Shakespeare County Raceway

Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK

24th - 26th August 2013

Stripe 21 Open Sport Nationals

Report and photos by Steve Weston

    After an exceptionally long summer break, racing returned to Shakespeare County over the weekend of 24th-26th August, 2013, with the third round of the UK National Championship series.The series, contested over four rounds, two at Santa Pod and this, the second visit to Shakespeare County, determines the top sportsman class champions and, has been fiercely contested throughout the year.

    In contrast to the general economic outlook within the UK, several of the classes have seen entries grow considerably in number and, with a possible 64 car entry at the forthcoming FIA Euro Finals at Santa Pod for the Super Pro ET class and similar numbers for Pro ET, the outlook is looking positive for the national classes.

    Super Pro ET headlines the weekend, being the quickest of the ET classes and consists of a wide variety of vehicles, Dragsters, FED's, Doorslammers and Altereds. The proviso being that they are capable of running within the 6.30 to 8.99 second bracket.
    Pro ET is run along similar lines but with a range of 9.00 t0 11.00 second bracket time, again with a vast variety of machinery on display.

    Super Gas  runs to an index of 9.90 seconds, go quicker and you're out. Mainly full bodied cars, the class produces some incredibly close racing, .001 of a second can be the difference between winning and losing.
    Super Comp is an index class for high performance dragsters, altereds and doorslammers, running to an 8.90 second bracket.
    Street Eliminator is a class for street legal cars, part of the round each series is, in addition to track racing, a 25 to 30 mile cruise around the Warwickshire roads in the evening, an obligatory fuel stop and hot start being part of the run. Rapid cars are the order of the day, 7 to 8 second runs over the quarter not being uncommon!

    Once again, a large number of European racers were in attendance, not least the Dubois family from France with vehicles ranging from a Pro Stock style late model Pontiac to an especially rapid Dragster. Add in the deciding rounds for the Avon Park International Racers Association series for the Wild Bunch and Outlaw Anglia's and a good three days racing was in prospect.

    A mixed weekend of weather, Saturday and Sunday qualifying being delayed due to morning rain on both days, but Mondays finals took place with the conditions improving as the day wore on, even sunny by mid afternoon.

    Eight Wild Bunch cars were in attendance, and after four qualifying sessions all eight contested the eliminations, the final pitching Adam Price (Go Hard or Go Home Altered) against Darryl Howells (Chemical Reaction slingshot). Unfortunately Darryl was unable to start the car, Adam taking the win. The APIRA Wild Bunch series was won by Adam Price, with Bob Hawkins in the Time Traveller slingshot runner up
    Six Outlaw Anglia's appeared at the Open Sports, and whilst the championship is firmly in the grip of Cliff Griffin, the final round of the APIRA series produced a tie for top place between Cliff and Colin Millar.

    All in all an event where due credit should be given to all of the track crew at the raceway for enabling the event to run smoothly, often in difficult conditions  and to run to a conclusion. In the meantime, not such a long wait for the next event, the eagerly anticipated 25th staging of the Hot Rod Drags and the, almost to the day, 40th anniversary of Shakespeare County Raceway, could be something special!

MORE PHOTOS ON FOLLOWING PAGES HERE

Nostalgia Drag World - Report and photos by Steve Weston