PRIMO FOR NUMERO SETTE
"Nearly 80 F2s gathered including large contingents from
Northern Ireland and Holland, Saturday’s opener seeing Gordon Moodie stuff
Richard Bowyer and Ben Aimson in one move to take the lead but it was
backmarker Andy Brewin who took the brunt of the impact and his weekend was
over. Moodie dominated the restart with
heat two with Ryan Morgan and Justin Fisher clearing off in front of heat two,
the former victorious. Micky Brennan
passed James Riggall to lead the third heat but developed a misfire and Kelvin
Whalley passed him for the win before the consolations saw several shunts and
stoppages as Chris Burgoyne and Luke Wrench took the wins. Tim Bailey snatched the lead from Peter
Bartrum in the Final but there was no holding back Moodie and he took over just
after half distance for his double with the GN seeing a messy restart shake up
the field, George MacMillan Jnr becoming the evening’s third Scottish winner."
So overnight UKIPped if you could, and Faraged for burgers on the BBQ. But enough dodgy Euro tenuous jokes, it was time to go racing....
GORDON GRAFTS A EURO, DAZ GETS TOO HIGH AND A FISH TAKES THE WIN
"The grid for the Euro was as always drawn out of the hat on Sunday morning and Ady Whitehead and Adam Rubery drew the front row with Ashley England and Bailey next, Moodie back in 25th and defending champion Barry Goldin 28th. The first attempt at the race saw complete mayhem with Mike Geraedts rolling in the midst of a turn four pile-up which also claimed Burgoyne and Ryan McCrory while Rubery and Whitehead went into the wall elsewhere. A complete restart was ordered and eight cars were missing including both front row men, England leading the early laps until Neil Hooper took over but one lap later gold top James Rygor hit the front. The top five began to break away which to nobody’s great surprise included Moodie and he soon swept past Rygor and went on for yet another title, Whalley losing third with engine dramas promoting Hooper to the podium.
Moodie did it again in heat one shooting past Jack
Marshall for the win with Whalley’s repaired car holding off Aaron Williamson
to take the second, heat three seeing Bartrum take his first win in a while
after passing Darren Phillips. Just one
consolation was run and this went to the fast-starting Jamie Conway but he spun
on the first lap of the Final which saw a spinning Wrench delay most of the red
graders allowing Daz Kitson to break away and he took the flag only to fail
post race checks leaving Fisher the winner of the Bev Greenhalf Trophy, Moodie
having to be content with third this time.
Jack Cave led the GN until tangling with a backmarker and it was Brennan
who took the last win of the weekend."
POINTS OF ORDER
Commentary, now I know Dave Goddard will be looking at this bit with bated breath and trepidation, but for once, I found his commentary knowledgeable, full of anecdotes, but sometimes a little too much info. A rollover awareness has been booked Mr G. Good to hear the J-ho Approved Knights of Cydonia used as warm up lap music, however in the Bev Greenhalf Memorial Internation Cup, the tune the great man gave us all, Rinky Dink, was dusted out of retirement with Incarace.
Andy Hankin, the underling commentator, may well be good enough on the in house formulae, but his display of knowledge out the national scene left a lot to be desired. Justin Fisher (315) was some perturbed to be called Jamie for all of the meeting. And James Rigga is the World Champion? Must of missed that. Having Paul Gerrard on the infield interviewing was a bit flat too. A man of many hats in Incarace, he should stick to the hat of most importance and concentrate that. He was constantly checking and doing the stewards job with a microphone. When you have a richness of on track reporters, commentators and the like, you have to look at the shows that Skegness put on, the combo of Oxby and Kaleta or Linfield and Kaleta works well, because you have the right mix of comedy and seriousness.
Scrutineering....Now I have much maligned the F2 Scruitneering Supremo Adrian "Crossen" Blackwell for his over officiousness and fetish for the minutia, but the rulebook is there to be abided by and well someone has to do it. Personally, a new approach has been seen recently, a safety check is done and scrutineering is for the post race. As Daz Kitson found out. However, such embarrassments could be solved. Start of season, every car gets a thorough going over and checked. If you change something, write it in your log book so your friendly scrutineer can check your amendments. Putting control back into the hands of the drivers. However should you forget to log your changes, then feel the wrath...
To quote some Smiths at you, "stop me if you've heard this one before". Nothing has changed my views from last year, or the year before, or the year before that on this meeting
Saturday Night has very little importance to the actual championship itself, with the top 6 scorers going with Johnny Foreigners (not many of them this year, no Peter Baer? Jan Bekkers?). Those who had qualified turned up for the Sunday alone. And then, there is the ones who don't even bother due to it being too close to Skegness or wrong grade of aggregate for them. Format rethink, methinks.
Build Up? I have argued for long enough that the European weekend is all about the F1's and we seem quite happy to play 3rd fiddle to them and the ridiculous Hoppystox aka Rebels. Fact construed with the big race being the opening race of the day. And having the draw at 10:45 in the morning to a packed pits. The random draw is often derided, and for poor Andrew Palmer (606) who in absentia drew pole, had it yoinked away by Ady Whitehead (960), who in an oversight had qualified but had been left off the lift. A public draw can be a good build up and tension builder, this was like having the World Cup draw on an obscure Sky knitting channel at 4 am! Come the end of the tractor Euros, there was fireworks and smoke galore (helped by a donutting one). Nothing for the 2's.
New Venue? The F2 European has been held at other tracks than Northampton in the past. The old adage that "Northampton gets the most foreigners over" has come to a en passe. Whilst our friends in the big league had a fair few, it was clear that there were more Irish at Skeg, and many domestic Mildenhall and King's Lynn have had more from the Netherlands.
The shale scene in Holland is quite massive. You also have the Germans and Belgians, and now Austria too... Next year is the perfect opportunity to give it to for instance King's Lynn as it is an Incaworth WF. Common sense would prevail thats F2 world would be best suited to NIR next year... but who knows. I bet we'll be undersold again
 |
| Over here, Dave |
And whilst the F1's were tame at Skegness and Northampton they stole the show. Some quite brutal attacks on Tom Harris (1) and 3 massive roll overs, and hell Frankie Wainman Jnr (515) won a major title for the first time in ages and Speaky justifiably chucked his toys out of the pram. Maybe the Pringle cross is a much better solution but as we've seen at Taunton this year, the ones who don't want to get involved can often spoil the race for those who want to chase it. A Swindon-esque strop for Speak, but an impressive meeting. Apparently if you read Stoxnet, tarmac F1 racing is dead.....
Back to some normality for us all... time to get me pink on...but after 2 busy weekends, Taunton's mammoth weekend looks set to exceed all records, and potentially is going to be a cracker.
You daren't not miss it...
No comments:
Post a Comment