30 October 2009

History of the Renegades

Formed in 2001 to take part in team racing events the original line up consisted of ex St Day drivers Spoons and Bulldog. From Smallfield came Wizard. Blooz Boy regular Pasty completed the line up. Pasty had other commitments so at the beginning of 2002 Mr C took over from him.Other drivers who have appeared in the colours include 428 James Bennetts who many people will remember from the infamous Worvas Warriors, Carl Belfield followed in Bulldog's footsteps and always provides a great show, ex Spedeworth driver Graham "Tiny" Ford and most notably Westworld's Chris Bridger who helped the Renes pick up the St Day Team Championship 2002.  Wizard was out for part of this season due to breaking his knee during a Metro meeting but was soon back to top form.

The beginning of the 2003 season saw the next member of the Belfield dynasty hit the track - youngest son Nigel graduated from minis to bangers! He put on a great display in his first banger meeting in a Metro soon working his way up the cc's to race in the Blockbuster.

With a sound basis for the team it went from strength to strength giving encouragement to new drivers to have a go at banger racing.  Nigel's mechanic Anthony aka Lurch and Darren Augarde, Ogie, have both showed capable of great driving and quickly got  reputations for getting stuck in!

The idea of being part of a team attracted back a couple of drivers who had been taking a break from bangers - Andre Maclellan (Tricky), Martin (Itchy) and Tony Norris.  Soon enough the Renegades were to be able to field two teams for team events in the 2003 season, with drivers to spare .  Unfortunately half way through the season Spoons received a broken knee while racing a Metro (almost a year to the day after Wizard broke his!)  He wasn't as lucky as Jason as he missed the rest of the season, coming back with a bang (thanks to Steve in the chained pairs) at Christmas.  

2004 saw the team flying high coming first and second at the Westworld team championship.  .  A phonecall from Wales ended with Andre picking up his Blockbuster car,  the longest ever Renegade, a Lincoln town car.  It was a great year for material with a Jensen Interceptor for Dave at Judgement Day and Crasharama.  More unusual cars came our way, as well as Andre's limo at Blockbuster Dave had a 1956 Ford Crown, and Steve had a fabulous Crown Custom estate.  A bit more travelling was on the cards this year including a first time trip to the Thunderbolt for Dave, Steve, Nige and Andre as well as 3 of the team being picked for Civil War at Hednesford. 

The team had slimmed down somewhat, losing Wiz back up to Brighton, Darren moved abroad and Tony retired due to injury.  

2005 was a challenging year for us all.  Four days after a disasterous Civil War at Arena I ended up giving birth to baby Ellena 13 weeks premature.  Steve was attacked at a meeting prompting him to go into early retirement from racing. Westworld and Autospeed started a track war resulting in uncertainty for spectators and drivers alike, so the Renegades lost a lot of enthusiasm for the local racing.  One race which took everyone's interest was bus racing at St Day, where Spoons got himself a coach (beating Andre's longest Renegade a bit!)   Travelling away each month kept Dave and the boys busy nevertheless.

Sadly Lesley Counter, Mr C's wife, passed away a the beginning of 2006.   She was a great member of the team and it was a terrible shock for everyone.  As always the team stuck together on and off the track. We had a fabulous turnout for the Boneshayker at St Day, including a couple more youngsters, Ricky "Ginge" Indge, and Cameron May.  Bus racing was on again and this time Dave found a double decker  for it.  Lurch and Sprout had a mini hearse meeting of their own resulting in Lurch's best wreck to date.