Massive Banger Crash

[anaxcrosswords]

Love Banger Racing, me, and I used to be track snapper at Buxton. This is from a few years ago - I'm the one on the infield with the camera bag - and features a brutal crash at 1:22.
It's not for the fainthearted, but the driver walked away with barely a scratch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5JmH8SH_YI

[tonyav]

He was lucky to walk away from that uninjured.
Used to watch the banger racing at Hednesford hills as a kid, the figure of eight was the best imo.

[stuey]

I've never heard of banger racing: he came close to being mashed.

[anaxcrosswords]

Yeah, at one time I was a Hednesford photographer too - used to produce a monthly magazine for them called Throttled and I covered the other Incarace tracks at Birmingham and Northampton. Hedno used to have the World Destruction Derby and the Team Championships, sadly neither of which are still run.

[tonyav]

Used to be called stock car racing, stuey. Different to US stock cars though.

[anaxcrosswords]

As for the crash above, Norman sustained a small cut to his finger!

[PankySmooch]

They're safe with their scaffold pole roll cages, always wondered how they know who actually won a race though

[tonyav]

Hedno used to have the World Destruction Derby and the Team Championships, sadly neither of which are still run.

Why was they stopped, Dean ?.

Hednesford is around eight miles from where I live.

[anaxcrosswords]

Couple of reasons. Modern cars are more reliable so scrap cars are harder to come by, plus the value of metal means they're more expensive too. There are some areas where, inexplicably, numbers are still high - mostly down south and on the continent. But King of The Peak (which was the meeting in the video) is really struggling. When I started at Buxton KOTP attracted 50+ cars - the last one I attended had about 10.

[PankySmooch]

I remember going to Haringey years ago as a kid watching it and a woman got hit by a car and lost her leg

[tonyav]

Hadn't thought of that, a lot more plastic on cars these days.
Yep scrap steel prices are high.

[anaxcrosswords]

Incidentally the poor turnouts at KOTP aren’t entirely for those reasons. Some drivers race individually, others join teams. The driver who followed Norman in – Willy Blackwell – was (perhaps still is) a member of Stinkbridge, pink cars with black roofs so I’ll leave you to work out what the team name means ;) They usually turned up in big numbers and with a wrecking reputation, which discouraged other drivers from turning up.

[tonyav]

Just found a clip of them on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ar_aPGGcNU

[anaxcrosswords]

At 0:44 there’s a hit on a member of the Blooz Boyz. For a long time banger racing used to be about Stinkbridge vs Blooz Boyz. No longer, unfortunately.

[tonyav]

Yeah, a real back ender.

[orangeangel]

wow

[anaxcrosswords]

Part of the decline also has to do with the right sort of cars being available. All through the 80s, 90s and much of the naughties, the Granada 2.8 was the car to have. Strong, easy to get hold of, cheap in terms of parts. There were tens of thousands of them easily available, and they got used up. These days Volvos are popular, but they just don’t exist in the same numbers. The most easily available material now is probably the MkI Mondeo – the problem, though, is that it’s incredibly strong so a lot of promotions only allow them for domestic meetings.

[tonyav]

Those MK1 Mondeo's are a better car that I thought then, anax.

[anaxcrosswords]

Almost indestructible Tony.

[tonyav]

I'm amazed.
Don't see many of them on the roads these days though or is that cause the banger racing guy's are buying them up.

[anaxcrosswords]

Yeah, pretty much. Also they’re a bit ugly compared with cars that have followed. But for Banger racers the front and back are amazingly strong – and once you’ve got your door plate and H frame you’ve got something that’ll just keep going and taking the hits.