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 
  Photos in the GALLERY

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
Photos by Martin Kingston in the GALLERY
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

* See NHRPA page, (NEW 25/02/08* 2008 NHRPA RULE AMENDMENTS)

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