Stuchbury takes Points

The third and final Friday night visit to Coventry Stadium this year and the foreseeable future as Friday nights are being dropped by the stadium Management next season in favour of Sunday afternoons. The weather played a major part in the evenings proceedings as persistent rain made the track conditions treacherous.

As heat one got underway it took a mere one lap to reduce the field to 20 brown coloured cars as the rain turned the track into a quagmire. Nearly all the field experienced spin outs as it only needed a wheel to be placed off the inside line to see cars slither and slide into the fence and it didn’t matter what the drivers did to avoid it as braking, accelerating or steering did not seem to stop anyone from escaping the Armoco  161 Mark Allen came through the chaos to take the flag and score his first win of the season.  Cotterill came home sixth after leading the race but tangling out with 439 Jay Kellett.  The fact that Kev Stuchbury did not finish and would not take any further part in the evening’s racing with a split fuel tank meant little to Cotterill as he would need a miracle to take the points away from Stuchbury now. 

Mark Allen continued his winning spree in heat two with 9 Andy Hulse second and Cotterill a dogged third. 304 Chris Mellor had pulled up along the back straight during this one and an out of control 147 Colin Taylor ran into the unlucky Ashborne youngster to end the race early.  Luckily Mellor exited the car under his own steam and appeared to be shaken rather than stirred.

The Final looked to be going the way of 179 Richard Arrowsmith who was having a good meeting so far, but he was put under pressure by 212 Frankie Wainman, although at one point he did draw away from the experienced veteran.  However, a spinning car forced Arrowsmith out onto the slush and allowed Wainman to race up the inside and away for the win.  I think all of the cars that finished the final were racing on less than eight cylinders with heat one and two winner Mark Allen developing a severe misfire which reduced him to infield spectator.  Frankie commented after the win that it was a case of plodding around and not spinning out and avoiding the temptation to do anything stupid. He knew he was catching the leader it was just a case of waiting for the mistake.  I asked Frankie about the rumours circulating that his son Danny was going to be racing V8s when he finishes Ministox this season and Frankie said “Yes, Danny will be having a go in my car initially, but will eventually build a new one.”  

Darren Cotterill rounded out a soggy night by taking the win in the Grand National with Hulse again second and top point scorer of the night, Arrowsmith, third. 

After the night’s racing it would now be mathematically impossible for Cotterill to overhaul Stuchbury in the points chase.  So it was that Stuchbury wrapped up the title without scoring a point. An up to date points table can be found here.