The HOT HOT HOT race and that was not just the weather.
A welcome return to the Beetle Challenge for Trigger (Paul Oldfield) His return did have a bit of a twist though as he was in Simon Sergides car! The other competition being from Phil Thompson, Steve McGillvray and regular competitor Dave Charlton.
Because of the extreme heat all four drivers were concerned about their precious air cooled engines however this thought obviously went straight from their minds when they got onto the circuit. Qualifying resulted in Dave 53.894 Trigger 53.952 Steve 56.038 and Phil 1.03.873.
Race 1 -Â This was a race with two races in it. Steve and Phil having a good battle and changing places many time. Dave and Trigger were also battling the lead despite Trigger saying he was going to take it steady !!! as it was not his car! Dave went a long way down the start/finish straight off the circuit causing a major dust cloud and somehow managed to get back on the track and continue in the right direction however now sporting a damaged exhaust. The cars survived the heat and Trigger took the race win with a fastest lap of 53.797 followed by Dave 53.975 Steve 54.336 and Phil 54.134 (Steve just pipped Phil to 3rd place on the podium on the last corner of the last lap!)
On return to the pits three cars were in one piece but Dave’s normally reliable beetle had a broken exhaust and he said he had only had 3rd and 4th gears most of race and this was the reason he had gone off because he had been unable to change down. Despite this he remained only 2 seconds off his qualifying times. As is the case with racing all hands to the deck and a Blue Peter repair was done to the exhaust. Nothing could be done about the gears but Dave said he would start the race and see how far he could go!
Race 2 -  Trigger was still maintaining he was only going to take it steady after all it was not his car!! The odds were stacked against Dave’s car making the finish and Steve and Phil were definitely going into battle. Again Steve and Phil were having a cracking time racing each other and were able to catch and pass Dave who tried to defend as long as he could now only had one gear so surviving was an achievement in itself. 4th place is not usually where he is or where he wants to be again!!!! Trigger in the mean time had took off and was battling Ken Angell in the Jag and Jon Wild’s metro (a brilliant battle to watch) So the result of race 2 was Trigger first with fastest lap 53.071 Phil 54.016 Steve 54.432 and Dave with 55.302
Check out the videos of the day to confirm this was hot hot hot racing.
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