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| Added: 07 Apr 2012 |
Category: 2012 Oval Racing |
| 2012 - #7 - Ballymena Raceway - 6/4/12 |
Good Friday, the once was traditional starting date for the local racing season, the traditional Yokohama Tyres championship for the Stock Rods and my first trip to Ballymena for the season, oh yeah, and not forgetting I’d a new lens to play with.
Having spent many years as a fan fairly out in the cold to what was going on, who had new cars and what was happening in the Sport, Good Friday used to end the anticipation of who might have built new cars, who’d a tidy new paint job and what would lie ahead for the season. All that added to getting off work or school back in the day, built up what was a fairly hyped meeting for the start of the domestic season. I can’t but feel I miss that, and in fact I probably contribute to the loss of that experience to other people. The coming of the internet has insured we all know which visiting drivers to expect, the popularity of social networking now provides us with a drip feed of who has done what with cars throughout the closed season and pictures of newly signwritten cars can often be found online long before they can be found at a track. There is also the pretty big change that 3 of the 4 promotions in Northern Ireland have already kicked off their season before Easter, and I think last season all 4 had. Even taking all that into account, this was Good Friday, this is where the season traditionally begins in many of our heads if nowhere else and anything which went before was just competitive practice.
Up until dinner time on Friday I was a bit unsure if I would take this meeting in or not, the weather forecast earlier in the week had put me off a little and I’m with so many people talking about car numbers, poor turnouts, the price of travelling it has almost sneaked itself into my sub-conscious that every meeting needs to be evaluated on the basis of value for money, and with so many meetings, value for time. At the time of writing this piece, it’s 4.50pm on Saturday afternoon, apart from nipping out to the butchers this morning I have done nothing else today but sort out photos from last night, I haven’t decided if I’m going to Saturday night’s racing at this point because if I do then tomorrow will disappear in a similar blur of photos, then Monday it’s racing and Tuesday will go the same way, that is 5 days of nothing but oval racing, so although much of that is self inflicted, 2012 will for me be about the value of my time.
Anyway, away from the politics of it and back to the racing. The Stock Rods put out a cracking grid of cars and had put on some great racing. Raymond Harper certainly wasn’t the quickest but made his car wide enough when he needed to in order to take the honours in the Yokohama Tyres Championship. Derek McMillan ended his evening on his roof when it looked as though he could well be destined for a podium at least and he had come close to an opening heat win. The final was a cracking race, and it quickly comes back to you that you’ve missed that throughout the closed season.
The National Hot Rods only mustered seven cars, including Andy Cochrane in the ex Gary Woolsey SLK. The low turnout made the three races pretty eventless except for a late pass for John Christie to snatch the opening heat from Stewart Doak. Glenn Bell took heat 2 and the final.
There was 21 gp 2’s in action with heat wins for Uel McMillan and Curtis Greer before Stuart Nicholl took the honours in the final.
The opening Junior Heat seen one of the closest finishes of the season, and as I’ve said before and will say again, a win for Jamie McCurdy is one of the few times you’ll hear much noise in the stands these days. Heat two went to Adam Brogan before Aidan McFerran took the honours in the final.
There was only one Classic Hot Rod in attendance, and so the class wasn’t run. It would be a shame to see the Classics finished completely, they are a class that I wouldn’t look out the window to watch if they were racing in my back garden but I accept that a lot of money has been spent on preparing these cars. Perhaps running them as a sub class within the Open Hot Rods would be a better place to give them their racing, that allows those who want to stick at it to continue or allows the class to naturally run out if they aren’t supported. Running them with the Open Hot Rods would also put more cars on track for Open Hot Rod races and between them it ensures when the driver goes to the effort of coming to race that they will still be getting a race, instead of being told, I’m sorry no one else turned up you’re not racing.
Approx Car Turnout: 64 cars (Stock Rods 25, Gp 2’s 21, Juniors 10, NHRs 7, Classics 1)
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| More Photos on Flickr |
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