1300 Stock Car English Championship

Three Trackstar drivers made the trip south to Arlington Stadium, Eastbourne, on May Day Bank Holiday (4 May) to represent the promotion in the 1300cc Stock Car English Championship. The three were brothers 340 Wes and 341 Austen Freestone, plus 444 Natasha Street, all making their track debut.

After a nightmare journey, the Freestones missed pre-meeting practice on the tight concrete raceway, which didn’t help their preparations, then elder brother Wes – the National Points Champion – suffered mechanical maladies which forced him out of the big race, which programmed first.

“The throttle cable’s broken,” he explained. “Gutted. I was looking forward to it – never been here. Terrible day all round really.”

Of the trio, Street drew the best place on the grid – the inside of row two – while Wes Freestone should have started on row six, and his brother drew row seven. The race was dominated by veteran 71 Steve O’Dell, the winner of the title back in 1999 when it was staged at Birmingham. O’Dell looked nailed on for victory until forcefully removed by the backmarking 497 Alec Mortimer. That let 713 Ian Beaumont in for a comfortable win on the track where he was runner-up in the same race two years earlier. 686 Pete Beldom and World Champion 171 Adam O’Dell completed the top three after a good scrap between the pair and 167 Jimmy Morris.

Beaumont admitted afterwards: “Just a bit of luck really – I’m not sure I’d have caught him with three laps to go.”

Sadly Austen Freestone pulled off into retirement after only a couple of laps, and that was the last race action he would see all day. Street faired a little better, bringing her car home, albeit outside the top 10 in the championship race, then finishing eighth in the follow-up heat. She was an early retirement in the last race of the day, after being spun out by the pack and getting beached on a marker tyre.

Wes Freestone returned for both heat races and gave a good account of himself, without managing to quite match the pace of the leading Spedeworth runners, managing a best result of sixth in the first heat. That was won by Beldom, before 258 Wilf Bridges claimed a dominant win in the second heat.

English Championship grid

Result