Dave Wayne

The problem with that is that F2 is much more specialised in terms of surface so they are careful to balance the scoring opportunities. The original fixtures were 6 tarmac and 5 shale with the final round at belle vue being double, so the equivalent of 6 rounds on each surface.Cancelling a meeting and not doing anything to balance the scoring would have given an unfair advantage to the tarmac specialists.

Agreed Carl, but I have been holding back on my traditional 'support formula' comment. 😉 If F1 are now the support formula with 20 cars, What are the F2's with 16 cars ? ! F1 and F2 are both support formulas on Sunday. The headline act is the Saloon Stock Car ORC Championship. In defence of F2s though, they do have a clashing meeting at St Day which will have taken some of the drivers that would normally travel up to Hednesford from the south west, and some drivers may be taking time out prior to the Shootout starting next week with a Taunton/Bristol double header.

Agreed Carl, but I have been holding back on my traditional 'support formula' comment. 😉

It was the friday night of a world final weekend, either F1 2012 or F2 2010..Gold bunting hung between the lamp posts which completely obscured the back straight for those stood on the home straight grass banking. After a few complaints, the bunting was raised higher up the posts for the big meeting on the saturday.

Pot calling kettle black or what. Wernt you the one slagging of my Christmas/birthday present from my daughter. Hope you weren't too abusive to the wrong person in your original post before you edited it !!

No updates on the booking list so we have to assume it still sits at 38 cars, meaning H1 will have 14 cars in it. Assuming that 8 from each heat qualify for the meeting final that leaves a maximum of 22 cars for the consolation, but past history shows that you will usually lose around a third of semi finalists through either damage or 'only came for one race' so more realistically around 14-16 car consolation. Surely it would be better to run the semi as H1 of a two thirds format which would then give us 20+ cars in each race. Not trying to sound negative, it's a semi final 35 miles up the road for me so I will be there, but for anyone on the borderline of whether to go or not the booking list and proposed format is not likely to inspire people to travel huge distances and pay a high admission fee for a meeting where only 2 of the 5 races are going to grid 20+ cars,

He raced on shale often enough in his miniSlightly different with rear wheel drive and 10 times the power though !!

Out of interest is the ruling still the same that any reserves must attend both semis to be eligible to race for a withdrawn driverIt has never been a requirement that reserves have to attend both semis.The only rule is that if a reserve is required for a semi and isn't there then they have forfeited their place and cannot be a reserve for the other semi.

Nigel, don't forget that the rule applied for the last few years has been that reserves are allocated in order of withdrawals being notified to the BSCDA. Therefore, even though Sheffield runs before Buxton, if the first 3 withdrawals were from Buxton that is where the first 3 reserves go. I would be surprised if there have been no withdrawals to date, but despite the BSCDA having a superduper new media team there have been no updates since the original semi grids were announced. If I was you I would be contacting somebody official to find out what the chances are that you will be required on Sunday.

The Sunday meeting has always been a bit of a drawn out affair due to the 3 championship races running separately to the full meeting formats that followed. This has sometimes led to very late finish times for a meeting that started at noon and both driver and spectator numbers were low by the end of the meeting. Adding to this the fact that shale meetings tend to take longer to run than tarmac meetings, it seems to be a sensible option to reduce the number of races on the day by dropping a formula. With all due respect to the Rebels, the only difference this will make to most spectators is less time to have a wander round the pits between the races they are interested in watching.

Do what I do Steve and just go for the Championship day on the Sunday - £25 quid saved on camping and £15 on admission fees !!

After Race Meeting parties at Northampton have not always been the most cordial of events. Two F2 drivers (no, I am not going to name them) ended up with sanctions against them a few years ago after an altercation in the bar. If it's the incident I am thinking of then it was actually an F1 driver and an F2 driver (although the F1 driver was ex-F2 and the feud did stem back a few years). Wouldn't want 1 formula to take all the bad press.

Let me get this right. You are implying that because I referred to F1 as the support formula this weekend (which is factually correct), and complained about there being too many deckchairs at the meeting last year, I am having a negative impact on the sport and should be banned from the forum ?

Sorry linky but the July speedweekend at Skegness last year proved that to be wrong. As I said above, I arrived at 3pm on the Saturday, 2 hours before racing started, and there was nowhere to stand on the home straight or either bend due to the number of chairs already in place. Row upon row of chairs on the home straight, and even the old trackside parking area was full of chairs, about 4 rows of them. Never seen it that bad anywhere before, maybe it was the hot weather that dragged everybody out. Surprised there were not more arguments on the day due to people having to stand in between the rows of chairs, although in some places the rows were that close together it wasn't even possible to do that. Wish I had taken photos now !!dave, i see your first meeting was 1969 aged 2 weeks,it seems to me you have not grown up, accept how it is ,if you do not like what you see stop at home,and let the rest of spectators enjoy the racing.Thanks for the constructive input. 👍

Pretty much what I said earlier Colin.

Sorry linky but the July speedweekend at Skegness last year proved that to be wrong. As I said above, I arrived at 3pm on the Saturday, 2 hours before racing started, and there was nowhere to stand on the home straight or either bend due to the number of chairs already in place. Row upon row of chairs on the home straight, and even the old trackside parking area was full of chairs, about 4 rows of them. Never seen it that bad anywhere before, maybe it was the hot weather that dragged everybody out. Surprised there were not more arguments on the day due to people having to stand in between the rows of chairs, although in some places the rows were that close together it wasn't even possible to do that. Wish I had taken photos now !!

Forums are for debating though. so what's wrong with throwing out a controversial comment for people to discuss ? What a lot of people forget is that until Long Eaton closed F1s were never even a part of this weekend, and for the first 3 years were only on the Saturday night. On the old Skegness tarmac it was always an F2 and Saloon weekend, with Stock Rods on one day as the support formula, and ORC Ministox on the other day. If F1 weren't on there might be somewhere for people to stand instead of the 'deckchair brigade' taking over. Last year I arrived at 3pm and the home straight and both bends were like grandstands with no standing room at all. Even the old trackside parking area was 4 deckchairs deep. Thankfully there was space under the back straight stand or I would have been having lots of arguments with people when I stood in front of them !! Next controversial topic - do they need to restrict the number of deckchairs allowed in to this weekend in the same way that Kings Lynn have for the World Final ??

Colin Don't get sucked into a F2's fan attempt to have a dig at F1 Light the blue touch paper and stand back (him , not you) I am a stock car fan - not one who can be pigeon holed into being a fan of a particular formula. I was brought up on F1 but have raced Saloons and F2s. I follow all stock car formulas and pick and choose my meetings based on where I think will be best value for money that weekend. It is a championship weekend for F2 and Saloons, but not for F1, hence the reason F1 numbers were capped. Therefore, like it or not, they are the support formula. The John Lund comment was a bit of banter for several mates who are big fans of his. Please show me the forum rule that bans humour !!

88 F2s and 72 Saloons booked in.No list for the support formula yet.

Sorry Roy, but I have to disagree with this. The winner had just crossed the line so as 43 entered turn 1 where he was put in the fence he was just starting his final lap and was therefore still racing. The implication of 'after the flag' is that somebody put him in after the race was complete. Even if you have completed racing distance, which 43 hadn't at this point, the race is still live until the required number of qualifiers/points scorers have completed race distance. This is when the red flag is dropped. All cars should continue racing until the red flag is shown.

. I will however see you at Birmingham, your preferred surface . What, what, Eh,what`s that............have they finally seen the light and stuck shale down It was shale when I first went in 1984 but then they spoilt it !!

Brilliant. After all these years of people complaining that the World Masters was being held on a tar track after a shale World Final, we finally get an all shale World weekend and somebody suggests moving the Masters to another tar track. Sometimes, I really can't get my breath when I read this forum !!

Any chance of 22nd May please Carl ?

You do realise that other formulas produce fixture lists in January as well ? It can't be expected that come August they realise that F1 car numbers aren't going to be high as anticipated and a formula such as National Saloons or F2 just alter their fixture list to suit. If it isn't planned at the start of the season then it won't be a major national formula in support.

Currently serving a ban due to an incident at Venray.