What a great entry of 19 we had formed up on the grid for the last round! In fact the 210’s were the second biggest grid of the day. L. Sifleet went into the meeting having already clinched the No. 1 again, barring any exclusions and we don’t like those!! His son Aaron had entered as a guest driver but would not be scoring any points. Seeded numbers from 2-10 were still up for grabs and although the weather was chilly but sunny the atmosphere in the pits was a little tense.
Heat 1 saw a Sifleet Father and Son domination, whilst D. Bury was getting close and personal with Perkins in 3rd. D. Bury was the dark horse and could potentially shoot up the leader board by quite a few places. Stone and Henry fought over 5th place until Henry disappeared on lap 5. On lap 7 Perkins slowed up and Stone was able to pass to claim 4th Perkins managed to hold Rawden now in 6th at bay. 1st L. Sifleet, 2nd A. Sifleet, 3rd D. Bury, 4th Stone, 5th Perkins, 6th Rawden.
Heat 2. Unfortunately Perkins and Skull were left stranded on the grid whilst Stone made an early start!!! followed by A. Sifleet, D. Bury, Sloane and the rest. As Shelley, Fowler, T. Bury and Shepheard exited Bruno they all tangled resulting in the Battenberg Flag being shown. Back under race conditions and A. Sifleet led from D. Bury and Stone. L. Sifleet had caught the top 3 and by lap 5 was hot on the heels of his son. L. Sifleet takes no prisoners and on the following lap passed his son A. Sifleet into Brunos to snatch the lead. 1st L. Sifleet, 2nd A. Sifleet, 3rd D. Bury, 4th Stone who paid a visit to the naughty office and reprimanded for a jump start, luckily the 5 second penalty bestowed upon him made no difference in the scheme of things. 5th Henry, 6th Hopes.
The Final race of 2023
The front row was hosted by L. Sifleet, A. Sifleet and D. Bury. As the lights changed it was L. Sifleet who led the pack around café, closely followed by D. Bury, A. Sifleet, Perkins, Stone, Henry and the rest of the chasing pack. Lap 1 saw both A. Sifleet and Perkins demote D. Bury to 4th along the Stratford Straight. By lap 4 L. Sifleet had pulled out a lead to leave 2 chasing pairs of A. Sifleet and Perkins, D. Bury and Henry with Stone, Rawden, Hopes and Fowler not far behind. The next lap saw Perkins pass A. Sifleet just before Bruno with Henry hassling D. Bury. Henry made it up to 4th on the following lap. Lap 7 saw the demise of A. Sifleet promoting those behind up one place. From Midrace distance the order had been decided with the top runners having lapped to 7th place.
As the flag fell L. Sifleet came in victorious not only winning the race and the 2023 seeded No.1 but making history clinching the top spot four years in a row. 2nd Perkins, 3rd Henry, 4th D. Bury, 5th Stone, 6th Fowler, 7th Hopes, 8th Sloane, 9th T. Bury, and Shepheard completed the top 10.
Heat 3 Henry made the best start and led for 2 laps until A. Sifleet took over at the front. L. By lap 4 the first 6 places were set in Stone. 1st A. Sifleet, 2nd Henry (who took the winning points) 3rd L. Sifleet, 4th Perkins, 5th D. Bury, 6th Hopes.
Congratulations to our 2023 Seeded numbers -:
No. 1 Lionel Sifleet
No. 2 Tom Stone
No. 3 Rob Perkins
No. 4 Stuart Henry
No. 5 Dan Bury
No. 6 Paul Fowler
No. 7 Tony Bury
No 8 Ray Sloane
No. 9 Dan Rawden
No. 10 Mark Shepheard
Thank you to all drivers registered for 2023 without you there wouldn’t be a Championship.
Congratulations
Lionel Sifleet
2023 210 Short Circuit Champion
Won in 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023
first driver to win 4 times in a row