Last updated 19:46, Thursday, 11 September 2008

SEPTEMBER is a very busy month for motorsport with many of the main championships reaching a climax.

In the SG Petch ANECCC Stage Championship Richard and Edwin Cook are well placed to retain their 2007 title after a great run on the Pendragon, the Astra finally running well after a season of electrical problems.

With the Lindisfarne being cancelled, the next round is the Hamsterley Stages which at the time of writing had not got enough entries to be viable but hopefully there will be a late rush.

The most well-supported championship in the region is the TJ Services Northern Speed Championship which reaches its penultimate round later this month with the very popular Harewood Hill Climb.

With two rounds to go the situation at the top of the overall table is very close. Peter Garforth has a 21-point lead over Colin Birkbeck who has one event in hand, with Terry Coleman in third close behind.

However, there are a number of drivers who can still count at least one additional set of points and these include Malcolm Mackay and Angus Buchan who would certainly get in the frame with a good score at Harewood. In addition some drivers have yet to gain marshalling points which could make all the difference.

In the classes, it looks as though Colin Sutherland has already won class C1 as the other drivers have not done enough events.

Jim Evans has won all his rounds but will only have five rounds to count. The same applies to Peter Sewell in C2, the MG B driver having five rounds already and is well ahead of his nearest rival Mike Smailes.

In class L Radical driver Angus Buchan leads from Malcolm Mackay’s Locost and Chris Boyd’s Westfield but all three can count the best of the remaining two rounds.

The situation in M1 is that Mike Hunter leads on 179 from seven scores with Martyn Stott on 160 from six scores.

In class M2 Terry Coleman leads with the best of seven scores from Harry Moody while Colin Birkbeck can still score one more round, as can Darren Coleman.

Perhaps the most closely contest class is R1 for the small capacity road cars, where Robert MacGillivray leads in his 205 on 174 but all his challengers have scores in hand – Stephen Palmer, Martin Peacock and David Wiggins.

In R2 Mazda MX5, driver Kevin Hamilton has scored on all events but his main challengers have events in hand, namely Dennis Hope and Paul Rigg, both in MG Fs.

In the single seaters Peter Garforth has a big lead as none of the other drivers have completed enough events.

Following Harewood on the 20th of this month the final round will be the Kames Classic on October 5.

In the GK Group Northern Historic Championship there is now only one more round, the Hexham Historic Rally next month.

This is the only round that has navigational sections in the dark as well as special tests beforehand. Regulations will be available soon.