Bury St Edmunds’ Matt Carberry successfully defended his European Superstox Championship at Foxhall Stadium, claiming his fourth title.

It was a fine and dry if somewhat chilly evening and a field of 33 cars gathered in the pits where a draw for grid positions was held at the Driver’s Briefing. Chris Brown elected to only do the following heats while National Champion Jordan Salmon missed the big race with gearbox problems.

Chris Roots drew pole position with Northern Ireland’s Lee Davison alongside but ominously Carberry was on grid four, Ben Marjoram was 8th with Nick Roots behind him, Jason Cooper was 25th while the last three cars on the grid were Mark Smith, Scotland’s Stu Gilchrist and world champion Chris Bradbury who drew right at the back!

The 30-lap European Championship began at a fantastic pace and it was Roots that led them away only to have Jordan Aylward hook up with him forcing both to retire.

Northern Ireland’s Davison took up the running.

This was short–lived though as Carberry began to pull away, setting the fastest lap of the meeting on lap 9 at 15.831s.

Sarah Cooper and Luke Hamilton hooked up, while Bradbury and Jason Cooper were storming through the field in fine style and battling away with each other along the way.

By the time they got to fourth and fifth, Carberry was a length of the straight clear.

Then they caught Barry Stephen who had been involved with Bradbury in recent trips to Scotland’s Lochgelly Raceway and Bradbury was not going to pass on this chance for revenge.

He went in like a ton of bricks at the end of the home straight and rode up over Stephen’s bonnet which acted as a ramp and launched Bradbury high into the air in an enormous crash, dive–bombing into the fence.

The yellow flags came out but both drivers, though shaken, were unscathed and shook hands.

From the resumption of the race, Carberry had lost his big lead and had Davison, Roots and Cooper behind but he was soon pulling away again.

Cooper got up to third before Davison unluckily blew up and crashed into the wall on the turnstile bend and Terry Lawrence spun as there was oil down.

Glen Woodbridge slid head on into Davison while Cooper was getting close enough to Carberry for things to look interesting for the closing laps only for Jason to find the oil and spin around which took any pressure off Carberry.

He duly drove safely home after a faultless race to incredibly win his fourth European title, which have all been claimed at Ipswich.

Scotland’s Stu Gilchrist drove a brilliant race to come from 32nd to second followed by Nick Roots and Cooper who was fourth from grid 25 despite a spin.

The following heat saw Mark Smith win from Jason and Gilchrist,

The night concluded with the Superstox Facebook Trophy.

Sara Cooper was under a lot of pressure but she kept cool and put in a fast smooth drive to take the most popular win of the night ahead of Lawrence.

The Classic Hot Rods raced in three high speed and very entertaining races, with race one seeing the debut of Andrew Willis’ smart Austin A35 Racer.

Girl Racer Cara Boyd set the early pace but was soon passed by her father Graham and Charlie Schembrie who went on to scrap for the lead with the win going Boyd Senior’s way.

Heat two saw another early lead for the aforementioned Cara Boyd but this time Bromley’s Andy Steward was on a march and stamped his authority on the race with Hughie Weaver chasing hard.

The Grand Final got really interesting with Weaver this time claiming the lead and not yielding to go on and take the win with Steward in second and Craig Boyd third.

Completing the night’s action were the Bangers in a World Qualifying Round that saw plenty of visiting Drivers eager for qualification.

Two action-packed heats and a Grand Final were the order of the night which saw local stars, Sudbury’s Michael Lane and Woodbridge’s Jake Stewart, take the heats.

Ipswich’s Aston Leathers claimed a hectic final which sent the large crowd home thoroughly entertained!