VANTASTIC AFTERNOON

take the lead although he then slipped into a parked car 
a few laps later. 420 Ivan Street kept a cool head to win 
the race. The second heat saw Gray once again challenging 
for honours but his luck ran out once again when he got 
held up behind the backmarking car of 305 Nigel Parker and 
this allowed 149 Jamie Sampson to steal the win. The Final 
saw a fine drive from 115 Scott Aldridge who made his way 
quickly through the field to grab a leading position which he 
was not to lose. 512 Darren Barnett was second and British 
Champion 219 Luke Grief looked set to finish in third until a 
blown engine brought him to a halt in the closing stages 
allowing 511 Craig Barnett to join Darren on the winners 
podium. Street completed a good night of racing by winning 
the Allcomers race which saw a massive shunt for 311 Steve
Newman who managed to hit the wall at speed without any
interference from another driver. Newman was unharmed 
which is more than can be said for his saloon which was very 
bent after its attempt to climb the fencing.

On Bank Holiday Monday, there was no doubting that the 
crowd favourites were the Unlimited Van Bangers and 
there were certainly some impressive vans in attendance. 
The variety of vehicles was immense with 385 Roy Gedge 
bringing a Bedford CF Camper Van, 791 Nicky Young 
piloting an LDV Ambulance and 902 Tony Lowther bringing 
out a Bedford CF Ice Cream Van, all of which were 
stunningly painted. However, the most popular vans with 
the crowd were even bigger, with 292 Keith Saunders 
having an Iveco Daily Minibus, 334 Stu Green having a 
very solid Mercedes 508 and there were two giant Ford A 
Series machines being the Fire Incident Unit of 192 Stu 
Warby and the mobile Fish and Chip shop of 390 David 
Gibson. All of these were dwarfed however by the Optare 
Minibus brought by 728 Spike Dray which had spent most of 
its life ferrying commuters and shoppers around the streets 
of Newcastle and Sunderland.


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