Smeatharpe Stadium - Tuesday 17th June 2014

Report by Steve Linfield

The one and only midweek fixture for Autospeed at Smeatharpe Stadium in season 2014 saw a lovely summer’s evening and a fantastic show from the BriSCA F2 Stock Cars in the venue’s World Championship qualifying round, all very ably backed up by the National Bangers under 1400cc in Vintage Tin night and the Stock Rods.

BriSCA F2 Stock Cars

For the BriSCA F2’s, there were 43 cars in the pits, very good for a midweek meeting and the talk coming into the meeting was the presence of 7 Gordon Moodie, following his heat and final double at St Day two days earlier and with it his 349^th career Final win, putting him level with great rival 218 Rob Speak.  Although Speak had hoped to attend, just as he had done so at this particular meeting since his return in 2009, he was forced to withdraw on Monday afternoon due to suffering an ear infection.  The opening heat was a very stop-start affair with three yellow flag periods which did ease Moodie’s charge to the front, although he was already in the lead by halfway in any case.  Heat two also saw a yellow flag and it came down to a battle between track champion 886 Chris Bradbury and World Champion 783 James Rygor, with the former just able to maintain a gap to the flag.  The consolation had its own little piece of history, as 740 Neil Langworthy took his first win since his return after 20 years away, thus it was his first chequered flag since 1992.  To the A1 Windows and Doors sponsored 29 car Final, and Moodie made a decisive move on the opening lap to get ahead of several of his fellow star men as 828 Julian Coombes and 627 Gary Sillifant disputed the lead at the front.  However on the back straight a tangle up between 890 Paul Rice and 935 Nathan Maidment left 676 Neil Hooper and Bradbury with nowhere to go and they tangled up on the infield, with Bradbury also careering into the inner marker tyres, all of which left him two laps behind and Hooper one.   There was more drama on the pits bend, this time a three car tangle which left 605 Liam Rowe stranded along with associated debris and an early yellow flag was called.  Sillifant led off the re-start but both Moodie and Rygor were already making significant strides through the traffic at this stage.  A few laps later the leader Sillifant found himself hit and spun by Hooper as he un-lapped himself and at this point it was Moodie and Rygor who took up the running, with the gap remaining constant between them.  Sillifant then found himself collected by several others which formed a pile up and momentarily blocked the track, for which the yellow flags were called, but it cleared itself as they did so.  This set up a potential showdown between Rygor and Moodie at the re-start, but the Scotsman was able to maintain the gap all the way to the flag with the World Champion unable to get close enough to land a blow.  Thus it was Moodie’s history making win with Rygor second and the ever consistent 522 Chris Mikulla third.  Moodie was overjoyed at moving to second place in the all-time final winners list in BriSCA F2 history and celebrated on the pits bend.  To compound his dominance and rub a little more salt in the 218 direction, he stole Speak’s lap record from him during the race with a new one set at 12.758 seconds (eclipsing 12.788, set in July 2011).  Under the floodlights the 32 car Grand National was a hightly spectacular sight.  Unfortunately Moodie had to leave and make the long journey back to Scotland, but the rest of the grid more than made up for his absence.  There was an early yellow flag when returnee 683 Bryan Lindsay found himself stranded across the track, and then another a few laps later when 528 Shane Hector’s car parted company with a wheel.  Bradbury’s charge was halted with a huge hit on the west bend from 352 Dave Sansom.  After 937 Matt Issacs had led much of the early part of the race, 315 Justin Fisher took over until he was passed by Rygor who went on to take the win, to round out (another) highly memorable BriSCA F2 session at Smeatharpe.

National Bangers (under 1400cc RWD)

There were 12 Vintage Tin National Bangers, under the Old Skool format.   There is/was never likely to be a huge entry for this, which is considered one of the more fun events of the season.  The ‘warm up’ race was one of a race long duel between 190 Steve Bailey and 452 Anthony Sleeman which was resolved in Bailey’s favour late on, when backmarker 270 Shaun Baker spun Sleeman around in the west bend.  The Final/feature race was again all about ‘Lurch’ and ‘Pikey’ with 452 leading most of the way, until passed by 190.  However, no sooner had he taken the lead, he lost it by going round the wrong way of the spun car of 303 Nic Saintey and this allowed Sleeman back into the lead and he went on to win ahead of Bailey and 162 Brett Ellacott.   The Allcomers, as per the Old Skool rules reverted to ‘normal/full’ National Banger rules and saw some lively exchanges, with the biggest one actually coming from Saintey on Ellacott.  Firstly, a hit from a Hillman Avenger on a Ford Capri is noteworthy but also it was payback from last year when Ellacott wrecked Saintey’s Allegro after just one corner.  133 Terry Hill went on to take the win.  The DD was a very good one with everyone getting stuck into each other and it was Bailey who delivered the last hit on Hill to take the win.

Stock Rods

The Stock Rods completed a busy nine day period and there were 17 cars in attendance.  Reigning points champion 441 Tom Major has not had a good season thus far and it got worse in the heat race when he clashed with 49 Kevin Locke on the back straight and crashed.  This ended his evening and earned Lock a disqualification, although Major was content to take his share of the blame.  When the race re-started 68 Levi Robinson continued to lead and he and 222 Mike Belcher opened out a gap on the remainder of the pack whose battle became more and more heated as the laps ticked off.  None of this was any worry to Robinson though, who took the win.  The Final again saw Robinson and Belcher open out ahead of the rest at the front and the latter passed the former at the halfway stage.  However, just as he did so his car appeared to stop on him and held up Robinson as he did so and then let 22 Wayne Belcher into the lead from 12 Kev Hockings.  All the while 306 Neil Truran was closing in and he applied pressure on both by going round the outside over the closing laps and grabbed the lead with just a lap to go and went on to take his second win of the week.  Wayne Belcher made second and Hockings was third.  Robinson made it his second win of the evening in the Grand National.