James J Tucker

The meeting at Birmingham Wheels on 28th May was the venue for my 1st race in my own Rebels Racing Stock Car.

Heat 1 - After securing myself a front row grid slot in the “yellow tops” I had a shaky start missing a gear off the green flag start, leaving me high and dry for the first few laps, with no one giving me a gap to drop back down to the bottom (inside) of the track. Once I had finally dropped into the inside line I slowly managed to move back through the traffic, and there was a lot of it with 38 drivers racing on a track less than ¼ of a mile long, finally finishing the race in 12th position.

Heat 2 – Yet another front row grid slot, this time a much better start, not missing a gear. This allowed me to dive straight down to the inside of the track and start moving forward. Dragging myself up to 4th but a last lap skirmish meant I dropped a place to one of the more experienced driver bring the car home in 5th.

Final – Due to my consistent finishes I started 4th on the grid for the, standing start Final. The grid formation is 2 - 3 – 2, which meant I was to start on the 2nd row in the centre. A dangerous place to be with no room for maneuver, as I found out on the first corner, after a great start only leaving me to push the 2 cars in front of me down the start finish straight, a huge whack from behind and again I was left on the high line struggling to get down into the pack. This led to hard fought race, with pushing and shoving on every corner, to pass the checker 12th.

Grand National – My 1st pole position in my group and a great start got me to the front, to lead my 1st ever Stock Car race, for the majority of the race. But the car bucked on me coming out of turn 2 demolishing my lead and letting a couple of cars through, this left me with World Champion Steve Shaw on my rear bumper and a nudge into turn 3 put me into a spin and left me momentarily stranded in the middle of the corner. Due to the high Armco barriers on the inside of the track I was hidden from the next car to come round the corner, who ploughed into the side of me and ending my race.

All in all a good days racing and Paul (father) and I are slowly homing in on the car set up, with the limited practice time we have available to us.