Arena Essex - ae0221

Arena Essex Raceway - Meeting 02/21 Sunday, July 7, 2002

Crashnet > Reports Index > PRI 2002 Index > Meeting 02/21

PRI/Incarace Banger Challenge Round 2
Ministox
Outlaw Hot Rods

In Brief

The return meeting for the team challenge this year for PRI took place at Arena Essex following the Birmingham leg in which Incarace fell short in front of their home crowd. As a result of that, with a few somewhat bruised egos and a few scores to settle, Incarace requested that the programme for the return match would be a thirty car affair as originally billed rather than the twenty car match they had asked for at Birmingham. PRI also adopted the Incarace scoring method and, due to a mid-meeting objection by Incarace officials, restarted the second heat without allowing the teams to make up their numbers after a complete restart.

Both teams featured some heavyweight talent, though the Incarace team were short of a few drivers on the day. However the first heat saw obliteration for quite a few cars as only seven out of the thirty starters made it to the result, led by Dave Truman of PRI, with Matt Fuller, Andy Davies and Frank Skinner following before the first of the Incarace drivers came in, namely Shaun Rushton. The second heat began with a major pile up on turn one which saw the first heat winner, Truman, carted away to hospital (although he returned to see the end of the match after being checked over). Dean Bateman got the winning points for PRI ahead of Mick Siddalls of Incarace but only after Ricky Korpiela caused an upset. After diving from the circuit to avoid a hit, for which he was disqualified, he ignored the black flag and attempted to remove Siddalls from the race on turn four, and as a result the race was stopped with a couple of laps to go, and Korpiela was loaded up.

The final saw PRI again making good work of repairing the damage, as well as making use of the rolling wounded earlier in the meeting to spare fresh cars and though Incarace's team tried to do likewise, their numbers were fewer on the circuit by final time, and PRI made the most of the advantage, though to this reporter I would say that some cars received more attention than others, Mark Holdsworth and Chas Knowles getting some extreme shots down by the Raceway Tavern. However it took about half the alloted race to form a result as each team was slowly whittled away until only four cars were left rolling, all of them yellow and blue, led home by John Randall with first round final winner Jason Jackson in tow.

Unlike the first round, the second round was a worthy fight, and the Incarace team made a scrap of it, the eventual points tally of PRI 160 to Incarace 32 not really doing justice to the work done by the visiting team, especially as a number of the visitors returned for the domestic Rawlins qualifier, which was won by Tony Wade, with Paul Whiteman taking on his Uncle Chris at the end and emerging victorious! A good time was had by all (well nearly), though the meeting was a mammoth five hours long!

The Outlaws were few in number due to a short notice booking, but provided some interesting non-contact entertainment as Gary Andrews managed to win the meeting final after a thrilling race, with Wayne Souter and Simon Smith also winning in the other races.

Ministox wins for Paul Scully, Michael Outen, Sam Warner and Billy Standing in this meeting that saw bumper numbers though some of the racing was a little lacking in discipline, and the overwhelming interest from some of the banger drivers caused a problem for officials, especially during one race when racing had to be restarted four times, the oil from bangers on turn four causing spins and crashes which caused some consternation amongst some of the parents. The meeting for the Ministox was sponsored by Lunn Poly, who were raising money for their "Whizz Kidz" charity - a sizeable amount of money was collected trackside during the meeting.

Results

1. Banger Teams 1	217 Dave Truman	188	47	193	179	60	666
2. Ministox 1	537 Paul Scully	534	517	527	547	549	520	539	521	502	509	545
3. Outlaws Warm-up	35 Wayne Souter	317	121	296	44	42
4. Banger Teams 2	130 Dean Bateman	104	49
5. Ministox 2	539 Michael Outen	532	510	531	577	389	592	549	528	571	543	527
6. Outlaws Main Event	44 Gary Andrews	317	296	10	35	121
7. Ministox 3	571 Sam Warner	540	592	577	504	528	585	572	537	557	566	581
8. Bangers Final	207 John Randall	331	203	32
9. Ministox Final	504 Billy Standing	527	539	585	516	592	587	537	531	577
10. Outlaw H/S	10 Simon Smith	296	44	121	317
11. Bangers R2Kq	33 Tony Wade	72	55

LCR: 10 Paul Whiteman

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Crashnet Photos

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Also don't forget to see Matthew Bull's website for more photo action from this meeting! Click here