Veteran John Moat star of the show at King’s Lynn

Veteran racer John Moat was the star of the show as far as our local drivers were concerned at the Saloon Stock Car championship double header which took place at King’s Lynn on Saturday.

John – who has a special meeting at King’s Lynn celebrating his 40-plus year career in the sport – was unlucky not to finish higher than the fifth place he eventually came home in following a fantastic performance in the championship

Nearly 60 1300 Stock Cars were in action. All drivers raced in three out of five heats with the top 36 points scorers over the night qualifying for the British Championship.

John’s fourth place in the third heat was the best finish by a local driver in the heats and combined with other top 20 finishes saw him qualify for the big race on the fifth row.

Other drivers to score well were Shane Moat, Sonny Wright, John Klyn and Barty Ketteringham, with Dean Moat only scoring in one of the heats and just making the championship ending up being the last car on the grid.

John got a great start to the race and was challenging for a top-three place on the third lap. For the next twelve laps, he was involved in a titanic three-way battle for the lead with former multi-world champion Lee Pearce and 2024 revelation Tyler Bloomfield.

Bumper and positions were traded between the trio throughout this period with John hitting the front on lap 13 and staying in second place until lap 19 of the 25-lap race.

The intense battle slowed down the front runners and allowed other drivers to enter the battle and disappointingly for John he had slipped to fifth place by the time the chequered flag fell which was not a fair reflection of the influence he had in what was a tremendous race which was eventually won by London’s Lee Pearce!

Further back Dean Moat made tremendous progress to finish in eighth place and brother Shane was our only other local finisher in the race, coming home in eleventh spot.

It was a disappointing night for Tommy Parrin in the 2L Stock Car National Championship. He had plenty of bad luck in qualifying and failed to make the grid for the National Championship which was won by Ryan Santry.

James Ellis was a late booking in the Unlimited Bangers and he showed he has lost none of his track craft around King’s Lynn with a sixth-place finish in the final which was won by Londoner Ricky Clarke backed up with a third and fourth-place finish in the all comers.

James was followed over the line in the final by Lee Barnes who was another who had a good night and got involved in the action in his other races with Nicky Young also getting a top-ten finish and getting involved in the action.

Joe Geeves, James Licquorice, Nathan Young and Tom Waller were also in action throughout the night.