The third round of the Anglia Phoenix Challenge was held at Snetterton, in Norfolk. The weather forcast had predicted a dry but dull day. It turned out to be cold and very damp, with a few spots of rain falling throughout the morning.

This made qullifying a nightmare, especially those competitors on slick tyres, and it certainly showed up in the lap times they were turning in. The circuit cold and damp also was extremely geasy due to the fact that on Friday, a car had managed to dump a load of oil around the circuit and it had not been cleaned up very well !

The Anglia Phoenix MG Challenge, sponsered by Phoenix Petroleum is divided up into Five classes, which makes it a little confusing for the spectator as there are five races within the one race. A midget that, let's say finishes in eigth position, may in fact win his class. Anyway it certainly makes for a good race, and turned an otherwise dull day into an exciting day out !

The five classes that we have already mentioned are -

• CLASS A Modified cars on slick tyres.
  
• CLASS B Modified cars on road tyres.
  
• CLASS C Road going MG's on Road tyres.
  
• CLASS D Road going Metro 1300 on road tyres.
  
• CLASS E Modified Metro 1300/Metro Turbo on slick tyres.
  

The Midget of John Stopes qulified to be on pole posisition, the only Class A car to be in top six on the grid. Jonh Kettleborough drving the MGF could only manage seventh spot, mainly we believe more to do with his experience of the circuit, than the performace of the car.

The track had dried out considerably by mid afternoon as the 23 cars cars lined up on the start line.
An incident on the first lap meant there had to be a restart, though this was not made very clear over the public address system, and only when we got hold of the results sheet when it mentioned that the MG Midget of David Stubings did not make the second race start ! Because the track had dried up so well with an obvious "dry line" the lap times were up by about ten percent. Kettleborough who remember started seventh on the grid made up two positions in as many laps, but Stopes out in front in the Midget was uncatchable and just kept pulling further and further ahead.

The MG RV8 driven by Roberto Bonassisa had a tangle with a tyre wall in front of the marshalls post at Sear Corner, as he braked late then applied the brakes even harder the back end broke away sending him into a 360 degree spin and then backwards into the tyre wall. Luckily the RV8 only suffered light damage and was able to rejoin the race. Another incident at the Russell bend (click here for a sequence shot of the incident...), on lap eight meant that one of the front running Metro's, that of Martin Ward, went flying through the gravel trap sending gravel all over the exit of the chicane, he mananage to avoid colliding with any other cars, but lost several places in the process. At the end of the day John Stopes was the clear Winner finnishing over eighteen seconds in front of second place man Tony Howe in a MG Metro Turbo.

The Fastest lap was set by John Stopes 1m 28.34s at 79.54mph

Anglia Phoenix Challenge

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