At King’s Lynn local race ace Max turns form book upside down
On Saturday night at King’s Lynn Wisbech race ace Max Stott turned the form book upside down to go on top of the world by taking an unfancied victory in the 2L Stock Car World Final.
It sent local fans delirious as the town celebrated its biggest success on the oval racing stage for over 25 years.
2L Stock Cars used to be the staple diet of the old Hammond Beck Road circuit which was the first venue to host the formula’s World Final in England back in 1984; whilst the success of Paul Licquorice in 1992 at Skegness was the second and last time a local driver had taken the title.
The 27 year-old Stott started the World Final as the top local seed on the 18th grid position but came to Lynn with some uninspiring shale form.
His best performances have been reserved for the tar circuits and previous to the World Final the best result he had at Lynn was an eighth place finish as getting the correct set-up on his shale machine had been proving problematic.
On the big night of the season though, Stott produced the drive of his life to take the biggest prize that the sport has to offer.
When the green flag dropped the World Final saw probably the most chaotic and craziest start it had ever seen as the front runners taook each other out, with the attempted defence of world champion Dan Parker not even lasting a full lap, during which he was a passenger for most of the circuit and his car ended up pointing every way possible during the chaos.
Stott was able to use this chaos to his advantage and he moved up a massive ten spots in the first two laps when the race was stopped to allow attention to fellow Wisbech world finalist Scott Greenslade.
Scotland’s Ross Watters was the leader at this stage of the race and once the green flag fell it was Watters who once again took up the advantage.
He was being pursued by Mayes with Stott soon making his way through to third place.
At half-way Mayes had hit the front with Stott up to second but, despite trying everything he could, Stott was unable to close the gap between himself and the leader and as the laps ticked down it looked like Mayes was the champion-elect, with Stott about to become bridesmaid with an impressive drive.
However, with three laps to go, fate intervened in the shape of the backmarking Simon Venni, who spun Mayes out of the lead. Mayes tried to re-enter the race and Stott was squeezed up the Armco but kept his foot down and came out leading with Scotsman Barry Russell right on his tail.
A lap later Stott negotiated a returning to action Carl Boswell with skill and dexterity in a race winning manouvere which Russell was unable to reproduce in such an impressive way, giving Stott some breathing space.
Despite nerves jangling and backmarkers and potential disaster all around, Stott reeled off the final two laps like a shale racing pro at the top of their game to take a hugely popular and quite simply fantastic victory to write his name into the record books as the sport’s 37th world champion.
“It is just an amazing feeling,” said an elated Stott. “I just didn’t expect it. I have not done too much on shale this year so when I got up to second I was delighted with that and would have been over the moon if I just held on to that.
“When I saw Mayes go out, though, I just took my chance to get to the front and snuck on by.
“Once I was in the lead there was no way I was going to let it go and I managed to hold on. I just can’t believe it!”
Racing returns to King’s Lynn this Monday, August 27 (1pm), when the Big Van Bangers are in action for “Crash for Cancer III” with the Reliant Robin World of Shale and Ramp Rollover competition completing the action.
