Coming Up:
Saturday September 18: British Open Championship, Ballymena Raceway
Sunday September 19: Irish Open Championship, Nuttscorner Oval
The winner of the National Hot Rod British Championship being held at Ballymena Raceway on Saturday 18th September will receive a cool £500, and four new Hoosier Tires, with Image Wheels vouchers also being up for grabs for 1st, 2nd and 3rd home in the Championship.

International Championship reports 2010

The 2010 NHRPA National Hot Rod National Championship
Murphy’s Law
Hednesford, Saturday July 31st/Sunday August 1st

Graham Brown reports: Shane Murphy improved his finishing position in the world final by one place to take an historic victory in the National championship, with the English drivers locked out of the podium places by Irishmen from both sides of the border. Murphy’s victory was historic in that it marked the first time that an ROI based driver has won a major championship held outside Ireland.

Despite some late-ish cancellations and a number of drivers giving the event a miss for one reason or another, there was still a highly respectable 50 cars on hand to contest the 47th National Championship.

A few items of interest to comment upon within that large entry, one of which was the return to the fold – however temporarily – of Mike Oliver. The Welshman was tracking his ex-Cooney 206cc but decked out in a very unusual dark green livery. Set off with black wheels, it gave the car at the same time both a rather NASCAR-style appearance, but also a quite menacing one.

Also back in a National was Wayne Woolsey, the original plan for him to be driving a Haird car for the weekend having been shelved somewhere along the way, Wayne giving brother Gary’s Tigra an outing instead.

And for all those who might have been asking the perennial question, “Where’s Ricky?”, the answer was, right here. Back in action and looking very quick in Friday’s practice, both before and after a badly fitted wheel spacer had caused some rear wheel studs to shear, Rick admitting that he had been very lucky to have got away without crashing and very little other damage.

He wasn’t the only one having a bit of a drama on Friday afternoon either, Wayne Woolsey having burst an oil line that caused some problems, not least for Dave Longhurst, who happened to be out in the absent Colin Gomm’s Merc at the time. A fairly severe spanking of the rear end resulted, Dave spending the rest of the afternoon fixing and straightening. Apparently, Dave rang Colin to tell him, ‘I’ve just smashed your car up’, to which Colin’s laid back response was something like, ‘Oh well, shall I bring the other one then?’. OK, it’s nice to be in a position to say that, but still, I suppose after all the years Colin has been in racing there isn’t too much that fazes you.

Six heats were required to sort the final qualifiers from those 50 cars, the first of them heading off into spitting rain with Des Cooney and Winnie Holtmanns at the head of the pack. The yellow flags got an early airing after Terry Hunn, Neil Stimson and Oliver had a bit of a clash coming off the line. Terry was immediately in trouble and limped to a stop on the entry to the West bend where John vd Bosch promptly ran into him.

Cooney was very slow away at the restart, allowing Holtmanns to nip past. The continuing danger of having even a small amount of anti-freeze laden water on the track was soon evident, with several drivers lucky not to crash after running over it on the West Bend, their cars behaving as if there was oil down. Holtmanns, who has often looked good when it’s wet or slippery, looked to have it safely under wraps until, with two laps to run, he showed the recovered Cooney rather too much inside line and he slipped through for the win.

Initially, Stewart Doak got disqualified from this, but a steward’s inquiry found that he was not actually to blame for one of the incidents he was involved with and the penalty was downgraded to a two place docking instead.

After David Brooks non-started and a bit of a delay in trying to get Dick Hillard’s car to play ball, Paul Crawford and Les Compelli were the first to show in heat two. However, Keith Martin swiftly dealt with both of them and cleared off at the front, eventually to the tune of almost half a lap. The battle for second raged all the way between Tom Casey, Jason Kew, Murphy, Gary Woolsey and Matt Simpson, with the rain now spotting down again. A late caution, brought about by Willie Hardie spinning at the East Bend and then getting clobbered by Tom Casey, put them all a lot closer to Martin, but the leader had four backmarkers between himself and the placemen so was never really in any danger.

Martin duly went on to take the win with Kew second over the line but dropped a couple of places for the contact that led to Casey’s incident, handing the runner-up slot to Murphy.

The sun was beating down by the third heat which was a totally cut and dried result for John Christie, who had the front row all to himself. Fellow Ulsterman Glenn Bell never gave up chasing him but, aside from when the leader had to deal with knots of traffic, never really looked like getting on terms. Hardie looked fully recovered from his earlier problems and got home third here, Willie apparently benefiting from some sterling pit work by Davy McCall among others. One can only wonder what changes he may have been making to the #72 car in light of recent developments…

Heat four looked like it ought to be as easy for Chris Haird as heat three had been for Christie, the world champion also having drawn a solitary front row start. He was already fairly well clear by the time the yellows were thrown for some spun cars (Carl Waller-Barrett, Terry Maxwell and Wayne Woolsey) on the East bend, but the caution naturally closed the field right up. That enabled Andy Holtby to occupy Bell’s position of the previous heat, Andy chasing the leader all the way to the end without ever managing to get in touch. Perhaps the most significant result in this one was the fourth spot recorded by Martin to go with his earlier win.

The fifth heat was a fairly critical point for both Christie and Haird, who both needed a good result and were lined up next to one another.

It was Mark Heatrick who led them away though and immediately under pressure from Murphy. Over and again Shane tried it on down the outside without being able to make the pass stick, his repeated attempts leading up the pivotal point of the entire weekend. Murphy made another huge effort going through the West Bend and lost it. The car had spun, no question, and it looked like the best Shane could hope for was to maybe get going again in a lowly place – until Doak came around the corner and ran into him, straightening up the 970 machine. Murphy seized this reprieve with both hands and kept his foot on the gas, cannoning off the wall on the exit and launching straight back into the race, obviously having to hope that nothing vital had been damaged. He promptly got into a fight with Gavin Murray over fourth, but wasn’t yet back on a sufficiently even keel to overcome the East Anglian.

Up front, Doak was second and reeling Heatrick in as the finish neared. Back in the pack, it was interesting to note that Christie was ahead of Haird and leaving him behind, while Murphy’s car was not only apparently unharmed, but enabling him to now mount a serious attack on Murray’s fourth spot. Doak never quite got up to challenge the leader (he was maybe two car lengths down at the flag) and ended up collecting a penalty that dropped him to fourth in any case. The Murray/Murphy dice had finally seen them touch in the West Bend, Murray not losing much in the encounter but the incident put Murphy up another position. Doak’s penalty gained him yet another, and so Shane wound up third when he could easily have been stone last or something like it, worse still if Doak or someone else had hit him a great deal harder or at a slightly different angle. So you can see what I mean by “pivotal”.

The last heat was probably the race of the day with the results for three Northern Irish racers – Woolsey, Bell and Martin – all going to be crucial.

It turned out to be Colin Gomm who led from flag to flag, but the in-fighting behind him was something else. Phil Spinks got passed by Gary Woolsey for second early on but then almost managed an outside sweep that would have taken him from third to first. In the end he couldn’t make it stick and Gomm went back to dicing with Woolsey and a whole host of others, including Dick Hillard, Matt Simpson, Spinks himself, Bell and Andy Holtby. Bell had already managed to get through quite well, while Martin was working hard on the same thing when a caution brought them all much closer together. The yellows had come out for Mark Fuller, who’d had a bang on the East Bend.

After that, Gomm, Hillard and Woolsey carried on scrapping over the lead with Simpson, Spinks, Holtby and Bell, with Martin driving a magnificent last five laps that lifted him from seventh to fourth and, ultimately, pole for the final. Woolsey’s second spot was going to put him on the outside front row.

National Championship final grid:
994 970 9 115 996 95 174 278 482 467 761 31 100 14 78 271
940 962 303 (960) 61 72 639 921 261 130 500 369 6 444 199 162 (960 dns)

Heatrick had, unfortunately, failed a weight check before the final and was therefore disqualified from the meeting, although that didn’t prevent him from trying to join the line up anyway! With Heatrick back in the pits, the rest made their first attempt at getting the race under way. And a pretty shabby attempt it was too, the stewards soon bringing them back to try again and blaming Martin for leaving too soon and Woolsey for not leaving soon enough.

A far superior second effort saw Martin assume the lead, pressed from the word go by Murphy. However, there was a small incident on the West bend early on – maybe two laps in - that was to have severe consequences for Martin, as Gomm and Holtmanns got together, leaving the German stuck down on the rumble strips. A couple of laps later Holtmanns tried to reverse away from his position. From where he was stuck, Winnie would have had little or no view of what or who was approaching the corner; unfortunately, he made his move just as the leader arrived. Martin was forced wide and ended up sixth in a trice.

Keith’s position was helped slightly by a caution soon afterwards, thrown when Waller-Barrett got into some sort of scrape and lost a wheel which Jason Cooper neatly fielded with his car! But Martin was still left with the next five fastest cars at the meeting running ahead of him.

Murphy was off like a shot when the green came out once more and was soon building a big lead that stretched to over a quarter of a lap at one point, depending on the traffic problems he was having at any given moment. But the places battle was keeping the rest busy in any case, with Christie taking quite a while to find a way past Woolsey and into second. The fight for fifth between Haird and Martin had ended with Haird closing the door on a challenge into the East bend in what looked like only a half hearted manner. When Martin drove into the gap the pair touched and Chris went spinning which then allowed Martin to spend a lot of laps finding a way past Woolsey.

Hardie was going well and running quite strongly in sixth but his car started trailing smoke which was steadily worsening. This eventually attracted a red and white flag and a disqualification when he failed to stop for it.

Interesting as all of this was, these various dices conspired to make sure that no-one was left with a free hand to try and go after Murphy. By the time Christie was firmly established in second, the leader was too far away, Shane picking his way swiftly and sensibly through the traffic to make sure he stayed that way. By the time he was putting some cars two laps down, it was essentially all over and his name firmly in the record books.

It was, in the end, a total Irish whitewash, with Christie, Martin, Gary Woolsey and Bell occupying the next four places, with Jason Kew interrupting as the lone Englishman in sixth, ahead of Cooney.

The Grand National…probably the least said about that the better. I had thought, after this year’s world final supports, that this tradition of finishing the meeting with a demolition derby was all behind us. How wrong can you be?

It all kicked off with a “too many cars in too small a space” kind of crash along the home straight, that saw Cooney in the wall and Holtmanns slam into the pit gate so hard that it not only completely wrecked the front of his car but also apparently ‘wrote off’ the pit gate!

Start number two ended when Tom Casey, Chris Harvey and David Casey all got together in another large crash on the West Bend exit which badly damaged all three cars.

A few more racing laps after another restart ended when Terry Hunn ended up in the wall on the West Bend exit, David O’Regan and Les Compelli both earning a black cross for possible involvement in the Corsa’s demise.

The drivers were warned over their radios that one more stoppage would be the last one, which came when John Holtby went head on hard into the infield embankment along the back straight.

According to the lap sheets, fourteen green flag laps were actually completed, but it certainly didn’t feel like it, and the whole thing was a bit of a low note on which to end what had otherwise been a great weekend of racing. Graham Brown
Results
Heat one: 921,467,50,95,996(-2),9,115,6,482,100,271,68,130,278,261,199,369,734,78,27,57.
Heat two: 994,970,940,174(-2),303,962,960,639,31,444,61,162,761,500,74,7.
Heat three: 962,9,72,482,639,761,174,369,970,777,444,960,961,467,74,278,100,68
Heat four: 115,61,261,994,500,6,303,940,95,996,14,78,130,921,31,208,7.
Heat five: 960,72,970,996(-2),130,95,962,199,115,639,261,174,761,78,208,921,777,444,734,74,39.
Heat six: 278,940,303,994,14,9,61,31,100,369,162,271,57,500,482(-2),467,7,963,27,160.
National Championship Final:
970,962,994,940,9,174,921,61,261,31,6,761,199,369,78,130,100,467.
Grand National: 208,777,27,74,115,369,31,482,303,9,996,100,962,130,970,500.
’Martin Kingston, Trevor Hill and Steve Westons photos

The 2010 NHRPA National Hot Rod Championship of the World
New World order
Ipswich, Saturday 3rd/Sunday 4th July 2010

World Final Support Races Graham Brown reports: Although the support car entry never approached the numbers some had hoped for, there was still a healthy enough number of cars on hand, ready and willing for their Best in Britain qualifying. This year they were to get two heats and a final, with the numbers of qualifiers split proportionally between support cars and world finalists, the theory being that 20 world cars would meet 12 support cars in a 32 car grid for the ‘Best’. The world finalists would have a reversed grid ‘revenge’ race, so that would be their ‘second heat’, with the best 20 aggregate scorers (on a Longhurst system) joining the first 12 finishers in the support car final. Complicated, but as fair as anyone could make it. There was a non-starter before the first heat even commenced, with Terry Maxwell having discovered that his engine was muddling up where the water and oil should be. 20 cars it was then, that set off for the first encounter, including a new paint job for Danny Brosnan and Corrie Beggs making his first NHR outing away from NI. Mark Fuller took the early lead, but his Merc still seemed as loose as ever, and he was soon forced to turn over the front spot to Tony Moss. As Fuller clobbered the wall exiting turn four, Tommy Maxwell took over second with Fuller still third and Mark Willis fourth, while Brosnan and Steve Burrows disputed fifth until Burrows clouted the wall along the back straight, putting him out of it, although he did rejoin later. Maxwell got up to dice with Moss for the lead shortly before Chris Harvey and Terry Hunn spun at the pit bend, bringing out the yellows. The reason for the spins turned out to be Scott Bourne laying oil, so with him removed they set off again. Willis quickly passed Fuller and looked to be on his way to the win for a while, before he was slowed by brake woes, plumes of smoke rising every so often from a locking right front. The leaders weren’t in any danger of being caught after that, Moss continuing to lead Maxwell all the way to the flag. Ray Harris headed the second heat away in the Audi, hard pressed almost from the off by Chris Harvey. Beggs lost third to Carl Waller-Barrett not long after the start, Corrie spinning out a few laps later. Meanwhile, Tim Moody had an ‘off’ and Graeme Callender retired, as did Willis with a flat in the left rear after something of an altercation with Gavin Murray. Waller-Barrett caught up to the lead pair and Murray was hurrying to join them as well just as the yellows came out. This was after Bourne had a huge moment on the pit bend and flew over the kerbs before collecting Hunn. Harvey went speeding past Harris when the green came back out. Although Ray came back at him hard in the closing stages without managing to get past, Chris was adjudged to have jumped the restart and copped a two place penalty, handing the win back to Harris. Moss stepped off the line first in the support final, chased by Waller-Barrett, Andy Lane and Harris. Obviously, it was imperative to do well in this if you wanted to be in the Best in Britain, but it didn’t look as though a place in the top 12 was going to either Willis or Murray, who got involved between turns three and four, with Willis half spinning and the pair ending up in the wall. Murray got going again but he’d lost a lot of ground. There was some place swapping going on at the front, where Luke Armiger had got in on the act too, as he managed to get past Harris and Waller-Barrett, who dropped back to fifth before losing out to Burrows as well. Burrows had just made it by Waller-Barrett when Armiger, Harris and Burrows all got together at turns 3-4, with Harris spinning, although we got away without a caution. All of that left Moss leading Lane by a fair old gap, with Andy over a quarter of a lap up on the dice for third, which now featured Waller-Barrett, Maxwell, Brosnan and Burrows. With the five lap board out, Lane was at last beginning to close down Moss and caught him virtually as they took the last lap board. It had been a big effort by Lane but Moss was still just ahead at the line, the pair finishing half a lap up on Maxwell who got past Waller-Barrett on the last lap. Murray, incidentally, recovered pretty well from his earlier problems and got home ninth. So, that was the support qualifiers sorted. That left the world finalists to have their ‘Revenge’ race, with the grid simply the reverse of the world. It was a very battered looking Les Compelli who led them away for this, with John Holtby swiftly relegating John vd Bosch to go second. Jason Kew, Neil Stimson and Keith Martin all took spins at the pit bend, with Stimson retiring soon afterwards along with Malcolm Blackman. Glenn Bell also went spinning after an incident was to get Colin Gomm disqualified. While all that was going on, it was quickly becoming clear that Chris Haird was truly on a mission, and looked very much like he’d set himself the target of winning his first race as world champ, even if it was off the back of the grid! He was already through to twelfth with only a handful of laps done. Up at the front, Holtby was now attacking Compelli’s lead with gusto. John was trying it on down the outside repeatedly although, at one point, this only looked highly likely to let the eager looking vd Bosch through again, as he was still very much in touch – as indeed was Laurens vd Velde. Haird was still on the march, passing Mark Heatrick and then Matt Simpson to move up to ninth, with the leaders now in sight. Cars were still falling by the wayside too, as Simpson went out soon after this, as did Stu Carter, but the fight for the lead was undiminished. Still Compelli was managing to hang on out front with Holtby all over him once more as vd Bosch got passed by Willie Hardie, vd Velde and David O’Regan in one bend and suddenly, Haird was in amongst this lot too! The 115 car sliced past the two Netherlands men to grab fifth with the five lap board being waved. A lap later and Haird had O’Regan. He was alongside Hardie with three to go but struggling now to get it done on the wide outside. Holtby was still trying to get by Compelli as they entered the last lap with Haird hauling himself past Hardie but too late to do anything about the front two. However, Compelli got docked a couple of places for contact during that lead dice, giving the win to Holtby with Haird therefore officially placed second in his first race as champ. That left just the Best In Britain – the race we never got last year – to round proceedings off. 29 cars were still fit or eligible by that stage, the draw placing Gomm on pole with Irishmen Des Cooney alongside, and Shane Murphy and James O’Shea sharing row two. Haird was stuck with row seven for this, but on his showing in the previous race, maybe that wasn’t going to matter too much… Gomm took up his expected lead at the off but Cooney went well wide at the far bend before slowing into retirement. That allowed Murphy to immediately jump on Gomm, but before they really had a chance to square up to one another, the yellows were flying for an incident on the exit of turn two, where Hardie had spun and got hit by Beggs and Lane. It was Gomm versus Murphy and O’Shea at the restart, with O’Shea somehow managing to catch Murphy napping to get by down the inside. Shane soon re-paid the compliment, but it cost him some time doing it. Luckily for him, Gomm hadn’t got all that far away by then and the two were soon at it again for the lead. This turned into a really tough race, with Murphy completely alongside for three quarters of lap before falling back briefly and then doing it again the following lap. It was all hard but fair though, with Colin giving Shane all the room he needed to try for the pass. Even when Colin’s Merc got a bit loose exiting the bends, he still snapped it back down to the kerb as soon as he could. They still nearly came to grief though, when Compelli went spinning on the pit bend exit, forcing Gomm wide momentarily. Fortunately, Murphy was able to get off the throttle a bit sharpish until they’d cleared the obstacle, whereupon it was game on again. Murphy had now given up the ‘dropping back inside for a rest’ tactic and just stayed outside permanently. This was because he was running out of laps. The five lap board brought a big effort, Shane diving into the far turn as hard as could be which did get him ahead – for about a second! He slid wide on the exit putting Colin back in front. Murphy hadn't given up, not a bit of it, and they were side by side again at the three lap board, again at the two lap mark and most of the way through the final tour as well. Gomm still had his nose just in front at the flag after a terrific scrap, one of those races where it was a pity either man had to lose. O’Shea won the places battle to claim third fending off a combined assault from Murray, Holtby and Haird till the end. GB Support Cars Heat One: 192,369,65,130,33,68,519,162,17,871,27,116,3 9,147,160,224. Support Cars Heat Two: 224,162,503(-2),95,130,99,192,116,369(-2),51 9,33,27,68,199,17,160. 503 dropped two places for jumping a restart. 369 dropped two places for contact. Support Cars Final: 192,130,369,162,116,33,503,27,95,199,147,39, 99,17,68,160,224. 519 disqualified for contact with 224. World Final “Revenge” 6,115,777(-2),72,208,78,66,305,100,74,921,96 0,(278),970,31,155,61,174,9,467. 777 dropped two places for contact. 278 disqualified for contact with 9. Best in Britain Final: 278,970,74,95,6,115,31,61,78,192,155,369,66, 27,208,39,116,33,77 960 disqualified for contact with 130.

Graham Brown reports: Chris Haird finally achieved every hot rod driver’s dream by lifting the world championship trophy for the first time after coming out on top of a race-long duel with Ireland’s Shane Murphy. Completing the story of an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman, James Jamieson got home in third. Defending champion Carl Boardley was eliminated after a twentieth lap brush with a spun car, putting an end to his bid to win five titles in a row.

Entry & Qualifying
No big surprises about the entry either in terms of who was there or what they were driving, although it was the first public chance to see Colin Gomm’s new-to-him ex-Hardie SLK. Now, you might think that’s a lot of car to paint in Colin’s traditional purple but, in fact, the colour scheme really suited the Merc and the car looked seriously good with its fluorescent green lettering laid over the rear quarters too.

The draw for the order of running in the hot laps put rookie Dickie Burtenshaw in the unenviable position of having to go first and, somewhat unusually, his quickest lap was his first. The next four cars all ran fastest on their third laps, which is a bit more normal, while the next four all went fastest on their second laps. Then they got scattered about a bit until nearing the end of the session, when no less than eight drivers in a row went quickest on their final lap.

There was a bit of a scare for Murphy just before hot laps commenced, the team having found a leaf floating about in the petrol tank that they couldn’t extract. Fortunately, it never found the fuel outlet and the young Irishman used a late draw to advantage, putting in a 14.50 to claim the outside of the front row.

He wasn’t the only one to get a scare either, as Boardley suffered a leaking axle seal that oiled his left rear tyre, causing him to clip the wall and abort his third lap as he coasted over the line.

“I knew the lap was gone, so I just backed off”, Carl stated later.

He hadn’t done any damage to the car, he’d still gone fast enough to get pole, and this little incident had happened on the Saturday of speed weekend rather than the Sunday, but it did just bring about a slight feeling that maybe the 41 car wasn’t quite as invulnerable as it usually is. Or maybe that’s just what the rest were telling themselves

As I say, it had been business as usual prior to all that in any case, the four time winner having grabbed the pole with his second lap best of 14.47.

The problems for both teams paled into insignificance compared to John Christie however, the Thunder 500 winner having set a less than spectacular time anyway (14.77) before failing the weight check that immediately follows the timed laps. A 2 Kg discrepancy was all it took to put one of the favourites out of the meeting on the spot.

There seemed to be considerable confusion about how exactly this situation arose. Let’s face it, they’d worked all year to qualify for the race and hauled all the way from Ireland to win the T-500 warm up. Then they’d re-prepared the car before hauling all the way back again to try for the big one as well. They’d also arrived at the track as one of the hot favourites, so to get disqualified for a technical irregularity before they even started, has to be considered a genuine class one 24 carat solid gold balls up.

Even now, I haven’t got to the bottom of it. Understandably, John appeared a trifle embarrassed when talking about it, although he seemed to think that adding the amount of petrol they had would have taken the car back over 700Kgs. Obviously, it didn’t. Or maybe, he was thinking about the amount it would have in it for the World, and forgot that it might only be carrying a gallon or so for hot laps? I’ve heard that the car was underweight when it was first presented at the T-500 too which, if true, should surely have suggested to them that their own scales read heavy, or at least, heavier than the official ones. John was certainly late arriving at the track Saturday morning (like father, etc) and I’ve also heard that the car was taken to the original (i.e. no penalty if it failed) Saturday weigh-in in the pits by his crew. It was found to be light then too, apparently, except no-one remembered to tell John!

How much of this is truth and how much fantasy, I still don’t know. What I do know is that it was a bit of a sickener, not just for John, obviously, but for all those (me included) who were looking forward to seeing him carrying the fight to Boardley, Haird and co. There is no way in the world that John would be trying to cheat, so I reckon what we are talking about here is a good old fashioned communications breakdown of some sort.

John actually took the disqualification with a good grace, pointed out that if 14.77 was the best he could do then getting loaded up wasn’t that much of an issue, and stayed around to collect his winnings for topping the points in Northern Ireland. He also swapped team shirts with Chris Haird (Chris was still wearing his when he won the race) and did a lap of honour with one of his crew carrying a bag of sugar to signify the amount of extra weight they’d needed, although it was a standard size bag of 2 lbs, or in fact, just one kilo, give or take. It would have needed to be the larger size bag to make up 2 Kgs. Ah, wait a minute…so they think, an object that only weighs 1 Kg actually weighs 2 Kg. That explains a lot… (Sorry lads, only joking!)

Grid:
41 115 155 305 9 61 734 467 278 303 996 72 208* 6 961 777 (*Did not start)
970 940 911 921 31 85 174 960 271 491 994 100 74 78 66 261

The Race – 75 Laps
Nothing but blindingly hot weather during Saturday’s hot laps led straight into another blisteringly hot sunny day for the race itself. The cars were all on the grid well before the start, but thankfully not as long before as last year, so there wasn’t quite so much time for cars or drivers to endure the sweltering heat before the off.

David O’Regan had already suffered a problem when his car refused to start when the command was given to start engines. Although that was quickly overcome, the warm up laps revealed something much more problematic. It turned out to be a broken driveshaft and, although some time would have been allowed to fix it, it was clearly never going to be enough and the young Irishman sadly drove slowly back to the pit lane to become a non-starter.

The first attempt to get the race underway was a typically chaotic world final opening, with a number of cars at or near the rear of the field colliding on the back straight, hurling wreckage in all directions. Matt Simpson lost his bonnet during the fracas, while Les Compelli lost his bonnet (which got smashed to smithereens) as well as quite a bit of other body damage. James O’Shea was also out, as was David Casey and Ralph Sanders, an ignominious ending for Ralph’s race after his prospects had been looking so bright following the last qualifier. He’d lost out to Stu Carter in the hot lap showdown to sort their group two tie, and now this.

The bonnet from Casey’s car was pressed into service – along with a large quantity of race tape – to get Compelli’s battered machine back in the hunt. The bonnets were off Des Cooney’s and Gomm’s cars as well (I think Des may have had a misfire), while Glenn Bell was another having some frantic last minute repairs or adjustments made.

Boardley had been leading initially but had just lost the lead before the race was stopped for a complete restart. It was something of a get-out-of-jail-free card for the pole sitter, his crew making some what looked like fairly critical adjustments to the rear suspension during the 10 minute repair period allowed.

“Carl looked like he was struggling with a bit of a push coming out of the corners”, Haird explained later, “I got under him then and he still had the push when he turned into the next one, and I got past”

In fact, Murphy had made it by too, but it all counted for nothing now as they tore away for the second attempt.

This time the front row men were rubbing even as they took the green flag, with Murphy making a determined effort to get ahead down the outside. Unfortunately, this only allowed Haird to dive under and into second, a move which ultimately turned out to be the race winner.

At this stage of the game though, it was still Boardley leading with Haird, Murphy and Gary Woolsey in close attendance and these four already beginning to draw clear of the rest. Lee Pepper had got forced backwards a long way as he got hung out to dry on the outside and any sort of fairytale result for him was now looking unlikely.

A stuck throttle on Colin Smith’s Z4 saw him cannon into Compelli, propelling both men hard into the wall. The shunt made a big mess of the BMW, with the incident seeming likely to make this race Smiffy’s swansong in the formula.

As the race settled down, Boardley started to stretch his legs a bit in an effort to break his pursuit. It’s a tactic that usually works, but this time Haird always seemed able to peg back any little advantage the leader opened up. Both he and Murphy were still just about in touch (despite Carl having just set the fastest lap of the race) but not right under Boardley’s spoiler, which turned out to be a crucial few yards of daylight when several cars got into bother at the exit from turn two. It’s not an uncommon situation in major hot rod races where something unfolds ahead of the leader. If that leader is right on top of it, he only has split seconds to decide what to do; the placemen have that tiny bit more warning and can often turn it to advantage.

Although Stewart Doak was also involved in this coming together, Boardley’s nemesis turned out to be Neil Stimson. As Stimson tried to get back in the hunt, Boardley appeared on the scene and was faced with the choice of going wide – and maybe gifting the lead to Haird – or staying tight but going much closer to Stimson. Carl chose to go inside, clipped Stimson’s car and it was game over, as Boardley slowed into retirement with deranged steering. The Drive for Five was at an end.

“There were a load of cars that had gone everywhere and I saw it when I came into the corner”, Carl explained later.

“By the time I got to mid-corner I’d eased off and decided that I was going inside. There was a gap there but by the time I got to the gap it had closed, we made contact and that ruined the left front corner”

It might have been game over for Boardley, but it was definitely ‘game on’ now for Haird and Murphy.

With the erstwhile leader out of it, understandably, Haird and Murphy now both saw their chance to snatch a maiden win. As third man Gary Woolsey got briefly delayed by a couple of backmarkers he found he couldn’t lap as easily as the lead pair had, he fell back into the clutches of Jamieson, and the two at the front were left free to get down to some serious racing, cutting though the copious quantities of traffic in no-nonsense fashion.

In fact, every passing bunch of back markers gave Haird a scant few more yards on Murphy. Shane seemed always able to make the ground back up when they returned to open road but as the laps dwindled away, it was beginning to look as though Haird had it won.

With around 25 laps to go, Jamieson finally overhauled Woolsey, and Haird still seemed to be getting more out of the traffic situations than Murphy. By now, they’d also lapped everybody up to seventh. Then Malcolm Blackman stepped aside to let them though, and they’d lapped everybody up to sixth. Then Matt Simpson signalled out the window that they should go by down the inside, and they did.

With everybody up to fifth now a lap down, Murphy might just have been wishing that they wouldn’t all be quite so polite, as a few moments baulking by an unwary backmarker was really what he needed. Chris of course, did not. And he was working on his lead advantage again too, opening out maybe three car lengths as they came to take the five lap board.

Nevertheless, four laps from home, Murphy was charging once more, and came right back up on Haird's rear bumper – and there were more backmarkers looming up ahead. It was going to be pressure all the way to the flag, but Haird kept matters totally under control and it didn’t really look like Murphy had anything much for him at the end.

That turned out to be the case, with Shane only fractions of a second behind at flag fall, but behind, he still was. Jamieson was a quarter of a lap back in a lonely but satisfying third spot while Woolsey got home fourth but collected a penalty for an incident during his dice with Andy Holtby that dropped him to sixth. That left Matt Simpson fifth, his valiant fight through from the tenth row one of the features of the race for anybody who’d been able to tear their eyes away from the lead battle. Graham Brown

World Final Result: 115,970,305,61,303,940(-2),911,174,921,72,278,31,961,85,100,78,960,66,155. NOF.
940 dropped two places for baulking/contact with 61.
Photos - by Martin Kingston and Brian Lammey


NHRPA National Hot Rod 2010 Thunder 500
Ulstermen dominate Thunder 500 thriller
Ipswich, Saturday June 19th 2010

Graham Brown reports: On a night that was more like the onset of winter than any kind of date in June, the Northern Irish National Hot Rod drivers came to Ipswich and well and truly threw down the gauntlet for next month’s world championships. After a thriller of a final that featured a race-long, multi-car, lead battle it was John Christie who led home fellow countryman Glenn Bell, with third man Gary Woolsey completing an NI rout.

It was the usual large (44 cars in the end) and cosmopolitan entry that turned up to do battle for the traditional world final warm up honours. It would have been 46 but for a couple of last minute enforced cancellations, Colin Smith having had a major oil leak develop during testing at Arena earlier in the day, the kind that requires the engine out and the rear crankshaft oil seal replacing. That obviously wasn’t practical in the time available, while Stu Carter had run into a bit of a domestic crisis that saw his car arrive with the Holtby’s but without him to drive it.

Those hoping for a glimpse of Keith Martin’s new Tigra were going to be disappointed, Keith enjoying the role of spectator and having, I suspect, a healthy regard for the all-too-common syndrome of T-500 winners having peaked around a fortnight too soon!

Even without those mentioned, and even spread over four heats, there was still never going to a shortage of cars on track. 31 English drivers turned out, enough for a pretty good meeting even without any visitors. Then, and leaving aside their present allegiances licensing-wise, we had six Northern Irish (Gary Woolsey, Glenn Bell, John Christie, Tommy and Terry Maxwell, and Stewart Doak), just two Southern Irish (David O’Regan and James O’Shea), two Scots (James Jamieson and Willie Hardie), two Netherlands racers (John van den Bosch and Laurens van der Velde) and a solitary German, Winnie Holtmanns.

In amongst those drivers, points of interest included Carl Boardley tracking his rarely seen SLK (the Tigra was still in the throes of world preparation), Mark Paffey making his long awaited return to the formula with another SLK, while Doak was out in a rather plain looking and obviously not quite finished paintwork-wise brand new Tigra.

So: four heats for them all to both qualify and sort out the grid for the final. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t look like it was going to behave itself. A series of mercifully short but nasty slanted sideways showers before the meeting even started, were backed up by a biting cold wind, and this was definitely not an evening for T-shirts…

With the track still damp from those earlier squally showers, it was no surprise that the first heat was soon interrupted by a stoppage when Danny Brosnan hit the wall on the fourth turn exit. It was Andy Holtby who led before the yellows and continued to do so afterwards as a big bright rainbow appeared directly over turns three and four! As Tim Moody spun into the wall at the end of the home straight, Dickie Burtenshaw and Woolsey squared up to one another over second spot, with Woolsey clearly getting the jump as the green came back out, only to have Dickie fight back impressively before Gary re-passed again a bit later.

All of that just helped Holtby get further ahead of course and, with the slippery track conditions rather similar to when he won his British title, it was a bit of a no-brainer to suggest that he was going to stay out front till the end. Probably the feature of this was the dice between Steve Thompson and Chris Haird over sixth/seventh places, a dice that had already seen Thompson black crossed. Haird eventually got the best of this by managing to box Steve in behind Chris Harvey. What Thompson probably wasn’t expecting, was that Bell would be able to do the exact same thing to him as well! Steve soon fought back, but Haird was gone by then, chasing down Vd Bosch for fourth and Burtenshaw for third, although the quarter of a lap he had to make up on Woolsey was never going to happen.

All in all, not a bad start then.

Paffey had drawn pole for heat two which, under normal circumstances, should have been game over right there. However, Paff hasn’t raced Nationals for quite a while now and he was sat in a new and very pretty but basically unsorted car to boot. Tommy Maxwell certainly tried hard to get in front at the green, but Paff surged ahead down the back straight and looked to be off and running. The track surface was still far from great, as evidenced by Doughnut, Luke Armiger and Mark Fuller all having spins or offs in quick succession.

Mind you, Fuller’s rotation was probably brought about by his Merc looking about as loose as any Rod I’ve ever seen, and probably only Keith Woods would really have enjoyed driving it like that! When Fuller rejoined right in front of the leader it looked like there could be trouble in store, but Paffey’s experience enabled that problem to be by-passed. However, there was a rare old scrap going on for second between Neil Stimson, Christie and Malcolm Blackman, with Christie and Blackman eventually managing to get past somehow, and JAC going ahead of Blackman at the same time.

There was quite an argument going on for fifth too, between Tommy Maxwell and Phil Spinks, with the former nearly getting spun at one point when he’d left it rather too late to slam the door.

Slowly but surely, Christie began to leave Blackman behind and soon it became more like quickly and surely as John began to close in fast on Paffey. As Spinks finally managed to deal with Maxwell, Christie caught the leader and a hard but fair fight followed, with Paffey giving nothing away but allowing Christie the room to get down the outside if he could. It turned out John could, and did, the Irishman taking an extremely well won victory to open his scoring for the night.

The third encounter certainly didn’t lack excitement either, even if it was run in the pouring rain. Fuller spun before he’d even taken the green flag this time, while outside front row man Mark Willis managed to beat pole sitter Boardley away. Carl didn’t look awfully happy anyway, as Jeff Simpson also went by fairly swiftly, followed by Jamieson.

This was another race that was going to suffer an early yellow though, with Steve Burrows, Burtenshaw, Moody and Lee Wood all getting in a muddle along the back straight.

The resumption saw Willis now having to fend off Simpson, Jamieson and Boardley. Slim went to the front round the inside of turn three only to have Willis re-pass along the back straight on the next lap, shortly before spanking the wall coming off turn four. That gave Simpson back the lead and, with Thompson having now latched onto the rear of this bunch as well, this was far from over yet.

Thompson was really having a go too, and took Boardley and Jamieson before Jamieson came right back at him and re-passed once more. He then set about trying to wrest the lead away from Simpson down the outside, the Scot going on to win despite smacking the home straight wall in an incident that was later to get Simpson disqualified. Indeed, I was amazed how JJ kept going, never mind well enough to overtake round the outside and see off all the opposition into the bargain, and can only conclude that whatever damage he did to his steering must have somehow improved the car!

Boardley started to struggle (on the wrong tyres, I’m guessing) as the laps wound down and began losing places as Haird and Christie both went by suspiciously easily. In Christie’s case, he was going to end up fifth here, which was enough to get him pole for the final.

The rain had stopped by heat four, leaving the track just wet and, with Matt Simpson on the fourth row, a betting man would definitely have had a flutter on 303 for the win in this one. Dick Hillard got away fast from pole, but it wasn’t long before ‘Slippery’ was on his tail and by as they rounded the pit bend, Matt taking his usual delight in these conditions.

Significantly though, he was very nearly caught by Bell in the closing stages, Glenn having started one row further back but on the next rank of cars, so he’d had a bit of ground to make up. When he went past Hillard down the outside with five to go it really did look as though he might be able to threaten Simpson’s lead before flag fall but, in the end, he ran out of laps.

The slippery surface pointed up one or two items of interest for form spotters, notably that Doak (fourth) is also handy in these conditions, that Scott Bourne (fifth) is going to be a force to be reckoned with and almost certainly not just in these conditions, and that Holtmanns (sixth) is another who usually shines when the track is anything other than truly dry.

With the oval greasy on the racing line and just plain wet on the outside by final time, it held no promise whatsoever of any particularly great racing. But in the event, it turned out to be an absolute classic.

Pole sitter Christie went straight into the lead while outside front row man Malcolm Blackman struggled with a seriously pushing car as Thompson and Matt Simpson forged past, Simpson and Blackman having collided in a small way at the end of the back straight. Haird was next to take advantage of Blackman’s predicament, Malcolm underlining the problems he was having with a huge ‘moment’, again at the end of the back stretch.

Christie and Thompson were soon locked in combat for the lead, with Thompson trying everything to get past down the outside and continuously hauling himself alongside. Then Christie ran a touch wide through the pit bend, Thompson cut straight back to the inside and managed to snatch the lead away just before a caution. The yellows came out for Andy Lane and Armiger, who were both in the wall at the pit bend, but chiefly for Harvey, who’d spun on the exit and become stranded on the kerbing there.

Simpson had managed to tail Thompson past the Ulsterman just before the yellows and now piled pressure on the leader when the green was shown once more. Andy Holtby took a spin in turn two after touch from Stimson, while Boardley and Paffey went in for synchronised SLK spinning at the other end – don’t think it’s an Olympic event yet though.

But the Thompson-Simpson fight for the lead through backmarking traffic - with both men taking huge risks either to get or stay ahead - would have been worth the admission money on its own. At one point, Thompson went three wide into turn three and so far outside of the backmarkers he was passing that he virtually scraped the wall. It was a big risk to try and put some space between himself and Simpson, but Matt stayed tight and got through the traffic as well, so it didn’t come off. But there was always more traffic looming up ahead and the two carved through it in increasingly reckless fashion. By now, the 303 car was trailing a small piece of smashed rear bumper, but other than that they both seemed unscathed by it all.

The only problem was, all of this hadn’t got rid of Christie! He was still there with them and, after keeping a watching brief for a while, John put a pass on Simpson down the outside and then did the same to Thompson to re-take the lead - momentarily. Steve hadn’t fought that fight with Simpson to give up the lead that easily and charged back at Christie down the inside to put himself in front once more.

There was simply no way to predict the outcome of this, and that prediction was getting harder by the minute, as Bell had now shown up behind the leaders too, with Woolsey also rushing to try and join in.

Again, Christie went for the outside pass, this time anticipating a chance to box Thompson in behind Vd Velde. In a trice, Laurens went spinning, the impact slowing Thompson just for a second which was all it took to put the 962 car ahead once again, with Simpson also able to pounce on Thompson. But Bell was sharper than all of them and sliced through the in-fighting to snatch second at the same moment as Woolsey darted past Thompson going into turn one, putting Steve from the lead down to fifth in only a few seconds.

Still, this was not over. In fact, the fat lady was only just warming up!

Now it was Christie versus Bell for the lead, two world champions in waiting if you like, and no way to say who was going to win out. The back marking traffic was still treacherous, a knot of three cars giving the leader particular pause for thought, but Bell was unable to take advantage of it. Indeed, back on open road Christie was starting draw clear and it was beginning to look like he had it won. Until, that was, he came round to lap Maxwell.

John found he couldn’t put an immediate pass on him and that was all it took to bring Bell tearing right back into contention. Maxwell stuck to his guns and the inside line and clearly Christie wasn’t about to risk an outside pass at this stage of the game although, as he was obviously miles an hour faster, I’m not sure why – maybe his tyres had had it? Equally though, quite why Maxwell – obviously a lap down and not involved in a dice with anyone else at that moment – didn’t just pull wide and let them through, I don’t know either. He got a prod from an understandably frustrated Christie and then found time to make rude signals out of the window! He still didn’t get out of the way though…

A fact not lost on Gary Woolsey! He’d made it through to third but didn’t look like he could ever catch the Christie-Bell duel. Now Gary closed in fast and was actually down the outside and ahead of Bell at one point before they all broke back onto clear road again.

With three to go, Christie was just starting to finally look like he had the upper hand on Bell with Woolsey falling behind again, when a multi-car crash on the back straight (Matt Simpson had gone spinning with several others involved in the aftermath) brought out the reds for an early finish, a conclusion that still failed to spoil a truly memorable race.

It was also a race that ended with three Northern Irish drivers in the first three places and Boardley – undoubtedly still seen by most as ‘the man most likely to’ - parked against the wall. So, what should we take from all that? Well, ‘heart’ in the case of the NI contingent for sure. But Boardley won’t be in the Merc come the day either. And, although he quietly confided that, win lose or draw, he plans for the 2010 World to be his last race (a revelation that came as no real surprise to some of us) you know he won’t be going there to do anything other than win again – it isn’t in his nature. One thing’s for sure, there has never been a world final anything like as tough as this T-500; perhaps this time it will be.

One final footnote.

On any other day in any other race, Bourne’s performance to claim sixth in this company and only his second meeting would have been headline news. I don’t think those headlines are all that far away anyway. Graham Brown
Results
Heat one: 61,940,115,100,66,170,9,303,72,305,130,116,996,78,199,31,333,65,963,503.
Heat two: 962,60,911,271,14,(95),369,174,41,162,482,208,3,74,39,467,192,68.
Heat three: 305,170,(3),911,115,962,41,65,162,130,503,39,482,369,208.
Heat four: 303,9,31,996,199,467,174,95,271,519,61,192,940,78,60,(74),66.
Final: 962,9,940,170,115,199,271,482,467,208.
95 disqualified from heat two for contact. 3 disqualified from heat three for contact with 305. 74 disqualified from heat four for contact with 66. 303 removed from final result for being the prime cause of the stoppage. Final result taken from last completed lap, transponder system u/s, no further places available.

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