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| Added: 08 Sep 2015 |
Category: 2015 Oval Racing |
| British Titles for Casey & Haugh |
To follow a recent trend of father & son title winners in National Hot Rods Dave Casey won the National Hot Rod British title at Aghadowey Oval on Saturday night, a few years after his father Tom won it at Ballymena. Tom incidentally also took a heat win the in the 2.0 Hot Rods. Steven Haugh took victory in a lively ProStock British Championship race.
It was a bit of an odd run up to the Speedweekend for me, usual form is that the few weeks before the Speedweekend are a bit manic trying to pull the programme together, get it off to the printers and sort through various other graphics and build up things, then once the programme goes to the printer I get a few days of calm before the storm again. This time though the next Speedweekend is just around the corner and I’ve been working on the two simultaneously, so once one was finished it was onto the next one. The few days leading into the weekend were more focused on Superstox than Nationals and ProStocks.
The entry for the National Hot Rod British was down on visiting overseas drivers as well as missing a few of our own. It’s hard to imagine the Irish/N.Irish domenence in the class hasn’t put a few people off the trip, I think there does become a point that local domination becomes detrimental to attracting visiting drivers. Let’s face it though the World, European, National, Scottish Open and defending British Champions were present, no one can argue the field lacked quality.
The Nationals ran all in races and bumped into each other quite a bit, I think it’s possible throughout the evening more Nationals than ProStocks went out of the racing arena on the forks of the digger, there was certainly more crashes than the BWS round earlier in the year!
Dave Casey led Glenn Bell home in the opening heat, Adam Maxwell won heat two which had included a big smash on the home straight which left Derek Martin’s car with big damage before a smash on the back straight left Shane Murphy’s car looking second hand.
Casey had qualified pole for the final with Billy Wood alongside. Wood lost out a bit early on and went backwards down the order on the outside as Adam Maxwell came through to second and kept Casey under pressure for the duration of the race. Bell was up to third and challenging around the outside for a few laps before also losing out to the inside train. Casey took the win with Maxwell second and Hylands third.
The ProStocks have been one of the best classes this season and rarely have a bad race or a bad meeting. Their British Championship was no different. The usual thrills, spills, blow ups, hard hits in the heats seen wins for Dan Shannon and Conor McElmeel. The results from the heat left Shannon and Steven Haugh on the front row for the final. Shannon took the initial lead with McClelland slipping through and pushing him down the order early on. As the race settled it looked a three way scrap between McClelland, Haugh and Greg McMullan with Haugh eventually breaking away and going on to take the win with Shannon slipping up through the order to take second and McMullan third
Following heat wins from Adam Best and Stephen Emerson it was Shane Murray who took a lights to flag in in the 2 Litre Irish Open despite Best’s best efforts to go around Murray in the closing stages he had to settle for second.
In the other support classes. the McNeice’s took a clean sweep in the Stock Rods with Stevie winning heat one and the final and Colin winning heat two.
The opening Superstox heat was a win for Mark Murphy before Jack Gilpin won heat two and the final.
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