Banger action all the way at Foxhall

TONIGHT'S motorsport at the Foxhall Stadium, Ipswich is the annual Darren Jones meeting – and it's banger racing all the way.

Darren had been a well-known driver around the East Coast tracks for many years before being badly injured in a Banger team match in Yarmouth in 1999. It was many months before he could leave hospital and restart his life, although it was a different one than before.

Brain damage had left him unable to walk or talk, but the support of the same family, friends and medical staff that carried him through his times in hospital, has enabled him to make encouraging progress – he can now walk, albeit with the aid of a frame and can talk.

He attends rehabilitation and retraining classes and is hoping to get a car under the mobility scheme. He was living in Clacton at the time, but has since moved to a specially adapted flat in Dovercourt so he could be nearer his parents.

Obviously he could no longer continue his job as a car mechanic and with all the other changes in his life, it must be obvious to all that his financial circumstances have been strained.

He, and his team of HMS Wreckers, all based in and around the Essex/Suffolk border, raced at Ipswich many times and most of them still do. Indeed, Darren was actually racing for the Ipswich promotion when the accident happened, so they organised a highly successful benefit meeting for him in 2000, which was repeated last year and now this is the third one.

More than 30 of the big, unlimited cc national bangers have already been booked, along with over 60 of the smaller 1600cc rookie bangers.

There will be at least ten of his Wreckers team-mates racing in both classes, along with some guest drivers from other promotions, plus all the usual Ipswich regulars in what should be an evening of non-stop action.

A firework display will round off proceedings on what is always a popular and well-supported night.