fast finishing Casey.

The two races had clearly taken their toll on the machinery and no less than 8 cars had vanished from the field by Sunday morning. As for the remainder, Simpson was looking good for a repeat win, having bagged pole from Casey. But row two certainly raised a few eyebrows, with Butler and vd Velde's solid performances having put the pair rather further forward than maybe anyone was expecting. John vd Bosch hadn't been idle either, and was sharing the third rank with Brooks.

So: not much to choose between the pace of Simpson and Casey. Laurens vd Velde - highly experienced on the old kilometre track at Baarlo and undoubtedly quick, but had he shown us everything he could do? And then there was Boardley. That non-finish had hurt alright, but he still wasn't far enough back to be considered out of it. Nobody was talking about Joey Butler….

As they charged turn one, Casey was the first to show as Brooks went sliding sideways into the corner and a smoky spin. But as they exited the bend, it was Butler who had the lead, with Simpson, vd Velde, Gomm and Boardley strung out behind, many of the others having been delayed by the first bend incident - notably Casey.

Boardley went past Gomm, as Simpson got up with the leader and piled on the pressure, Butler countering a near pass on the back straight with a bit of blocking. With Joey's car clearly getting very loose under acceleration out of turn four, it looked to be only a matter of time before one of Simpson's blasts up the outside of the home straight was going to succeed.

But, every time Matt got alongside, his car seemed to run out of breath. At first it simply looked like he was just being a trifle cautious, but gradually it dawned that the Tigra simply hadn't got anything else to give. In fact it had developed a misfire and as the two duelled for the lead, Boardley - now ahead of vd Velde - was catching up fast.

Suddenly the 303 car was coasting with the engine off. Butler didn't have long to enjoy the respite however, as Boardley soon replaced Simpson in the tormentor role. With six laps remaining the win was still very much in doubt.

Butler and Boardley were a very long way clear by now, so the rest were left to argue about third. Gomm was looking good for it, having passed vd Velde as well, the Dutchman's pace seeming to fade the longer the race went on. Casey was next to take advantage of this.

Something of a stalemate had developed up front, where Carl kept diving down the inside going into turn one, only to put himself on the wrong line, meaning that Joey was always back in front at the exit. As Butler seemed perfectly capable of staying ahead around the rest of the track, it was becoming hard to see how matters were going to be resolved in Boardley's favour. He must have known it too and tried a different tactic on the last lap, sweeping far to the left going into turn three before cutting back to the inside at the last second, only just failing to get ahead at the line.

Gomm held onto third at the death, just ahead of the fast finishing Andy Holtby, who'd extracted an excellent result considering he'd started almost last on the grid. Vd Velde was still impressive in fifth with Casey's clearly ailing car limping home sixth.

Butler's superb drive had put him into the King of the Rock final, which was going to be run on Rockingham's 'National' circuit, apparently the track used by the BTCC recently. A somewhat serpentine affair, the track utilises the outer oval's home straight before cutting off just after turn one and onto the 'infield', where it snakes back and forth, finally coming up the straightaway we'd been using to line up the dummy grids all weekend. It rejoins the outer oval at the exit from turn four and back to the start finish.

The cars used were ten identical enduro racing VW Beetles, although they are actually as much a VW Beetle as a NHR Tigra is really a Tigra. They have spaceframe chassis and a mid-mounted 1800 Audi engine developing around 130 bhp, with the inline transmission driving the back wheels.

Clearly there was going to be no repeat of last year's farcical propshaft throwing contest. Unfortunately, excitement was never going to be the event's strong point either. The ingredients were all there, but the cars looked a little breathless whenever they got onto the outer oval, the only place where they could be properly seen most of the time.

Colin White was well and truly in charge almost all the way, and had pulled out was undoubtedly going to be a winning advantage, when a spurious late race caution period lost it all for him. Superstox racer Jason Cooper - who'd previously dropped back a way after an earlier spin - made a better fist of the restart. With time rapidly running out, Colin couldn't quite get back up with him, although he had a darn good go at it going into the final bend.

I would have said Colin was robbed, but it later transpired that the drivers had agreed to share the ten grand between themselves whatever happened. This means that Joey Butler, who finished a distant 9th, should still have gone off with £2,000 in prize money, not a bad weekend's work at all, no sir. Graham Brown

Results
Heat one: 303,151,961,960,c6,50,967,67,c75,3,85,95,777,c8,278,286,74,900
Heat two: 41,c75,67,961,303,151,3,278,c6,943,286,31,74,777,960
Final: 151,41,278,61,c75,961,348,c6,286,31,3,943,95,67,923,74


2007 NHRPA National Championship
Blackman’s first National
Hednesford Hills Raceway, Saturday/Sunday 4th/5th August

Graham Brown reports: Malcolm Blackman successfully fended off the challenge from Carl Boardley to take his first ever National championship victory, the two fighting for the lead throughout the 75-lap classic.

The big entry from all over the UK and Ireland certainly needed the six heats scheduled for Saturday - in fact – exactly as we said last year, even the eight heats once seen at the Nats might not have gone amiss.

Although the car count was very slightly restricted this year, by the fact that Incarace were forced to close the entry some days prior to the event due to lack of pit space, the number of cars available was still testimony to the relatively healthy current state of National Hot Rod racing generally.

And this was despite a degree of unrest presently within the driving strength, mostly with regard to rumours surrounding the numbers of cars which might be on track at any given time in the coming (English) qualifying rounds. Mark you, this was nothing compared to the reaction in the pits when problems arose with regard to the tyre marking procedure in scrutineering.

This all started because one member of the scrutineering team had not been briefed about what exactly constitutes an “old” tyre. This does not simply mean “looks like it’s been used”, but actually, “must have a scrutineering mark on it from a previous meeting”. It was as simple as that. Well, almost. Of course, the teams know perfectly well what “old” means here, so how come some of them showed up at scrutineering with tyres which had been used or scrubbed in practice but never marked, hmmm? But like dropping a pebble in a pond, it is not necessarily the initial mistake or splash that is impressive, but the way the ripples spread out from it.

I’m certainly not in the business of apportioning blame here, nor am I really interested in making anybody’s excuses for them. There was a time (long, long ago) when I would be sat on the terraces, and always expected the bad guys to get what was coming, the good guys to win, that nobody cheated, and the steward always saw everything that went on. In other words, everything was either black or white and shades of grey were for other people.

I’d probably been ingesting too much of a certain substance (naughty, I’m talking about Castrol ‘R’, what did you think I meant!?) and was still walking around with an unhealthy dose of 1960’s naivety.

Sadly, out here in the real world I’ve discovered things do go wrong, life isn’t always fair, people sometimes make mistakes and there’s no Father Christmas.

Any promotion faced with a huge weekend meeting, involving hundreds of drivers and pit crews, and multiple different formulas, is under immense pressure. And unless you’ve ever tried it from the inside, you don’t have an opinion, sorry. There are rarely enough staff with the right skills anyway, and when tired and pressured people are trying to multi-task at a meeting like that, sometimes somebody mis-cues. Sh*t happens. Get over it.

What we should all be remembering, is that Incarace gave us two sun-filled days of great racing, including eight National races, one of which was the best National championship I’ve seen in a wee while.

Just as last year, the pits had a very cosmopolitan feel, as there were no less than 24(!) Irish cars on hand, an even twelve each from the North and the Republic. This was a tremendous effort from all concerned and proves just how popular this event has become. In fact, the visitors actually outnumbered the ‘home team’, even with two Scots included, but this still all added up to a mighty impressive 45 cars in total, one more than last year even with the early closure on entries. There could still have been more too, with one driver missing the booking deadline, Simon Bentley forced to cancel and Eddie Foott failing to arrive. Andy Holtby had his car sat in the pits ‘just in case’, but in the end was simply too busy having a baby to actually race. Well alright, not actually him, but you know what I mean!

What with all the if’s, but’s and maybe’s who in the end didn’t race, there will one day be over 50 cars show up for this, if the entry remains un-capped. Do you think if we got a large enough Portapower on those pits…..

Heat one saw Chris Haird out in the lead by the third lap, with Matt Simpson chasing him once he too had overhauled Gavin Murray. Shane Murphy and Keith Martin were the next to come upon Murray, but Martin went very deep into the West bend and Murphy got black crossed for shoving him out there, before he too went by Murray. Martin pulled off with a flat, while Boardley got up with Murphy, spurring him on to catch Simpson in the closing stages.

With two to go Haird looked like he had it sewn up, and there was still all to play for regarding second, but at the flag it was still Simpson from Murphy and Boardley. Although Shane was originally docked a couple places, mostly for the ‘incident’ with Martin, he got the penalty overturned on a protest, not least because it transpired Keith’s ‘moment’ and subsequent retirement had been caused by a separating split rim and rapidly deflating tyre.

After an early dice between Ivan McMillan and John Christie ended in tears, it was Phil Spinks who darted through to take the lead in heat two. McMillan and Christie both lost huge amounts of ground after their collision, and it was Stewart Doak and Steve Thompson who gave chase to the leader. Orey Stanley was giving a good account of himself in fourth spot, but without doubt the fastest thing on the track was the 911 car, Blackman making huge strides in the right direction from his back-of-the-grid start.

Stanley’s car had been smoking for a while, but when it suddenly worsened, he was black flagged off. That left Ian Thompson in fourth with Blackman fifth and still looking for better. Approaching the finish, Steve Thompson made a big effort to get up with Doak and finally managed to snitch second at the line from a virtual dead heat. Spinks was a quarter of a lap ahead of them by then, while Ian Thompson successfully parried Blackman’s attentions for fourth.

Heat three saw Gary Woolsey make the break at the green, but soon had his mirrors full of Mike Riordan as the pair left Ronnie McMillan, Keith Martin and Doak trailing. Nothing much changed about this mob for most of the race, other than that Woolsey and Riordan continued to get further ahead of McMillan. By the time the five lap board came out, Martin and Doak had both made it past, with Haird also having relegated Ronnie a further position. Riordan had obviously been gathering himself for one big final effort and came back at Woolsey hard on the run in to the flag, all to no avail however. Over a quarter of a lap back Martin claimed third, he in turn another quarter of a lap in front of Doak.

The fourth heat was going to be Blackman’s almost all the way. He swiftly relieved Alan Wilson of his early lead and then got going in earnest. Malcolm might just have been a little surprised to find that the one member of the pack he couldn’t easily shake off, was Joey Butler, the Southern Irishman staying totally in touch for quite a time.

But it was to be another ROI driver who eventually caught and passed Butler, Murphy having worked his way through from tenth place on the grid in some style. Shane went on to record a telling second spot, only a very short way behind Blackman by the finish. Butler still did alright out of this with third, even if he was nearly half a lap adrift of Murphy by then. Also going well was fourth man Mark McKinstry who got home still ahead of Boardley.

Heat five developed into a tooth-and-nail scrap between Andy Steward and Boardley, but only after Carl had survived a pointed attack from Ian Thompson, who had tried to go by down the outside in an opportunistic move during the opening laps. The world champion soon put a stop to that, but still had to fight his way past the once again impressive Tommy Maxwell before he could square up to Steward.

Boardley had time to try several outside passes – all frustrated – before Colin Smith battled his way into third and began closing on the leaders. Then Richard Spavins took a spin coming off the West bend and got hit hard by Les Compelli, bringing out the yellows. Thompson had also had a spin earlier, and found himself positioned between Boardley and Smith as a back marker for the restart. This situation didn’t do Smith any favours, and even once he’d got shot of Thompson, Colin found himself under the cosh from a different direction, as Phil Spinks put pressure on from behind.

Steward managed to successfully defend his lead to the death, a death which came slightly early as the chequered and red flags came out together, James O’Shea’s car having caught fire while parked on the infield. And although it may not have been an especially spectacular drive, the fact that Murphy was running fifth at the time turned out to be crucial in the final analysis.

With the front row all to himself, Tom Casey looked odds on for the win in the final heat, and it was he who duly led the way at the off. But he had determined looking company in the shape of Malcolm Clein and Neil Stimson. Clein got through into the lead as well, with two laps gone, Stimson going past Tom as well. Casey didn’t look like he was beaten though, and soon re-passed Stimson on the inside of the West bend, and them did the same to Clein along the back stretch.

Once back in front Casey got busy pulling clear, leaving a heck of a battle going on in his wake, as Clein now led a right old who’s who of Stimson, Barry English, Riordan, Blackman, Steve Thompson and Gary Woolsey. English was the one gradually being forced backwards in this dispute, but not much else changed about the positions of the various combatants by the end. Casey had a large gap between himself and Clein, who also had a reasonable buffer zone, but there was still an eight car train going hard at for third all the way to the finish!

Coincidentally, it was Casey who won the final heat last year too.

As we said earlier, Murphy’s fifth place in his last heat was fairly important, as it clinched pole position for him – a darn good result in this fairly exalted company, with Blackman alongside him, Boardley inside row two, followed by Doak, Spinks, Haird, Riordan, Casey….well, almost every top driver in NHR today ranged out behind.

The Grid Outside Inside 911 970 996 41 115 14 961 142 985 303 940 198 170 271 944 967 491 151 921 31 286 994 901 984 85 21 427 95 844 629 962 777

With Murphy on pole, a first major championship looked like a distinct possibility for the young Irishman. But as they came down for the green it was outside front row man Blackman who got the jump with Boardley storming through in his wake. Currently the ‘big two’ of National Hot Rod racing, they were soon putting a gap between themselves and the rest, setting the pattern for the rest of the race.

Murphy in fact, looked a little at sea in the early laps, losing out to Doak and Haird as well before coming under pressure from Spinks, Casey, Riordan and Simpson. The number of the pole sitter’s tormentors was reduced by one when Spinks went spinning on the West bend exit. Although everybody avoided the stricken black Tigra, a yellow wasn’t much longer in coming for an incident at the same spot, when English and Dick Hillard had a coming together and then got hit by Jay Austin.

Although this allowed the field to close right up, when they went back to racing, the Blackman-Boardley express was soon roaring away again. The Doak/Haird/Murphy dice over third was just about managing to keep the lead pair in sight, but as the first five drew steadily further clear of the rest, it became obvious that barring some catastrophe befalling all the front runners, everyone else was going to be arguing over the minor places at best.

Casey did look as though he was making progress at one point as he followed Murphy past Haird, but Tom was out of it soon afterwards. The list of retirements was growing rapidly now, as Martin, Ronnie McMillan, Steward and Stimson all retired within a few laps of one another.

But, with rarely more than a car length between them, the battle for the lead continued unabated and, once they’d gradually left the rest behind to the tune of over a quarter of a lap, Boardley got really serious about trying to wrest the lead from Blackman’s grasp. His pressure was telling too, as Blackman had a huge moment exiting the East bend. Boardley instantly went for the outside pass, Blackman somehow gathered it up enough to get that covered, Boardley switched back to the inside and was all but through before Malcolm managed to block that line of attack too.

Blackman thus managed to cling onto what seemed to be becoming an increasingly precarious lead, and Boardley, sensing the fact, piled the pressure on even more.

Anybody who could spare the time to glance at ‘the rest’ would have found they were still well worth watching, with an eight car dice for third going on at one point! By mid-distance, they were almost half a lap adrift, with Doak still fighting off the combined thrust from Haird, Riordan, Murphy, Simpson, Steve Thompson and Clein.  Doak was now continuing to hang on despite trailing smoke from the right front of his car. No doubt the rest were plotting moves for when his brakes finally gave out, but in fact this was nothing more serious than hot grease leaking from an over packed wheel bearing.

Up front Boardley was still repeatedly trying for the outside pass, although one sensed a kind of stalemate had developed between the two when they were open road.

Again, those who could tear their eyes off the two leaders would have been rewarded with some action, as the third place war broke up just a little when Riordan went spinning on the West bend. Clein smacked into the barriers as he tried to avoid the resulting melee, and Haird attracted a dubious black flag for causing it all, the penalty later overturned on a protest.

Back with the leaders, every approaching knot of traffic saw Boardley close right in on Blackman ready to pounce. With 25 laps to run, Carl got on the outside trip and stayed out there for a couple of laps, still without quite being able to make it stick.

Finally, with the two of them over three quarters of lap ahead of the placemen, it became clear they were going to come up behind the fight for third. This too was still raging going into the closing stages and it certainly didn’t look as though any of them were going to step aside for the leaders, blue flag or no blue flag.

Boardley upped the ante by once again trying it up the outside as they were rapidly reaching the point where they would forced to try and put all those dicing placemen a lap down. Woolsey stepped politely aside to let the leaders go haring past, but was anyone else going to? Still not very likely.

In the end, Blackman knew that as well as anybody, and managed to both slow the pace enough that he didn’t actually have to lap the other cars, while at same time ensuring Boardley didn’t get past. This was a delicate balancing act and it was a very close run thing for Malcolm, as Carl got completely alongside with three to go, and again a lap later, when the two rubbed panels furiously on the back straight.

At the line however, it was still Blackman from Boardley, with Doak’s smoky car still third just a little less than a lap down. Steve Thompson, Simpson, Murphy (his car smoking from the right rear towards the end, probably a wheel bearing) and Carter – the last car on the lead lap – followed them home.

It was clear Blackman and Boardley had greatly enjoyed their tense race, as the pair were all smiles when they climbed from the cars. Carl probably summed it up best when he cheerfully remarked to Malcolm, “I got the one I wanted - now you’ve got the one you wanted!”

A discrete veil is probably best drawn over the Grand National, the meeting final, which was frankly, one of “those races". Leaving aside all the bashing and crashing that went on – which somehow only resulted in one major race-stopping shunt – Stimson steered a path through it all to claim another final win, this time from nowhere near the front of the grid. But some of the others were left with rather a lot of work to do before the next time any of their cars grace an oval track, on either side of the Irish Sea.  Graham Brown
Results
Heat one: 115,303,970,41,985,85,95,961,31,271,940,142,491,151,369
Heat two: 14,170,996,901,911,921,198,967,944,844,963,777,629,420,179
Heat three: 940,142,994,996,115,303,944,271,961,14,198,985,777,74,54
Heat four: 911,970,151,21,41,967,984,31,923,427,921,491,962,286,963
Heat five: 198,41,491,14,970,996,944,286,151,629,31,427,95,901
Heat six: 961,985,271,142,911,170,940,967,984,303,115,962,994,85,921
National Championship: 911,41,996,170,303,970,85,940,151,962,491,921,21,967,629,95,844
Grand National: 271,984,142,286,31,923,777,179,967,420


National Hot Rod 2007 British Open Championship
Nuttscorner Oval, Sunday 22nd July

Darren Black reports:  Stewart Doak was crowned British Open Champion at Nuttscorner Oval when he powered his still-new Tigra to victory in the 50 lap showdown. Gary Woolsey and Malcolm Blackman had earlier claimed the heat wins, although Doak’s brace of third places saw him start the big race from pole position.

After the previous days racing at Ballymena, there were only 16 cars on hand for the British. It could have been more, with a further three in the pits failing to grid for any races at all. Matt Simpson had dropped a valve in practice, Les Compelli was suffering engines woes too, whilst Ronnie McMillan tried his car in practice, but his knee injury was still just too painful to consider any serious racing.

Gary Woolsey had notably swapped his Tigra for the Corsa overnight, and the visiting contingent included Malcolm Blackman, Chris Haird, Stu Carter, Dick Hillard, Neville Stanley and Mike Riordan.

Heat One
940  994 996  31  946  369 85   967
962  960 115  142 943  911 980  21
Woolsey wasted no time taking up the lead in heat one from pole, but fellow front row sitter John Christie wasn’t so fortunate, as he got caught on the outside line for quite some time before getting back into the train. Newly crowned Irish Open Champion Keith Martin had settled into second, with Doak close at hand in third.

Blackman was making strides towards the front from his lowly start position, but everyone was then brought up short by a waved yellow flag period when Ivan McMillan and Dick Hillard (feeling much better after his Saturday illness) clashed exiting turn four. Woolsey made good his escape on the resumption of the race, coming home for the win ahead of Martin, Doak, Christie, Republic of Ireland visitor Mike Riordan and Blackman.
Result: 940 Gary Woolsey, 994, 996, 962, 142, 911, 115, 967, 960, 85, 369, 31, 980.

Heat Two
21 -    911  -     142 115  960 962  980
967  85  369 946  31  996 994  940
Mark McKinstry stepped off pole for the early lead in heat two, before the reds got an airing on lap 2 when Blackman and Stu Carter clashed entering turn one, and were then joined by Tommy Maxwell before the whole field seemed to get involved entering the back straight, with cars heading off in all directions. Fortunately only Maxwell and Neville Stanley would fail to make the re-run.

McKinstry was again first to show at the second time of asking, but Blackman soon slipped underneath for the lead, and was soon followed by the rapid looking Riordan, although Mike did pick up a black cross in the process. Doak was again making real progress, with the Tigra really looking the part, and he easily took Chris Haird to go third nearing the end. Blackman came home to the chequers ahead of Riordan, who went un-penalised, Doak, Haird and McKinstry, whilst further back Christie somehow got underneath Martin on the last lap for eighth spot.
Result: 911 Malcolm Blackman, 142, 996, 115, 21, 946, 940, 962, 994, 960, 31, 980.

Final
996  142 994  962 31   21    946
911  940 115  960 980  967 369
Two third places had gained Doak pole for the 50-lap title race, with Blackman alongside and Riordan and Woolsey behind. The start was always going to be important, and Doak got it bang on to lead them away. Blackman couldn’t find a gap at all, and struggled to get back in, with Gary Woolsey also losing out big style too. Riordan was now second, and was putting up a serious bid for Doak’s lead. Having tracked Stewart for a while, he then looked outside of the similar Cirrus Plastics car. It was almost as if Mike had forgotten about those behind, as in an instant he was back to fifth and the train dropped underneath him.

Doak was now beginning to edge clear once again; with mechanical gremlins the only thing that looked like depriving him of a famous victory. Riordan was starting to make moves towards the front again, although he collected a black cross as he bumped his way under Christie in turn three. Martin then had damper problems, and he fell right off the pace as Doak took the chequered flag and a major title on just the second serious weekend of competition for the Tigra. Stewart says there is more to come from his new machine too! Blackman was a very gallant runner-up, whilst third across the line Riordan was docked two places to fifth. This allowed Christie to add third in the British Open to his third in the World, with Martin inheriting fourth. Behind Riordan, Gary Woolsey, Ivan McMillan, Mark Heatrick and Neville Stanley completed the runners.
Result: 996 Stewart Doak, 911, 962, 994, 142, 940, 946, 960, 967.  Darren Black

National Hot Rod 2007 Irish Open Championship
Ballymena Raceway, Saturday 21st July
Heat 1:
32   21   994  50  911  85  777  944 369
943  980 962  77  115  198 967
Result:  994 21 50 962  77  198 911  85  115 943
Heat 2:
  -    940 996  303 904  976 946  960
369  777 85   911  50    994 21   32
Result:  940 996  303 911  50  994 904  976
Heat 3:
944  967 198  115 77   962  980 943
960  946 976  904 303  996 940
Result:  944 967  960 976  115 303  77  962 940  904
Final: the Irish Open 2007:
994  303 21   944  976 996  967 904  946 980  369
50   940 911  77    962 115  960 85   943  32
Winner & 2007 Irish Champion:  994 Keith Martin
2nd 940, 3rd 911, 4th 303, 5th 996, 6th 21, 7th 962, 8th 85, 9th 946, 10th 115
30th Anniversary Trophy Race (reverse of Irish grid)
369  946 904  967 77   303
32   85    960 9521 21 943
Result:  962 946  303 21 85 967.
Results & grids as noted trackside and not confirmed.

INTERNATIONAL REPORTS ARCHIVE

Back to HOME