Banger Chained Pairs Championship 2007 Superbangers Ministox

Ministox
The Ministox returned to Arena Essex on June 17 with an incident loaded meeting which featured a win for Jack Bunning in the hastily declared final, brought to a stop once when Micky Galloway managed a four point rollover, the second Ministox roll of the meeting, then again close to the end for a clumsy effort by Vinni Madden on Sarah Taylor on the back straight.

In race one, T-Jay Powers took Sarah Taylor early on but former kart star Jimmy Galloway came through near the end of the race. The second race, however, was stopped twice with a spin and stall across turn four by one white top, stopping the race shortly after it started while Liam Friel, who had taken second place in the first heat topped that antic by rolling onto his roof, skating across turn one to the fence. The remainder of the race was dominated by Joe Coultish attempting to pass Remi Gay until Rob Hull and George Goodearl took advantage of a generous inside line out of turn two. The last heat was taken easily by Jimmy Galloway, Remi Gay and Sarah Taylor fighting over the early lead until the red tops came up to join in the fight. During all this, Rob Hull had not only taken a heat but had managed to set a new lap record of 19.473 seconds. Rob would not do so well in the abortive final, though he managed to recover from an early spin to tenth.

Banger Pairs
Current unlimited world champion Jason Jackson teamed up with former PRI and 2 litre world champion Matt Fuller to easily win the 2007 Banger Chained Pair Championship at Arena Essex on June 17. The golden pair took the win easily, ahead of Ricky Korpiela and Philip Cullen in a race that saw plenty of incident including two rollovers.

Actually, the first heat was a good indicator of what was to come with Andy Reynolds taking his partner for an interesting tour of the Arena Essex tarmac. Managing at least one lap in the orthodox way, if two cars chained together lengthwise could be considered orthodox, they managed to mount the inside kerb on the pit bend, showering the marshal at that end with shale. It got even hairier one lap later as the pair managed to roll each other completely over, managing to continue for a little further until they jack-knifed on turn two inside. The winners of that heat were Gary Brown and Dan Reid, only three pairs actually making it across the line. Lee Woodards and Kevin Lee almost copied the rollover feat in the second heat which featured a fair bit of contact but more finishers, headed up by Michael Outen and Charlie Shanaghan. The next rollover, however, had to wait until the final when John Seex went over on his side, bringing front man Stuart Palmer to a halt, while second heat winners Brown and Reid dropped off the pace when they were tangled up.

Jackson topped it off with a Rawlins qualifier last car award when he outlasted the field, finishing off with a serious of hits with Palmer, while Palmer's erstwhile partner, Seex, grabbed the race win.

SuperBangers
Tubbs Butler was back on the pace car, the winner of the day's SuperBanger final at Arena Essex on June 17, easily outpacing ex-Saloon driver Alec Mortimer who had taken a win earlier in the day in the second heat. The first heat was taken by another former Saloon Stock driver, James Avison, who overcame a spirited drive by Wayne Barling in a race that was affected mid way after Dave Carroll dumped the contents of his sump by the pit gate which caused more than one driver to lose control at the bottom of the back straight. Mortimer pushed Barling aside in the second and dashed off into the distance, even Butler unable to catch up in time for the end of the race. Butler then managed to reverse the result in the final, leaving Mortimer far behind, Mortimer fairly comfortably off ahead of Roger Trickett who and something of a run in with Phil Butler as the race ended.

© 2007 Chris Johnson (Crashnet) / Promotasport Raceways