Turner's Talk 20th August 2011

ANOTHER MOODIE HAT TRICK

Gordon Moodie ended up with a hat trick of wins on Saturday night but must rue the contact in heat one which saw him out of the race. After that he went on to win heat two and then the final. An early race suspension, lap one of the GN, saw him line up at the rear of the field and after that he simply powered his way through the field to make it a final and GN double!

McLAUGHLIN TAKES EXCITING FINAL

Ian McLaughlin came out on top during the saloon final on Saturday night but he only managed to hit the front on the very last lap! Barry Russell had taken his car through into the lead with McLaughlin slowly reeling in the leaders. At the start to the last lap the leading cars were nose to tail with Russell being sent spinning on the back straight. Whilst McLaughlin carried on to win, Stuart Drobinski just managed to scrape through but Stuart Shevill Jnr clipped the back of Russell’s car allowing Kyle Hegg through into third spot.

GREEN TAKES TWO

John Green was in good form in the prostox finishing the meeting with a final and Allcomers double. In the final he made steady progress through the field finally catching Kev Bell during the closing stages of the race.
In the Allcomers it was a good drive through a bit of a sparse field to take another victory.

SHUNTS AND SPINS

There were a lot of spins and shunts during the meeting where a couple of race showers made life a bit difficult.
There was a pile up during the opening formula II race which saw Gordon Moodie amongst the casualties with nearly half the field ending up on the sidelines. During the Grand National Raymond Dick and David Parker tangled on the back straight and whilst most of the cars missed them Stephen Forster clipped them and spun.
Glen Heeps collected a spinning car during the saloon heat and spun crashing sideways into the pit bend wall.
In the prostox the greasy track surface caught out a lot of the drivers with Tam Page crashing into the infield tyres after being spun whilst Gary Nicholls’s car was left stranded on the back straight after being the meat in a three car sandwich. Tam Ross, Patrick Calderwood and Stewart Aitken all ended up in a shunt on the top bend, Pete Melrose was caught up in a shunt on the pit bend whilst he was minding his own business and there were a few other shunts which reduced the field numbers.

CHAS NIGHT

Tonight is the CHAS charity evening and there will be cars with passenger seats in them with the drivers quite happy to whisk paying passengers around the track at break neck speed all for the sake of raising funds.
Some of the hot rods, stock rods and lightning rods will have passenger seats but along with the formula IIs and the minis they will be racing in earnest.

HEDNESFORD - SUNDAY OF DECISION

At Hednesford on Sunday there were important races for the formula IIs – the World Championship semi-finals and the stock rod World Final.
In the formula IIs there were seven who had qualified for the semis – four in heat one and three in heat two.
The news I have is that Rob Speak won semi one from Gordon Moodie, Chris Bradbury and George MacMillan Jnr with Robbie Dawson in seventh.
Semi two was won by Chris Burgoyne from James Thackra and Andrew Palmer.