News > 1/8th Stock Cars at Horst, Holland

An impressive 74 drivers booked in for the Dutch Indoor championship that was held, for the 11th successive year, in 'de Merthal' Horst.

20 drivers representing Adur, Chessington, Hastings and Skegness made it to Holland despite strikes and closures at the ports. Competitors from Belgium, Germany and Holland also occupied places on the grid.

This championship has been won on 5 occasions by British drivers. The remaining 5 victors have been European. Who would lift the title this year??

Although not an official WEMSA event, the Venray committee chose to run the meeting to WEMSA standards as competition and racing rules would be familiar to all participants.

This meant that the best 2 from 3 races would count towards qualifying for the quarter finals.

After a period of timed practice on Sunday morning, the serious racing began.

Bart Roenhorst set the pace in round 1 with a staggering 53 laps - never before witnessed in Horst! This was the bait that veteran Eddie White needed, he matched Bart's 53 just seven races later. Current World Champion and first time visitor to Horst, Jody Foster, found his feet quickly scooping up 52 laps in his first race. Defending Indoor Champion, Rob Toms, managed 48 laps and would, no doubt, be hoping for a better 2nd and 3rd race to assure him of qualification.

Round 2 saw consistent drives from Bart and Eddie, both achieving another 53 laps. Joining the ranks of the 53 lappers was Dutchman Jeroen Janssen. Rob just missed out with a 52, but Jody has a disappointing race. He was leading the pack when shunted off the track, although he rejoined in 5^th place, his throttle servo caused him to stall forcing him to abandon the race.

Eddie White was top qualifier with 106 laps. Other British drivers to reach the quarter finals were Steven Swales, Rob Adams, Daniel Overland, Rob Toms and Jody Foster with several other Brits missing the cut by just a few laps.

Steven and Rob Adams did not make it passed the quarters. Eddie's belt came off right at the start of his semi and Daniel also succumbed in his Semi.

The six drivers revving on the start line for the final were: Jody Foster - Current World Champion
Jeroen Janssen - Horst
Rob Toms - Defending Dutch Indoor Champion
Sander Poels - Dutch Indoor Champion 1995 and 2003
Roy Mosman - Junior Dutch Indoor Champion 2004/5
Dennis van Asten - Junior, Horst.

Rob suffered at the start of the race and was immediately relegated to 6th. He later found a clean line through a multi car pile-up that earned him the front position which he managed to maintain for a few minutes. This lead was interrupted by a fracas which left him occupying 3rd place just behind the battling Jody and Jereon.

At the buzzer the computer revealed that Jody and Jeroen both finished on 64 laps, the split time being calculated from the time the drivers last crossed the transponder loop. However, the manual hand counted records did not concur with the finishing positions revealed by the computer. This was due to an incident that occurred before the final buzzer but after both cars had travelled over the loop. The difficulty was that Jody was leading at the end of the last lap but Jeroen was then leading at the final buzzer. A discussion between Race Control and the 2 drivers concerned took place and at the end both drivers expressed their wish to share the title. Whilst this was an extraordinary request, Race Control agreed to honour it. This meeting was not a WEMSA sanctioned meeting and the organisers were keen that neither driver should leave the meeting feeling cheated. Both drivers took the top spot on the podium for the Dutch and English national anthems.

During the coming year 'de Merthal' will be refurbished and we can look forward to a tarmac oval and even better facilities next year!

click here for RESULTS REPORT
results courtesy of http://www.peeldrivers.nl