Crashnet > Reports Index > PRI 1998 Index > Meeting 98/11

Meeting No. 11, Sunday, 10th. May, 1998 Pedal Bangers National Bangers Rising Stars Series BriSCA F2 Stock Cars Trophylands Supercup

Pedal Bangers
Pedal Bangers are a throwback to the early days of Promotasport, and they have never raced at Arena Essex before. However, with 38 bookings for the May 10 meeting, they seem to be popular with the under tens. The race was graded by age, with prizes not just for the "white", "blue" and "red" grades, but awards for all who finished the 220 yard dash. This distance was a little much for some "drivers", a few of them looking a little pained as they pedalled their gokarts to the finish line. The winners were Mitchell Scales, a five-year-old white grader, Thomas Skeef, 7, for the blues and Lewis Callow, 10, a long ten-year-old. With chocs all round for the finishers and a certificate to boot, many of them were looking forward to another running of this event, which was confirmed during the race meeting as being June 14th. Booking forms should be available from the track shop for our next meeting or by post.

BriSCA F2 Stock Cars
A smaller field than our previous meeting at Arena Essex on May 10, where the BriSCA F2 Stock Cars met for the Trophylands Supercup. It was a good day for Lee Guinchard, starting with a comfortable win in the first heat, burning off the rest of the field to take the lead relatively early with Daz Kitson and Steve Broomfield following while the move of the race had to be the car hop by Mark Gilbert, going over the nose of the spun early leader Stuart Chalkley. Gilbert managed to keep going to take fifth place in that one, with only seven cars overall making it home. The second heat saw a win for Nick Smith over Carl Issitt and John Plant that, if there were a few more laps, would have been very interesting. Issitt had been catching up well since his run in with Chris Roots earlier in the race which would be replayed later in the meeting. Meanwhile Mark Green picked up his first ever Arena win in the consolation, holding on from Tony Plummer who had raced well from the back, overhauling Barry Parker within the closing few laps. Green made it home just in time as his brakes locked up as he finished, meaning that while he took his victory lap, his car took a lift to the pits for a quick service. The final however was another comfortable cruise for Guinchard, while Kitson picked up another second place ahead of Broomfield while the two ex-Superstox rivals Roots and Smith (the younger ones that is!) battled over fourth, Roots winning out after several attempts to hit the lower grade Smith out of the way. With a one lap handicap as is traditional for the final winner when Grand National qualifiers are raced, Guinchard still managed to pull a good race out to get to fifth, though the honours for this round went to Broomfield with Kitson finishing second yet again. The drama was behind them as Issitt and Roots replayed their first heat meeting, though this time Issitt could not get a revenge hit in on Roots who managed to motor away for third place. Grade points awards went to Guinchard for Blue, Gilbert for yellow and Plant for white top.

National Bangers
The Rising Stars proved good for some big hitting action again at Arena Essex when they met for another round on May 10. the heats were a little lop-sided as a fairly small amount of cars took to the track in the first heat but that did not stop the race from providing the kind of action that made this one of the most popular meetings for drivers in the last few years, for example the double team on Paul Dolman by Jason Scorah and Stuart Ruff on turn three and the head on by Jeffrey Scorah on Tom Harding on turn one which started a pile up there. The race had to be stopped after half way however when Tommy McGurk lost control on turn one and slid into Colin Clark, who had to be fished out of his car. Steve Farmer led the restart away but a hit on Stuart Wilson damaged his front end enough to make his cornering unreliable, proven when he tried to take turn three at speed and met with the armco instead, leaving the way open for Steve Macklin to pass and win the heat, with Den Catmore and Billy Lee in tow. The second heat also suffered a stoppage at the beginning when a pile up on turn one left Les Chater in trouble. Not too surprising was the pile ups at both ends of the track in what turned out to be a 49 car start, far bigger than the first race. Turn three also turned into a slaughtering ground after the restart with a hard jacking for Lee Morris by Mark Chilvers being but one of several pile ins there while turn one hosted another pile up. Another victim was Karl Plunner as he took a large jacking from Mark Rowland. Lee West took the race, while behind him Gordon Surgeoner and Chalkie Douglas dove for the line and second place from the fourth turn, Surgeoner getting across the line ahead of Douglas. Dave Armstrong, who had finished ahead of these two, was penalised four places for not completing the race distance. Another pile up on the back straight later and Farmer made up for his mistakes in his heat with a consolation win with good drives from Dean Adams for second and Ricki Rawlins in third.

The final was a bit cleaner than what had gone before but Neil Partridge decided to leave his mark on Louis Starke, squashing him into the fence and Shane Collins sliced Paul Lyons into the dead Agg-built Dean Sprott car on the home straight. However at the front West was running well, lapping up to third place for a heat and final double ahead of Armstrong and Farmer, though a late attack on West by Steve Evans almost sent him out on the back straight. Finally, the Rawlins 2000 qualifier and another stoppage as Bradley Theaker did a two point roll on the pit bend in traffic. With Theaker out and the cars reassembled including Jason Mills in reverse, the race started again and all hell broke loose. West was not bothering to try to get three out of three; instead he went wrecking, including a jacking for Karl Gilbert on the first turn. Jon Langford tried to have a hand in the result as he fenced himself and leader Wilson on the last bend, but Wilson just managed to right himself to cross the line as winner before McGurk could catch him up. This proved also to be the match up in the destruction part of the event as Lyons and Langford put each other out, leaving Wilson and McGurk alone for one last hit, which eventually came head on at the pit end, only Wilson surviving it for a double in the Rawlins and a place in the £1000 Rising Stars final on October 18 to boot, as did all the first three winners did that day.

Results

Event                 1st  2nd  3rd  4th  5th  6th  7th  8th  9th  10th 11th 12th 
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1  Pedal Bangers      See main report
2  BriSCA F2 1        121  732  553  395  432  630   31  NOCR
3  Bangers 1           72   4    2    23  270  178  179  142  134  202  338   7
4  BriSCA F2 2        151  103  711  321  427  677  266  232
5  Bangers 2          506  296  554  280  309  544  300  183  331  203  491  322
6  BriSCA F2 Cons     365  181  641  202  758  708  269  NOCR
7  Bangers Cons       385  567  551  102  288  330  168  248  356  211
8  BriSCA F2 FINAL    121  732  553  677  151  432  103  395  321  427
9  Bangers FINAL      506  544  385  102  178   7   300  309
10 BriSCA F2 GNQ      553  732  677  103  121  232  432  711  321  266
11 Bangers R2000       7   430  163  LCR=7
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See report for penalties awarded. First three in all Banger races in meeting qualify
for Grand Final on October 18.
Abbrevs: Cons = Consolation / GNQ = Grand National Qualifier (BriSCA F2 Stock Cars)
         LCR = Last Car Running / NOCR = No other cars running
All results subject to confirmation by promotion.