Description
Stock Car Special
Paul Huggett takes a look at where the 1300 and 2 litre saloon based Stock Car divisions are in the 21st Century, speculates on where they are headed, and profiles the two World Champions.
Because Stock Car racing arrived in the UK, as it did in the mid 1950s, from America via France, it acquired some peculiarities that the good ol’ boys over in the southern states hadn’t built in to the plan, not least the allowing of deliberate contact between cars – almost inevitable anyway when big cars were on tiny sub-quarter mile stadium-enclosed ovals rather than, say, the big expanses of Daytona Beach – and reinforcing the basic stripped-out road-going donor vehicle to take the punishment, and dish it out right back…
A Winter’s Tale
When it comes to racing characters, former Ipswich racer, mechanic, and long-time spectator Mick Winter is right up there with the best of ‘em. Indeed, once you wind him up, he’ll happily recall fascinating tales on just about any racing aspect you care to mention. Part of the furniture on the first bend at Foxhall, you’ve probably heard him even if you’ve never actually seen him! After all, this is the same person who proudly recalls the time that he led the Irish in song at the Spedeweekend: “They’d won yet another H/R world title, so I thought I’d help ‘em celebrate”, Mick recalls with a somewhat glazed expression…..
2005 Swaffham Festival of Speed
Over recent years Swaffham Raceway in Norfolk has held a Spedeweekend in the Autumn, this year the format was slightly different with practice on Friday 30 September and a party in the evening followed by more practice on Saturday and racing getting underway at 4.30pm. There were an incredible 25 races scheduled from six formulae and with 185 cars crammed into the pit area! The main event was the eagerly awaited 1300 Stock Car World Championship, and it proved to be as lively and controversial as everyone expected!
A Weekend Trip to Canada
When I first mentioned to my wife that I was contemplating jetting across the Atlantic for a weekend of motor racing, her reply was well, in the interest of family harmony, not really printable. Words like ‘lost the plot’ and ‘barking mad’ were just a few that entered our brief conversation. To put things in context I had been invited by some good friends we met last year on the Short Circuit/Team Foskett Tour, to watch the Canadian Sprint Nationals at the Oshweken Speedway in Ontario…
Horror Crash
In its early days, American midget racing in the 1930s had a long list of fatalities and tragic accidents. Probably the most gruesome took place at the Nutley Velodrome in Nutley, New Jersey, USA, on April 2, 1939…