IT was the day of the underdog at the 44th annual ORC National Banger World Championship at Arena Essex on Sunday as Scott Cornish drove the perfect race to lift the title.
Cornish has long been considered to be one of the top crashers in the sport and has often played a major supporting role in the successes of his Midnight Runner team mates, such as defending champion, Jason "Boxer Jack" Jackson. On Sunday however the spotlight fell firmly on the Witham youngster as he took full advantage of a start from the fourth row of the grid to win the prestigious title ahead of Karl Douglas and the man he succeeded as champion, Jason Jackson.
But for a little luck, Jack Tuffen might well have been the man we were hailing as the new champion. From the second row, Tuffen began building what was starting to look like an unassailable lead, but when he came up to lap Sonny Sherwood, Sherwood made an attempt to delay him and worse still as Tuffen manoeuvred around him, Sherwood picked him up and buried him into the parked car of Dave Johnson. It was the second year in succession that Sherwood had finished Tuffen’s interest in the race, despite the two having not crossed swords all year in domestic competition.
With Cornish establishing a gap over second placed Karl Douglas, attention focussed on a few battles which were reaching their explosive conclusion on the pit bend. Lee Clarke’s race was brought to an end by a huge crash from long term nemesis, Steve Bailey, the Dave Johnson car getting further damage as Clarke chose to hit the softer option, rather than the armco. Anthony Croshaw took a swipe at Jack Foster Jnr, coming under attack himself from Tom Foster and Chris Murfin. Meanwhile Joe Barrett, who last year went head to head with Boxer Jack during the World Final, took a less combative approach this time round but did succumb to an attack from Joey Palmer, Barrett receiving another huge hit some laps later from Brett Ellacott.
From near the back of the grid, the reigning champion, Jason Jackson, simply run out of laps. He made it to third and it did briefly look like he had a chance when a couple of the Cream Team looked like they were willing to interfere with Cornish’s race. Cornish was a little tentative around them and lost a bit of ground, but ultimately the few nibbles at his back bumper did not translate into anything more serious and he took the flag.
As Cornish tried to take it all in, several local drivers on the pit bend contrived to stop Buxton racer, James Sellars, whilst Irishman Steve McGrath also succumbed to the onslaught, Jackson and Ricky Hutton inflicting the final impacts.
A near 50 car entry returned for an allcomers race which featured Cornish, already with the gold roof denoting his World Final success. Tuffen and Sherwood clashed again, with Alfie Lee joining in to assist Tuffen in the disposal of Sherwood. A big pit bend blockage accounted for many of the runners with Brett Ellacott and Danny Clarke finding themselves bundled over the inner kerbs as the track seemingly narrowed with the amount of traffic on it. Tom Waller took Mark Marchant heavily into the pit gate, Marchant attempting a strike back a lap later, but missing and collecting Mark Cooper instead. The two did meet head on as the crashing intensified, but through it all came Wayne Bryne to take his second win of the day on his return to the sport following a ban, the first coming in a last chance qualifying heat for the World Final itself.
The Destruction Derby began with Buster Hutchings taking a big follow in from Paul Whiteman on the pit bend, Hutchings then falling fowl of numerous members of the Midnight Runners team, with Steve Hackett also joining in the bloodbath. The race was stopped to allow Hutchings a safe exit from his badly warped car. At the restart Sherwood and Alfie Lee continued their battling with Sherwood launching himself off the speedway track at Lee. Ultimately, Sherwood somehow kept his car going throughout and finished off Lee and Danny Brown to take the win.
The next action at Arena Essex is on 5th October with the annual Terry Skeef memorial meeting for Rookie Bangers. Huge entries have been a hallmark of this event ever since its inception and it is the last chance of the season for the Rookies to make their mark. With Junior Bangers, Stock Rods and Lightning Rods also on the bill, the latter contesting their Essex Championship, it will be a day to savour. Racing starts at 1pm.
