The 8th of December and in true tradition Riverside opened it’s doors to racers from across the country for the Xmas Blowout, which this year also combined the 4th round of the British Open Championship. I have to say it was great to see some of our friends from Europe who made the trip to join us, namely Geral Barg from Minden in Germany and Fred Barthelemy and Pascal Bauvallet from Paris, France.

We had originally planned to run Drag racing on the Saturday evening but unfortunately, due to pressure of bookings in the raceway over the last few weeks it was not possible to extend the pit areas adjacent to the Drag Strip in time. Many apologies to those who wanted to go Dragging, but it will happen early next year – PROMISE!

A massive race entry of 48 for the Production class and also the fact that it was a BOC meant that the racing was a little less laid back than the usual Blowout formats.  All racing for the weekend was based around the traditional 1 minute qualifying, single fastest lap to count and then into a 3 minute per lane segmented final for all racers, where winning is possible from any heat. Brian Saunders TQ’d from Charlie Gooding with local lad Andrew Aynsley hot on their heels. Brian TQ’d in the C2 class and Andrew TQ’d in the Introsport category. Racing, especially in the higher heats was fast and furious.  Charlie Gooding, despite being nailed to the wall in the deadman by Paul went on to win with a good solid performance, followed by Brian with John Brown and Andrew Aynsley coming 3rd & 4th and Proving to all that you don’t need to just run Proslot to get a result – both being died in the wool RJR motor racers. Brain also managed a very credible 5th overall with his C2 car.  Top Introsport racer was Andrew Aynsley in 14th place overall – no bad result for a bog standard, untouched Parma 501 Deathstar motor.  Concous was Judged by Pete Sidgwick and won by Pete Kerr with a very tidy JK Taurus body.

Saturday afternoon soon came around and following practice and warm-ups it was time for OG12 qualifying. Brian blew it away with a 4.2, hotly pursued by Paul Harwood and Woody, but, with the exception of Brian who was ballistic in the race also, others fortunes changed in the race. Concourse was judged by Paul Harwood and the winner in Open G12 was local racer Chris Lees with a JK Closed Audi. After OG12 qualifying we went into Eurosport free practice which wound up the program for Saturday evening.

Sunday saw a few more entries from late arrivals who could not make it on the Saturday due to pressures of work, especially welcome was Ian Fisher who drove up from London for the days racing. After warm ups the late drivers qualified and the race heats were started. During the heats a number of the quick drivers hit the pits with technical problems (some not to return) and the “fastest" heat turned into a disaster for some.  Steady, solid  drives from Kevin Thornton and Andrew Aynsley in Heat B made for a great 2nd and 3rd place overall in the class, Andrew Aynsley  proving  that you don’t need Proslot Power or Czech wizzardry to make a decent place in a final with his RJR powered Riverside Scorpion 3 and a set of the great, new, BIR Euro tyres.

As always Eurosport provided the exciting finale to the weekends racing with some ballistic qualifying runs and some superb drives (along with some major accident for some and challenges for others). Sandy Parker now takes the record for the longest weird track call – she was marshalling in the donut and managed to get a Eurosport car totally attached to her sweatshirt. It took at least 5 minutes with Dad Ralph and a pro-wrench to free her from said article and restart the race! Final outcome?  Charlie Gooding took the win after a solid and concerted effort followed by Les Bailey, one of our local Riverside racers who saw what was going down and ran a steady race in the B heat, staying out of trouble and keeping the pressure on to obtain 2nd, Ian Fisher (also from heat B) got his reward for the trip up from London with a well deserved 3rd overall, followed by top qualifier Brian who had a catalogue of challenges in his race. Concours in Eurosport was judged by Ian Fisher and won by Sandy Parker.

Conclusion – a great weekends racing!  48 for production, 39 for OG12 and 32 for Eurosport and just 10 minutes late on the Sunday afternoon finish! I hope everyone had a good time – I know I enjoyed race controlling the event and hope you will all come back soon for another bash.  All finalists took home the traditional engraved Riverside Blowout pens and the usual award plaques, Concours winners and some others received “Mika” tee shirts – many thanks to Coca-Cola for these.

Pos.

Name

Laps

Qualifying

1

CHARLIE GOODING

323.5

3.62 (2)

2

LES BAILEY

311.85

3.89 (14)

3

IAN FISHER

311.48

3.85 (13)

4

BRIAN SAUNDERS

310

3.47 (1)

5

STEVE SARGENT

307.01

3.70 (6)

6

KEITH GIBSON

302.06

3.78 (9)

7

KEVIN THORNTON

299.67

3.66 (3)

8

KEVIN DOUBLEDAY

297.5

3.95 (17)

9

GEORGE KIMBER

293.77

3.7 (5)

10

PAUL HARWOOD

292.5

3.82 (10)

11

MARK WATTAM

290.93

3.93 (15)

12

KEVIN WILLIS

274.63

4.17 (23)

13

VINCENT LEE

269.3

3.85 (12)

14

DAVE LEES

268.5

4.33 (26)

15

FRED BARTHELEMY

263.49

4.01 (20)

16

RALPH PARKER

262.8

3.74 (7)

17

MIKE CAINE

261.5

4.03 (21)

18

MIKE HARRISON

260.33

3.82 (11)

19

GERALD BARG

254.6

4.41 (28)

20

DAVID SARGENT

252.54

4.64 (30)

21

DANIEL THORNTON

249.33

3.94 (16)

22

PETER KERR

235.79

4.15 (22)

23

SANDY PARKER

235.63

5.29 (31)

24

JEFF NORTON

234.86

4.24 (25)

25

PASCAL BAUVALLET

232.5

3.69 (4)

26

STUART STRACHAN

231

3.97 (18)

27

GRAEME STEPHENSON

206.45

4.34 (27)

28

BEN WOODWARD

170.02

4.5 (29)

29

GRAHAM WOODWARD

149

3.76 (8)

30

ANDREW AYNSLEY

144

3.99 (19)

31

JOHN BROWN

139

4.18 (24)

Top Qualifier - Brian Saunders

Concourse - Sandy Parker

Pos.

Name

Class

Laps

Qualifying

1

CHARLIE GOODING

1

265.93

4.97

2

BRIAN SAUNDERS

1

265.64

4.97

3

JOHN BROWN

1

262.45

5.24

4

ANDREW AYNSLEY

1

261.05

4.99

5

BRIAN SAUNDERS

2

253.21

5.37

6

PAUL HARWOOD

1

251.76

5

7

DENNIS TOWER

1

249.36

5.22

8

KEITH GIBSON

1

246.11

7.39

9

RALPH PARKER

1

244.5

5.42

10

ANDREW PAXMAN

1

244.47

5.46

11

STUART STRACHAN

2

244.43

5.39

12

DAVID BRADBURN

2

240.69

5.28

13

MIKE HARRISON

1

240.45

5.06

14

ANDREW AYNSLEY

3

239.44

5.56

15

DOUG PAXMAN

1

239.1

5.41

16

MIKE HARRISON

2

235.32

5.38

17

ADAM RADFORD

3

229.72

5.71

18

GRAEME STEPHENSON

3

226.83

5.87

19

DAVE LEES

3

225.17

7.34

20

JEFF NORTON

2

225.04

5.57

21

CHRIS LEES

3

224.5

5.72

22

DAVID SARGENT

2

224.12

6.03

23

VINCENT LEE

1

224.02

5.27

24

GRAHAM WOODWARD

1

221.77

5.13

25

MATTHEW STEWART

2

217.65

5.75

26

JEFF NORTON

1

216.5

5.38

27

BEN WOODWARD

1

213.5

6.22

28

KELVIN WATTAM

3

210.5

5.95

29

MIKE OGDEN

3

209.48

5.77

30

PAT SKENE

2

208.85

5.8

31

STEVE SARGENT

2

206.28

5.46

32

MARK WATTAM

3

204.11

5.58

33

DAVID WOOD

2

201.69

5.92

34

KEVIN DOUBLEDAY

1

197.5

5.9

35

MIKE OGDEN

2

194.57

6.45

36

MARK WATTAM

2

194.5

5.25

37

HELEN NORTON

2

192.2

6.15

38

DAVID SARGENT

1

191.25

6.04

39

PETER KERR

1

187.51

5.66

40

SANDY PARKER

2

185.01

6.28

41

HELEN NORTON

3

179.47

6.97

42

TOM WOOD

2

175.2

5.68

43

MIKE CAINE

1

162.36

5.32

44

HEATHER JOBLING

1

159.51

5.56

45

PAUL JOBLING

1

158.12

5.44

46

DAVE BRADBURN

3

158

5.74

47

KEVIN WILLIS

1

115

5.65

48

STEVE SARGENT

1

63

5.45

T.Q. INTROSPORT - ANDREW AYNSLEY 5.56

T.Q. C2 - BRAIN SAUNDERS 5.28

T.Q. G12 - BRIAN SAUNDERS 4.97

CONCOURS - PETER KERR

CLASS KEY

1 = G12

2 = SUPER 16D/HORNET

3 = 16D/PLAFIT

Pos.

Name

Laps

Qualifying

1

BRIAN SAUNDERS

298.95

4.2

2

KEVIN THORNTON

291.17

4.51

3

ANDREW AYNSLEY

288.18

4.49

4

CHARLIE GOODING

288.01

4.43

5

KEITH GIBSON

287.42

4.52

6

LES BAILEY

287.37

4.34

7

IAN FISHER

277.28

4.51

8

GRAHAM WOODWARD

276.47

4.3

9

PAUL HARWOOD

276.35

4.29

10

MARK WATTAM

270.77

4.3

11

STUART STRACHAN

269.18

4.52

12

JOHN BROWN

269.03

4.85

13

GEORGE KIMBER

266.51

4.23

14

PETER KERR

266.44

4.78

15

PASCAL BAUVALLET

264.14

4.53

16

DAVE LEES

261.32

4.99

17

STEVE SARGENT

251.99

4.63

18

PETER SIDGWICK

248.07

5.07

19

BEN WOODWARD

247.5

5.55

20

CHRIS LEES

246.36

4.89

21

DANIEL THORNTON

239.48

4.42

22

MIKE OGDEN

235.43

5.54

23

KEVIN WILLIS

229.59

4.67

24

SANDY PARKER

226.5

5.72

25

GRAEME STEPHENSON

226

4.57

26

GERALD BARG

225.64

4.93

27

DENNIS TOWER

221.88

4.83

28

VINCENT LEE

218

4.45

29

PAT SKEENE

217.67

4.82

30

JEFF NORTON

213.96

4.8

31

DAVID BRADBURN

193

4.42

32

DAVID SARGENT

192.5

4.94

33

FRED BARTHELEMY

189.81

4.81

34

MIKE CAINE

163

4.63

35

ADAM RADFORD

156.5

4.92

36

RALPH PARKER

137

4.86

37

KEVIN DOUBLEDAY

124

4.65

38

MIKE HARRISON

106

4.6

T.Q. BRIAN SAUNDERS 4.20

CONCORSE - CHRIS LEES