Continental Scene - Edwin Clout on the Dutch F2 Situation...
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Ed's View... Hi visitors of the �off the wall� website. A couple of weeks ago Skeet asked me if I would like to write an article for his website every once in a while. I accepted but needed some time to find a subject to write about. I�ve found one and decided it was time to write my article. For people that haven�t seen my name anywhere before, I�m from the Netherlands and write for several magazines and websites, mainly about the Continental scene. A scene which is rather heavily under fire at the moment. Let�s start with the beginning. Late in 2001 the unbelievable seemed to happen to the Venray track. A committee of investigators struck down in the Venray community. They were there to investigate the building of houses to close to farms. Once done they decided they would investigate every square metre of Venray and thus came to the track also. All kinds of things were found there, but the main thing was that the track did not have the much needed licenses. In the end they came to an agreement that 2002 would become a test year for the track. Many months passed and there were wild rumours about superspeedways at Sevenum, Laarbruch and the industrial estate on the eastern border of the town of Venray. Then three weeks prior to the season it was decided that the Sprint 1300 class was no longer welcome at the Venray track. A storm of protest went to the Venray promotion but they didn�t care. A drivers demoonstration was called, but called off again after Mr. Maessen said that they might get a go, if there are enough cars at the Posterholt 14-4 meeting. Posterholt had it�s own share of problems, but they were solved well before the start of the season. Many left the Posterholt promotion and two of them diverted to Venray. These two person would usually have been protesting against Mr. Maessen�s decision about the Sprint class, but now they�re supporting him 100%. Worst thing is that one of the diverts is the dutch F2 �promoter�. On the 1st of April I travelled to Venray to see their first meeting of the 2002 season. I was kinda blown in the face when I saw that except for the BriSCa F1 no other formula was racing according to grades. They even put them up as was it a championship grid with no spaces between grades, that weren�t even there anyway. Now with 16 outlaw hotrods that was no problem. But with 35 F2�s a pile up was inevitable. Since I�ve booked some Englisch F2 drivers in for the Venray World Cup weekend and being a huge F2 fan, I decided to have a talk with the F2 promoter. He didn�t give me the chance to say what I wanted to say and just walked away. In fact no one was willing to talk to me about this subject. One guy from the Posterholt promotion will contact me, about what the rulebook says about grades. If it says they have to do graded starts he promised that graded starts will be used at Posterholt. It promises to become a hot season both on and off the track. Hopefully everybody will be able to keep their heads cool and provide us with good racing. If anyone has any suggestions, tips or complaints about what I write, please write an e-mail to e.clout@home.nl and I�ll try to answer them. Hope to see you around the raceways. Cheers, Edwin Clout.