The action stepped up a notch for the third qualifier where the 
Scots really started to get knocked around by the locals with 
311 Steve Newman stuffing Mike Bethune extremely hard into 
the huge earth-mover tyres that mark out the inner perimeter 
of the track. 440 Lester Freestone did the same to 71 Gordon 
Alexander although the locals didn’t quite have it all their own 
way when 317 Dwayne Powell was sent scattering into the 
tyres by Ireland’s Stephen Boyd. 369 Andy Santry kept clear 
of the trouble to win the race. A remarkable incident in the 
fourth heat saw 912 Andi Newman rolled onto his roof in a 
spectacular opening lap crash with the race immediately being 
brought to a halt although the speed of the action meant that 
the cars close behind Newman piled into him putting his car back 
onto its wheels. Amazingly, Newman opted to line his car back up 
for the restart of the event which was another fierce encounter 
with 569 James Radcliffe getting spun out and hit at full racing 
speed by 402 Shaun Webster before 176 Todd Jones went on a 
one-man rampage stuffing Steve Newman, 499 David Aldous and 
199 Phil Powell into the wall before 720 Shane Brown finally put 
Jones into the wall where he couldn’t cause any further havoc. 
115 Scott Aldridge was the winner. The last qualifier of the 
weekend was held in a heavy shower on the Sunday afternoon and 
turned out to be a race of survival with Grief once again showing 
his capability on a slippery track by notching up his second win of 
the weekend to guarantee pole position for the British.              

The tension of the last chance qualifier was made worse by a race              
stoppage part way through the event when Boyd suffered a 
mechanical breakdown at the fastest point of the straight and was 
hit from behind by Bethune causing substantial damage to the 
structural steel at the back of Boyd’s car. Thankfully Boyd was 
nothing worse than severely shaken and the race continued to a 
conclusion with Murray Jones joining his brother on the list of 
winners for the weekend.

After the ferocity of the qualifying process, the British 
Championship itself was more of a sprint race with the main 
incidents coming as a result of drivers spinning and being run into, 
rather than deliberate attempts to take out the opposition. At the 


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