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The Summer Nationals at Santa Pod Raceway, Northamptonshire played host for Round 4 of this year’s B&H Automotive/LA Racing Parts Street Eliminator UK Championship. Round 3 was finalised with Lazenby taking the win over meads and leapfrogging the Pop driver into first place in the championship but by the closest of margins 2110 to 2100 points!
The meeting saw the return of Alex McIntosh in his blown Stang and Davie Murdoch in the gorgeous ’33 Willys. Joining them were Lazenby, Meads, Andersson and Todd. Qualifying was topped (again) by Lazenby in the ’56 but he relinquished that position to Meads when the Chevy’s engine destroyed a lifter forcing Team ’56 to retire before the cruise.
Race day saw a huge upset in the first round when a lazy light and a wheelie from Meads allowed Andersson to prevail in a thrilling race. With the RT factored in the Swedes 9.88 and Meads 8.95 (and, yes, those numbers are the right way round!) translated into less than 3/100ths (or 7.1 inches) between the two cars at the stripe. Andersson was joined in the semi finals by McIntosh and Murdoch. Murdoch progressed with his second bye of the day (thanks to the absence of Lazenby) whilst McIntosh saw red and lost out to Andersson missing out on his 9.49 to 9.53 advantage.
Andersson was in his second final of the year and with a bit more of a chance of victory (last time he faced Frost!). But Murdoch (making up the first ever SE UK final with no English presence!) was determined to make him work for it and despite the Swede’s third holeshot of the day pushed him all the way. Despite losing out the Scot was well pleased as he ran his first 9 in the ’33 in this, his first SEUK final.
Andersson now tops the B&H Automotive/LA Racing Parts championship table, the third racer to hold that position this season. But with just a few hundred points separating the top three it’s still anyone’s title. Bug Jam at Santa Pod in a week’s time may see another change in leadership as the event hosts round 5 of this year’s 8-round series.
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