Sat 3 August

An unmissable night of full blooded Stock Car action takes place on Saturday 3 august (4pm) featuring the second F1 Stock Car Semi Final together with the 2L Stock Cars qualifying for their European Championship.

F1 Stock Car World Championship Semi Final

The F1 Stock Cars are racing in their second World Champinship Semi Final with the first being won by 16 Matt Newson at Hednesford on 21 July.

The Semi Final are used for UK to drivers to qualify for the World Final. A series of World Championship Qualifying Rounds takes place up and down the country frollowing the completition of the previous World Final. The top 48 points scorers are then split between the two Semi Finals with the top ten drivers from each Semi Final progressing to the World Final, The winner of each Semi Final starting on the front row of the World Final and the further you finish in your Semi Final, the further towards the front of the World Final you will start.

The driver who finishes the top of the points gets to pick the venue they would like to race at and they always have a choice of what iis largely regarded as a safe tarmac option or what has the potential to be a more uncertain and unpredicatable shale one.

This year sees World Champion 1 Tom Harris trying to equal the legendary 391 Andy Smith's total of five titles. Tom is the undisputed number one in the sport at the moment and with three of the last four world finals being won by Tom he has got a stranglehold on the World trophy his competitors are desperate to break!

For  the last 20 plus years the person who has topped the points has gone for the safer tarmac option. For 2024 though, Tom decided to let his biggest fan, daughter Heidi decide whether he was going to play safe with tarmac or take a chance on shale by popping a random balloon!

Tom's biggest fan and daughter Heidi sends Tom to King's Lynn - the first time someone who has won the World Qualifying Points has gone for a shale semi on over 20 years!

Now the last time the top points scorer picked shale was when 515 Frankie Wainman Jnr topped the points back in 2003 and picked the shale Sheffield Semi Final as he thought it would give him more time to set up his tarmac car for Holland - he was promptly spun out on turn one and everyone has avoided shale ever since!

Can Tom Harris avoid the fate of what happened to the last driver who picked a shale Semi Final when they had the choice back in 2003 at Sheffield

Tom will be wanting to make sure he avoids that fate! Especially if he doesnt qualify through his Semi Final on 3 August he will have missed out on a chance of getting double money in the World Final.

Multi World Champion Rob Speak is the promoter of this year's World Final at Skegness and he issued a special challenge to Tom to pull out of his Semi Final and to defend the World Title from the back of the grid.

 

 

It was an audicious challenge from Speak and one which Tom was sorely tempted by - giving it a lot of thought before eventually deciding he could not take the chance of not competing in his Semi Final given the importance of the title which is up for grabs - although if he suffers the same fate as Wainman did over twenty years ago when he was at the height of his career and unbeatable eveywhere he may well end up ruing his decision! 

 The grid for the Semi Final is below

 

It really is a fascinating Semi Final.

217 Lee Fairhurst who shares the front row with Tom has always been one of the quickest there is around King's Lynn but delays in getting his new shale car out for 2024 means that he has not yet been to lynn this year and that could well work against him.

20 Liam Gilbanks and 166 Bobby Griffin are delivers who are not known for being second and the "Wild Child" former World Champion 5 Charlie Sworder is easily as quick as anyone at King's Lynn and is ideally placed to fire the competition into the fence.

It will be very interesting to see what will happen to drivers who excel on tarmac and will have been praying for a Hednesford Semi as with a decent grid slot they will be a big threat at Skegness - will the likes of 408 Ant Whorton-Eales, 8 Catherine Harris, James Hall-Morton and 48 Shaun Webster survive what is the biggest race of their careers so far?

The back of the grid is also full of qualify with the likes of 2011 World Champion 2 Paul Harrison looking to progress from row 10 and qualify for what would be his thirty third World Final!

 

2L Stock Car European Qualifying

It is also a big night for the 2L Stock Cars who will be battling it out to qualify for the following day's European Championship.

The top 26 points scorers over a series of gruelling heats will qualify for the big race with the top points scorer starting on pole position.

Can Timmy Barnes stay out in front as he looks to defend his European Title?

There is likely to be five heats with every driver racing in three of them. It is important to have a decent finish in every heat if you want to geta  decent grid spot in the following day's championship racef.

2L Stock Cars are King's Lynn are so open it really is untrue. There will probably be at least half the entry  - including our visitors from Scotland and Mainland Europe who will harbour a realistic ambition of lifting the title.

The National Championship which took place back in May was an outstanding night of Saloon Stock Car Racing

For European Championship qualifying purposes, points will be scored over the top 20 finishers in every heat as so;

300   231   213   196   180   165   151   138   126   115   105   96   88   81   75   70   66   63   61   60