HER MAJESTY Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Diamond Jubilee this year, and here at Incarace it is only right that we join in the Bank Holiday celebrations this weekend with a trio of excellent meetings.

The action kicks off at Birmingham on Saturday night with the second running of the annual Bride and Groom Banger event. For the uninitiated, this involves couples sharing a two-seater banger, the girls driving in the heats before the guys take over for the Final – and their partner has to sit alongside them. Those who did this event last year will tell you that there’s only one thing more frightening than racing a banger, and that’s passengering in one while your driver goes wild! Last year 31 Shaun and Kelly Starr were the overall winners while names to look out for this year include Demons pairing 164 Gary Shaw and Amy Millett-Kirkham plus Modstox stars 255 Emma Alldridge and 325 Craig Preece.

It’s also World Championship Qualifier night for the BriSCA F2 Stock Cars, many of the big names arriving fresh (or repaired) from the British Championship at Cowdenbeath last week. It looked at one stage as if that race was going to be the first ever F2 championship with no finishers at all, such was the level of destruction in the early laps. Even before half distance there were only eight cars left running, but some 45 minutes after the green first fell it was local star 795 Alan Kirkaldy who took the biggest win of his career.

This Saturday’s World Qualifier also means that it’s the annual Club 21 Perpetual Away Trophy, presented by this group of West Country based stock car fans at this meeting for many years. A warm welcome to Club 21 in the Midlands this weekend – will 445 Nigel Green take yet another Brum final win or will it be a new name on the Away Trophy?

Completing the lineup are the Hot 1600 Rods from Grimley Raceway, on their second visit to Birmingham this year. Last time out the men from Worcestershire’s meeting was dominated by former Hot Ford man 30 Steve Priest who won both heats, but he couldn’t stop 16-year old 1 David Lewis in the Final and the reigning Grimley Ministox points champion took his Peugeot to the spoils.

On Monday the action moves to Hednesford and Northampton, the feature event more than likely to be at the latter venue as the National Hot Rod World Series England 2011-12 reaches its final round. This season has been the closest for many years with the lead chopping and changing in the second half of the season, but it all went wrong for one of the favourites at the last Ipswich round as 911 Malcolm Blackman was handed a ban meaning he misses the last round. With the defending World Champion out of the picture it is now between 115 Chris Haird and 303 Matt Simpson – the latter is just seven points up on the current National Champion who is going for his fourth straight English points title. Scotsman 72 Willie Hardie isn’t far behind the main protagonists either, while a good day for 95 Gavin Murray could drop Blackman into the second qualifying group.

At the other end of the all important top 20, some good form of late for 206 hatchback pilot 155 Lee Pepper has seen him sneak in, while heading into the last round 14 Phil Spinks is in 21st and twenty points down on 339 Danny Hunn, while 10 Sam Holland recently scored her first win in an NHR and is in with a shout. Brian Oliver and friends will be frantically hammering their calculators and Excel spreadsheets to work out who gets in at the end of play on Monday!

There’s more high speed non-contact action from the Lightning Rods, fresh from recent action last month at Hednesford. 9 Ian Atkinson has been the most consistently quick Incarace performer so far in 2012 – just reward for his rise through the ranks of the formula over the last few years and he has learned his craft well. Will we see 87 Frankie Cunningham make a return to the track this weekend after his excellent English Championship win at Arena-Essex a few weeks ago, or will Spedeworth drivers dominate as they have in recent sessions with 355 Mick Walker at the forefront?

The Rebels have seen domination so far this year from the Joyce brothers, with 156 James and 656 Adam winning nearly every Feature between them so far. 41 Ali Topley and the Thompson family have looked their closest challengers so far and they always go well at NIR so this could be the most open session for the Rebellers so far this year.

Completing the lineup are the MASCARs, who saw a rare thing at their last meeting at Birmingham as one driver led every single lap of all three races. That honour belonged to 49 Dean Nixon, with 48 Ian Kerry and the impressive 96 Aaron Cooke his nearest pursuers as some of the bigger names struggled in the heat.

At Hednesford the planned SUV Banger session has unfortunately been cancelled and replaced with regular Incarace Bangers, who also saw action at Northampton last weekend. 290 Ryan Davies scored yet another Final win and would have made it a double had he not received a docking for a jumped start in heat one which gave his brother 792 Paul the win and extended his points lead. 790 Jay Stacey won the other heat to give the interlopers from the other side of the Midlands a treble, while 471 Trevor Perry was also in the places despite driveshaft problems with his Civic.

The UK Oval Track Legends should be headed up by 6 Ian Hales and 161 Dan Holden once again, the latter having kept his hand in with a win in the Classic Hot Rods at Northampton last weekend. The big names will already be looking forward to National Championship weekend at Hednesford, where Hales will go for his eighth title and Holden his first, but new challengers are emerging all the time including 43 Peter Elliott and 272 Aaron Lee who recently took their first wins of their rookie campaign at Northampton.

The Stock Rods also saw recent action at Northampton although Spedeworth drivers dominated with 74 Tyler Collison inheriting the Final after World Champion 447 Stuart Smyth was docked for contact while 116 Michael Madden won the heats. One positive note was the return to form of 829 Stuart Fox following a few poor meetings, and he will soon be up with 876 Lewis Clark and 755 Mark Barber and battling for the Incarace points lead.

Completing the field are an open field of Hot Rods, with an excellent mix of cars expected. Everything from Classic Hot Rods to Starlets and 205s and even current National spec cars could appear although most will be at NIR. 8 Darren Owen and 57 Mike Oliver were winners in the last Open session at Hednesford and will surely be looking for more success.