All-Sierra Bangers

Another fast track greeted the All-Sierra Bangers on August 17 at Arena-Essex. It was another father and son photo call in the first race as Daniel Douglas posed with his father, known to us all as Chalky, the rollover king, after winning out in the first race, holding Nicky Wenhold at bay for much of the race. Wenhold would be further demoted to third spot as Mick Bradbury snuck in to second place by a nose on the line. The second heat was a little less close on the line as RDC visitor Steve Moore dominated the race in his estate, Chris Trickett beating Jimmy Randall home. It looked much like Jason Jackson would win out in the final, but he would sacrifice his lead for a little light wrecking on the pit bend within the last lap, a bit of revenge for some tail ender interference which put him down to second spot behind Matt Fuller with Phil Stevens denying Harry Rawlins of the pleasure of a Runner one-two-three. Paul Hunter was on hand to grab the last win of the day in the Rawlins 2000 Qualifier before Kelly Wilson turned in a good wrecking performance to outlast the rest of the field, getting into the big money final in October by the last car route.

SuperBangers

With all the enthusiasm in recent meetings, it was only fitting that the SuperBangers would get an extra meeting, the spare slot in the August 17 Arena Essex meeting. The meeting was seemingly dominated by John Alder, though the former Banger man would only take the pace car once. He ran out easily in the first race ahead of Steve Davies, but was docked two places in the second heat after crossing the line first, the penalty due to jumping a restart mid-race. Davies would take the trophy for that one. Alder almost had the final secured too until Tubbs Butler raced through, taking the win inside the last few laps, Alder holding off Graham Heard into the finish. Note of the day had to be Billy Merle whose car started to burn for the second time in as many meetings!

Ministox

Arena-Essex, August 17, and the first outing for the Ministox for over a month provided some good action as the programme was altered to novice, expert, chase format. If Jack Tuffin did well in the first heat, promoted to third behind Stuart Palmer and winner Liam Friel after a stewards' decision, he did better in the second, winning out over Danny Stevens as the star graders had to work just to keep up on a track made fast by the heat of the summer, Sam Hayfield moving well to scrape in third. Phillip Smith would take the win in the chase heat, some of the white tops proving to be as much of a handful for the star graders as the yellow tops were in the experts' race. Travis Cope and Dan Moulston made up the second and third of the chase winning trio, Moulston then capping his day off with a win in the final, outrunning the field including early leader Gary Archer, who finished second, and third place Smith who was just a little too slow to improve on third.