ovaltrack

I am already looking forward to the new racing season and thought that a few lines could be well spent outlining who might be worth looking out for this season on the long circuits.

The Elf Renault Clio Cup is always one of the most spectacular saloon car championships in the UK and its position on the British Touring Car Championship bill gives it a decent profile and a clear place on the racing ladder. This season sees former Legends man Derek Pierce back for a second season - people keep asking me if Derek is related to long time Superstox hero Dave but the answer is 'no'. Derek is a Scottish racer who was a late starter in racing (nearly into his forties) before his debut in XR2s. Derek moves from being a privateer to joining the Robertshaw Racing team. They're a good outfit who have won in the Mini Cooper championship and Derek will be able to share set up knowledge with them. I would be really surprised if he finishes out of the top ten.

Rob Collard could well find himself as a team mate of Derek Pierce as the former hot rodder has been testing a Robertshaw Racing Chevrolet Lacetti Touring Car. It would be good to see Rob back out there with the other top guns in the BTCC

Former hot rod and super silhouette champion Lea Wood is joining the Clios as well although the move from rear to front wheel drive may prove difficult. Another name that jumped out at me on the Clio list was the World Stock Rod Champion Glenn Bell who joins Full Speed Racing. The Essex based team run by former Mini Challenge man Mark Speller. I am assured that the cost differential between Stock Rods and Clios is huge so let's hope Glenn has the budget to do well. The Clio Cup, like all the BTCC supports, will be shown on Sunday afternoons on ITV4 this season - enjoy! The Clios have a further oval connection as former hot rod ace Jon Brookes is usually around with the Total Control Racing team run by his son Lee. TCR have still to confirm a few drivers in both Clios and the Seat Cupra Cup (where they are reigning champions) but it’s good to see Ben Winrow (a former Caterham champion) back with them in the Clios for 2008 and you can expect him to be up with the front runners once again.

The final date on the Pickup calendar was slotted into place just as I was putting together this month’s scribbles and it’s a slot on the DTM (German Touring Car) meeting at Brands Hatch, August Bank Holiday. That really is a great date to catch Sonny Howard’s wonderful formula in action and it means that all the Pickup dates are in front of big crowds with some superb accompanying machinery rather than with, and I use these words as quoted by my friends in the paddock, “a programme full of MOT failures”. Former champion Gavin Seager has already been out testing his new Truck and was reportedly inside the lap record at Brands once again – with three dates there this season that could stand him in very good stead. The Pickups start their 2008 Championship at Brands Hatch on Easter Sunday and Monday – the bill being shared with the big Trucks from the BTRA and the Legends Cars. Brands is also the place to be the following weekend as the Touring Cars commence their schedule.

The Tom Pryce Memorial Trophy is being resurrected this year – it was formerly contested by the Eurocar V8s all those years ago and won by both Kevin Clarke and Mark Willis (whom I believe was the last winner). I made a few enquiries about having it associated with either Legends or Pickups but am happy to report that it will be awarded during a classic race meeting at Pembrey (assuming the Welsh venue survives the noise complaints against it – all those sheep must have sensitive hearing for sure).

The SCSA cars will be interesting on the long circuits although quite why they fought for so long to avoid road racing and then take to it is a bit of a mystery. You will have already seen that the cars will run as part of the V-Sports Racing (VSR) series. There is a certain irony that VSR (nee Eurocar) turned out to be the retirement home for ASCARs (the original name for SCSA – and yes the formula has had more names than cars on the grid over the last two seasons) as it was the latter formula that tried to kill off the former just a few years ago. Don’t get me wrong – I do wish them well but if they’d stuck with Eurocar V8 in the first place I can’t help thinking that we might still have V8 racing to watch on the big oval at Rockingham.

Good to hear from overseas recently - former hot rod, stock car and stock rod driver Graham Kircher although I will save the details (and photos) for a future edition of Short Circuit.

Oh crikey - slipping behind a bit this month as I've normally written something before the latest SC hits the doormat. Nice to see loads of GP Midget stuff in the January magazine including Underground Ernie himself, Scott Roth. I never realised he was part of the Leon Smith team in hot rods.

Well, since last month I've finished my fourth book which will be out in the Summer. I did a fairly quick U turn as I was not originally going to do any more but having spoken to a different publisher things changed and I was back typing away again. The new book is, aside from one or two pictures, all colour and looks at the 1980s which was of course the era of the (dreaded?) Toyota Starlet.

I managed to avoid all the shows over the Winter again although I had intended to go to the NEC with an old acquaintance who'd not been since the days of the old BRSCC show when it was held in London. The NEC trip takes a fair bit of cash especially if you take a family, what with entrance, petrol, car parking, maybe the live action and of course food. I tend to visit perhaps every two or three years so I guess next year might see me make a trip although as I become less involved in racing I am less inclined to do things like that. Most people go for the social side of things which is always agreeable although I tend to get by with the various presentation nights which crop up over the winter. Both last year and this I’ve been privileged to be invited to talk at some of the regional club dinners and it makes you realise what good people there are out there – not just racing but also officiating and marshalling.

Reading through the list of 2007 champions in SC last month I noted that aside from one for the oval Legends there were no championships run on mainland Europe (in the SC list at least). Sad but true. I still reckon there are too many formulae racing these days and probably half of the ‘rod’ classes could / should be culled.

This is normally the time of year we get information about new drivers in the circuit formulae although things seem a bit quiet at the moment. No new names coming through in the Pickups so far although the circuit Legends have got three or four including the name Scott Booth (ex F1? Certainly connected to the Booth Metals/Peter Falding party) who is actually a returnee to the class having done a few races a several years back. Numbers in Pickups and Legends seem to go up and down over the years and last year was a good 'un number wise so perhaps things will be leaner this season. One thing is for sure and that is some great racing is on the cards. Sadly Legends have lost the defending champion Chris Grieve who is off racing Radicals (bike engined sports cars). Another ex Legends man who does that these days is Colin Noble who was also a bit of a legend in Scottish Stock Saloons. There are plenty of other drivers who could win the title and I know that John Higgins who is looking to become the first man to win three titles is bitterly disappointed he won't be up against Grieve this year.

The Legends calendar has worked out well this year with the finale being in November rather than at the end of August. The championship will come to a close at Brands Hatch (same day as the Pickup finale) at the big Truck meeting. It's certainly one worth going along to and I for one am pleased that the big, appreciative Truck crowd will see a proper National Championship round rather than a 'fun' Winter Trophy.

Legends racer Peter Morton has been honoured by 600 Racing (the organisers of Legends worldwide) and Bilstein in the USA by being presented with the Bilstein Madonna Award for Excellence in Racing.

The prize is awarded just once a year in recognition of outstanding racing achievements. Morton has proved not only to be an effective racer but one of the best ambassadors that Legends Racing has seen. Peter is a regular in terms of mentions in ‘Oval and Out’ as he used to race BriSCA F1 Stox and thought he was flying off to Charlotte to collect the first place trophy for successfully defending his World Road Course points title in 2007. Both he and his wife Jacqueline were stunned when it was announced that he had been presented with the Madonna. Winning the award places Morton in exalted company. Not only is he the first Englishman to be honoured in this way but he follows in the wheeltracks of NASCAR Legends Dale Earnhardt and Darrel Waltrip (both previous winners). I bet there are a few people around the small ovals who would like that kind of award on their CV! Once again a global achievement by a UK Legends driver was largely ignored by the national motorsport press. Sadly we’ve become used to this scenario but I think it shows most of the “journalists” are more content covering their favourite drivers and classes here in the UK which apparently are higher up the ladder. Of course it would not do to upset the people who let them into hospitality all year round either.

Peter is just about to embark on his 10th Anniversary Season with Legends Cars in the UK but his racing has been far and wide. He’s been a regular competitor at the World Finals (held at Infineon Raceway, Sears Point) each November for several seasons and has also made two appearances on ice with the Finnish Legends Cars. The 2008 World Legends Championship is being moved from Sears Point to Las Vegas. It’s also a few weeks later (first week in December) which means that a) the weather will be better and b) several drivers will want to go and race on a different circuit.

Great news from former 1600 hot rodder Daren Hills whose son, Aiden is moving into BRDC Stars Mini Max karts this season. Aiden won last year’s ‘O’ plate race and his move into Stars is very much the top rung of the ladder in Karting. Lewis Hamilton graduated from there and he still takes a keen interest in it. In actual fact, it’s not just Lewis – Martin Brundle and Jason Plato also add their support to the championship. All being well you should be able to see some of the action on TV this year – the last two seasons have been shown on Sky Sports. Another young driver who raced in Stars during 2006 is Rob Collard’s son Ricky. Keep an eye open for him as well.

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, or so they say. I recently had the pleasure of meeting Roger Fennings who was responsible for a lot of notable goings on in the short oval scene in the late sixties and early seventies. This came about as I tracked him down when I was putting together my book, Backtrack, as I’d wanted to include a pic of the Custom Car stock car (now there’s one of the classic Stock Saloon boys to copy!). Roger looked after Spedeworth’s PR and then set up Custom Car magazine whilst working at Link House. Custom Car ran some quality coverage on short oval racing for many years and that was down to ‘the Dodger’. Not only that but they put a lot back into the sport with sponsorship of team cars and events throughout the early seventies. I don’t think the coverage that CC gave short oval racing has ever been matched by any other magazine available on the national news stands. Roger also managed one of the Auto Spedeway Superstox teams, the White City / Walthamstow Lions in 1971. What I didn’t know was all the other stuff that Roger did outside of racing – before and since. He mentioned writing an autobiography at some stage and that sounds like it will be well worth a look if and when it comes out.

I was saddened to learn of the death of Jim Davey who, by co-incidence is in one of the photos that Roger has recently loaned me. The pic was taken at Cowdenbeath in the very early seventies. It’s Jim’s very distinctive cars that I remember most of all – very low looking Superstox. I think that design/model was also raced by Bert and Alan Hawkins and later Chris Knights and one of the Olding brothers. I seem to remember one on the PRI circuits as well. Jim also raced for the Wimbledon Canaries/Dons Auto Spedeway team and his team car was the first Superstox machine raced by Dave Willis. I can recall Jim’s most prolific win being in the annual Carnival Night ‘Golden Award’. A seventies programme caption states that he was the man to beat when Spedeworth operated grass track racing at Great Chart near Ashford in Kent and at Billingshurst in Sussex and he was certainly an expert on the shale at Wimbledon.

Wasn’t it good to see Robert Collard back out in the Touring Cars after a frustrating attempt at the Porsche Carrera Cup? The televised Touring Car finale was pretty good with the big showdown between Jason Plato and Fabrizio Giovanardi providing some great entertainment. No question in my mind that these two have been leagues ahead of the others in the formula this season and unfortunately that does not say a great deal about the overall quality of the championship.

The Renault Clio Championship is always a crowd pleaser but the amount of damage has done little for the driver base this year. The season started out with oversubscribed grids which meant qualifying races and less points on offer as the timetable could only facilitate one championship status race. By the end of the season less entrants meant that there were no qualifying races but that was of little consolation to those whose championship chances had evaporated in the first couple of rounds thanks to the antics of less experienced drivers or others who should have known better. Former hot rodder Sean Brown’s team driver Stefan Hodgetts nearly won the championship but was pipped at the post. Stefan did not do all the rounds so his performance was all the more remarkable. Former Stock Rodder Steve Collison also made good progress throughout the season in the Clios.

Short Circuit backed (?) Pickup Truck racer Antony Hawkins escaped unscathed after the first roll over in the formula for over ten years. This happened at Brands hatch in the last round of the championship. Ant clipped Martin Heath’s spinning car and dug into the gravel as he went off the circuit. The last round was a cracker but we were denied a true three Truck finale as Gavin Seager effectively ruled himself out of the running after having a blown engine at the penultimate round at Pembrey. The championship came down to Steve Dance and Nic Grindrod and it was the Reading man who nabbed a win and a second place to take the title whilst Grindrod had a mediocre weekend with transmission problems. Neil Tressler’s consistent run continued and he secured the Rookie crown for this year.

Great news from Legends is that Glenn Burtenshaw won the World Championship for “Semi Professional’ drivers at Sears Point, just outside San Francisco in November. Glenn is a second generation racer – his dad Alan was a multi champion in both Bangers and Stock Rods. Glenn has himself done a little short oval racing with a couple of outings in Rookie Bangers. As I have said on this page before the Legends World Championship is very much worthy of the tag – not like some of the short oval offerings with only local drivers taking part. Well done Glenn on a remarkable achievement – it was his first visit to Sears Point and he was not even racing his own car. The thing is though, I have given Glenn a lot of stick in my commentaries over the years about him being rubbish. I might have to change my tack next season.

More congratulations are due to Peter Morton who was third in the Masters event and has won the World Legends Points Championship for the second successive season. Interesting story about Peter – he had book to hire a car from top USA racer Steve Fensler but on arrival found that the car that was awaiting him had a pink livery. “Eeee, I’m not racing int’ car wi’ that colour scheme,” says the gritty Yorkshireman and therefore another vehicle had to be sourced.

The Circuit Legends are introducing optional water cooled engines for 2008. This is an exciting development and will only apply to the 1250cc engines which have to built by one of the three approved engine builders. Extensive testing of the new water cooling kits has taken place in America and there does not appear to be any performance advantage but it is expected that rebuilds will be less frequent.

I had the privilege of co presenting the annual awards night for the British Racing and Sports Car Club recently. How good it was to see a few ex oval racers having earned honours on the circuits including Jo Polley who won the Ladies Cup in the Mighty Mini Championship. Nick Tandy won the Formula Ford Festival and is one of the six finalists for the prestigious BRDC Autosport awards. Daniel Brown collected the T-Car crown with William Buller in second. Sadly none of the top three from the SCSA championship attended the event otherwise I could have added to that list!

Oh well – I guess that’s it for 2007. Have a good Christmas. See you next season.

After a couple of months away it’s nice to be back typing away at the keyboard (or is it?). The Legends season came to its’ usual early ending over the Bank Holiday weekend in August at Brands Hatch. The title itself was settled in the penultimate race of the day which meant that the final was a ‘no pressure’ race. It produced the race of the year with six cars thrashing it out for the lead and John Jon Higgins taking the win over Chris Greive who had just won the title. It sent everyone off home extremely happy and looking forward to the ‘Winter’ non championship races scheduled for Croft and Brands.

Former Legends man Ian Sturt went back to his roots this year and is racing on the Rolling Thunder Show in the Superstox. I’ve not been able to get over to Arena to see any of the races but am told it’s an excellent night out and Sturty is top of the points. Ian’s son, Jake, is hoping to make his debut some time soon as well.

Holiday this year was on Jersey and luckily there was some motor sport to watch on the beach just outside St Helier . The racing was on three different size ovals coned out on the sand. The smallest oval was used for the juniors on motorbikes. The intermediate circuit for slightly bigger bikes and the biggest one was for the cars and the grasstrack/speedway bikes. The cars ran in two groups – the productions which had a fairly decent looking grid and the lesser supported but spectacular Beach Cars which are essentially grass trackers. It was a nice event and there was a big crowd enjoying the racing – it’s all free to view and there was the opportunity to have a look around the cars in the pit/paddock area plus a decent public address system which kept everyone informed throughout the afternoon.

It was very sad to learn of the death of former Superstox and Midget driver Rod Tanswell. Rod was without doubt the first real superstar in the Midgets. Indeed he was one of the innovators of the class and won most of the major trophies in the early years. He was the first Points Champion (1968) and won the following two seasons as well. He was twice National Champion (1969 & 1972), British Champion (1972) and the inaugural European Champion in 1973. Up until the end of the 1972 season Rod raced a Dastle Mk3 but went on to race in the first front engine Fireball designed by Frank Boyles - the Mk3. Rod won with the Fireball on its' debut in the National Championship at Wimbledon in 1972.
His achievements should not be underestimated as all his titles were won when the formula boasted its biggest driver base through both Spedeworth and the MARC. Rod also did most of the early public relations work for the class in the Spedeweek race programme and Wheelspin magazine under the pen name "The Informer", never giving himself much in the way of self promotion but instead concentrating on others. He also wrote the 'Evolution of Midgets' chapter of the Spedeworth book 'Living With Spede' which provides a superb account of the formative years of the current formula.

Following his retirement from Midget racing at the end of the 1973 season Rod still supported the Midgets with the occasional presentation of the Rod Tanswell Challenge Trophy which was contested when the cars raced on Spedeworth circuits. He continued to work for Spedeworth and I remember him doing a lot to promote Arlington meetings and also editing Wheelspin.

Onto the circuits and my usual look at how ex oval racers are doing out there. Paul Lund won another two races in the Dunlop MAXX Sport Cup in his Alfa Romeo 147. As it’s the first year of competition there is no championship status as such but Paul is the top points scorer so far. Sad to report that Jo Polley had to miss a round of the Mighty Mini championship at Oulton Park due to budget problems. A look at the Formula 6 Karting website shows at least three oval related drivers in the Cadet category. Conner Mills (son of former Group A Hot Rodder Steve) is 3rd in class at the moment with Bobby Thompson (son of ex Superstox & Sprint Car driver Paul) in 6th. Lee Caroline’s young son Jamie is also racing in the cadets sporting the family number 38.

It was nice to see loads of cars in the car park at Rockingham for the August outing. I’ve long been saying that a good way to get new fans to racing is to invite and involve owners clubs in meetings. The RS Owners Club, as well as bringing some extra spectators, brought in some impressive machinery to look at. Unfortunately the weather let us all down once again at that particular meeting. Let’s hope for some sunshine next season.

The Brands Pickup meeting saw the debut of ex F1 Stocker Damien Carr. He had a good couple of races and wound up 13th in the second race out of an entry of 24. He started both races from the back of the grid too. More Rookies would be a good thing in Pickups! The meeting saw a win for Damo’s big brother Simon (his first for three years) and the first win of the season for a very much in form Nic Grindrod.