HEAVY METAL ACTION ASSURED AS THE BSCDA BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIP COMES TO SHEFFIELD

Sheffield's Owlerton Stadium hosts the British Drivers Championship this Sunday for the first time since 2005, with 50 cars expected to compete for one of F1 stock car racing’s most prestigious championships.

The British Championship was first run in 1956, and was won by Wilf Davies at West Ham, where the championship was held for the first five years.

The winner of the British title has to work hard for it. Drivers take part in qualifying heats in graded order, with the highest points scorer starting at the front for the championship race itself with the remaining points scorers qualifying in descending order to the back of the grid.

The first multiple winner was Willie Harrison, who won the race at Belle Vue in 1967 and then at Long Eaton in 1975. Stuart Smith was the first to win it three times – 1969, 1981 and 1984, and then John Lund upped the ante by winning the race six times – 1987, 1989, 1990, 1995, 1997 and 1998.

But the driver who has won the race more than any other in the history of the sport is FRANKIE WAINMAN JNR, the reigning champion, who has eight British titles to his name, his first being in 1992 at Coventry.

He won it twice more at Coventry in 1999 and 2001, before winning four times in a row (no other driver has ever won the British Championship more than twice in succession) between 2003 and 2006, including twice at this weekend’s venue Sheffield. He has also been placed in the race seven times.

But the race Wainman Jnr cherishes the most is his victory last year at Skegness when his daughter Phoebe also won the V8 Hotstox British Championship on the same night.

“It was probably one of my proudest races,” Wainman Jnr revealed. “As I went over the line it just dawned on me what me and Phoebe had actually done. It sunk in straight away.

“It was meant to be wasn’t it? It was one of those nights you only experience once in your life. For Phoebe and I to win both British championships on the same night made my season.”

Can he win an unprecedented ninth title? Few would bet against it. The British has only been run twice at Owlerton Stadium, in 2004 and 2005, and Wainman Jnr won both times.

The second win came after a massive first-bend pile-up that wiped out the front row line-up of Andrew Smith and John Lund, in a race that created a huge amount of damage.

“I like Sheffield,” Wainman Jnr said. “It’s a lower grader track for the heats and so you’re definitely going to have a few rows of yellows and blue I would have thought. It would be very unusual to have a superstar on the front row of the grid.

“I’ll be aiming for a third or fourth row start. I won it both times it has been run at Sheffield, so we could be on for a third then!”

Five other drivers who have won the British Championship take on Wainman Jnr this weekend.

PAUL HARRISON has won the race four times, notably in 2011, when the Rotherham star reeled in long-time leader Stuart Smith Jnr to take the lead on the last lap before taking the flag.

“The British means a lot to me – I think it does all the drivers,” said Harrison. “It’s intense over the one meeting, to get through your heats and then the final and it’s such a prestigious award.”

The race was also memorable for Smith Jnr’s kamikaze last ditched attempt at connecting with the Harrison rear bumper on the last bend.

“I was gutted going down the back straight for the last time which is why I left it all on and tried to get him,” said Smith Jnr. “I never backed off and I thought I was going to hit him.”

But he didn’t – and ended up smashing into the plate fence to eventually finish seventh.

STUART SMITH JNR did win the race, however, in 2008 at Coventry with a decisive move when shunting Mark Gilbank into his brother Andrew, and then charging past Wainman Jnr with three laps to go to take the lead. “I’ve only won one British and I’ve come close to winning it many, many times and I should have won it a couple of times,” he said.

“But ifs and buts don’t mean a thing, do they. I’m hoping to put that right this weekend.”

PAUL HINES won the race at Skegness in 2010, but was lucky to take part, let alone win the race, after his transporter ran out of diesel on the way to the track.

Fortunately, V8 Hotstox driver Carl Radforth happened to drive past the bus parked on the side of the road and went to the next garage with a diesel can. If Radforth hadn't been such a good Samaritan, Hines would have been left stranded.

“We literally pulled in the gate just as the cars for heat one were going out,” said Hines. “I was in heat one, the car came off the bus, no practice, I got straight in and scrutineered – they waited for me thankfully – and from that point on I never looked back.”

He certainly didn’t. Taking the lead from Lee Robinson on the opening lap, Hines took the flag untroubled for his first British Championship win.

Like many drivers Hines believes the British is one of the hardest races to win during the year.

“The beauty of the British is you have to work hard through the heats to get there,” Hines said. “Don’t get me wrong the World Final is much tougher to get to it through the year, however, on the day the World Final is a race on its own.

“Whereas at the British, you have got to do well throughout the meeting in three heats and then the final – you need a bit of luck in all of them, you need skill in all of them. So I was dead chuffed to win it. It was fantastic.”

LEE FAIRHURST has won the British title twice, in 2013 and 2105. The first win at Buxton came after surviving an opening lap onslaught by Rob Speak.

Fairhurst and his team prepared for meticulously for the race. Apart from set up changes there was the small matter of reinforcing the car against the potential onslaught it was likely to be subjected to – a prediction that came true on the day.

“I qualified on the second row outside having done nothing spectacular in the heats,” said Fairhurst. “We strengthened the car before we went to Buxton as we expected to be in the fence at some point seeing as it was such a big race.”

The opened laps were fierce. Pole sitter Dan Johnson led momentarily until Speak fired him into the first turn fence, bending a steering arm. Crucially Johnson came to rest next to the fence three-quarters of the way along the back straight.

Fairhurst took the lead but Speak was in no mood to take prisoners and immediately launched at Fairhurst into turn three, sending him careering into the fence. However, Fairhurst survived and was able to maintain his lead into the next corner as Speak launched another attack but was unable to connect, which gave Fairhurst some breathing space.

It was then that the race was stopped as the packed charged down the back straight. Paul Hines dived to the inside to avoid the stricken Johnson car but Mat Newson hit it head on and was flung into the path of Finnikin who lost the front end of his car in the resulting collision and without any brakes piled into the fence.

Josh Smith collected Newson’s car and together they followed Finnikin in. It was one of the nastiest crashes seen in recent years, but the fact the drivers all emerged unscathed was testament to the build quality of the modern day F1 stock car.

After the restart Fairhurst went on to win unchallenged with Speak regaining second spot and Robinson taking third from Wainman Jnr.

CRAIG FINNIKIN was able keep keep his wheels on in 2012, when he won the race at Coventry after a dramatic last lap.

Having led early, he got pushed aside by Murray Harrison and was fourth going into the closing stages, with Wainman Jnr trying to close down long-time leader Harrison. Finnikin was fourth at this stage immediately behind Mick Sworder, but all that changed after Wainman Jnr went for a do-or-die effort to shunt Harrison wide.

“I was having a good battle with Mick for third,” said Finnikin. “We were slowly catching the front two so, instead of knocking each other about, I decided to sit behind Mick and see if we could catch them and then sort it out on the last few laps.

“And then all hell let loose on the last lap.”

Into the last bend Wainman Jnr piled into Harrison, the pair sliding wide and into the parked car of Mal Brown. Harrison’s hopes of victory ended on the spot while Wainman Jnr was slow to get away.

In an instant Finnikin, who was fourth entering the last corner, was past Sworder and into the lead in the sprint to the chequered flag.

“Frank took Murray out and I took Mick out,” said Finnikin. “And so I came from fourth on the last bend to win it.”

Sworder came home second, ahead of Wainman Jnr. Harrison limped across the line a disappointed seventh.

“Going into the last lap I didn’t think I had a hope of winning, to be honest,” Finnikin admitted. “It was one of those races. It was the Coventry Curse. I had never actually won a final around Coventry until that night and then I went on to win three on the trot after that…”

Mick Jenkins