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News 2005 Season Pickup Trucks Round 13 and14 Rockingham Report by Harvey Hawkins Antony started the weekend quite well lapping in the high 41’s on the Saturday practise and got the 16th best time. However the team did not settle for that in fact they fixed and improved a broken diff ready for the 1st race on Sunday. RACE 1 Sunday - Antony was placed 16th on the grid due to a last minute change to the No 98 Pickup Truck Saturday night. The famous words were said "gentlemen start your engines,” and they were off. Antony started well climbing 2 places by the 2nd corner and jumped into 9th after the first lap, he was keeping with the pace and loosing the trucks behind him. It was all going well for team Hawkes Racing then the inevitable happened No 2 Dave Briggs tried to go on the inside of No 55 Tony Mumford on turn 4 but bumped into No 55 which then caused a knock on effect to put No 8 John O’Mann into the wall and the yellow flag was raised. The entire field bunched up for the restart and Antony just didn’t look the same, his truck was slower and he was getting left out to dry. However, Antony stuck at his task and finished a respectable 14th place. Antony showed some signs of speed and all Team Hawkes Racing were looking forward to the next race. Race 2 - Team Hawkes Racing were a lot better positioned for race 2 starting in 5th place. The race started and surprisingly on lap 2 Antony exited turn 4 in the lead - he was still holding on to his lead and he was looking like he belonged there, eventually got caught and fell back to 7th place then came out the yellow flags for a caution. At the restart Martin Heath No 66 got up the inside exiting turn 2 and Antony clipped the wall quite hard knocking the tracking out and buckling the wheel creating a vibration and loads of under steer. Antony held on and put in a great performance finishing in 10th spot. This was a good meeting for Team Hawkes Racing, and although it was Hawkins that did the driving it was a real team effort and credit has to be given to all the crew who turned high 41’s lap times to mid 40’s Mallory Park 19/06/05 Report by Harvey Hawkins Antony started this meeting on the outside of the front row, hoping for an improvement on the last Mallory meeting where Antony unfortunately did not drive past the first corner due to a driving fault by another Pick-up Truck racer which put Antony in the barrier and out of both races. Race One After four warm up laps were driven, the green flag was lifted and off went Antony with his hopes higher than ever. Antony made it past the first corner and was in fact in 2nd place challenging to take 1st place of Tony Mumford in the no.55 truck. Everything was going well for Antony but then he took a risk to try and go wide but unfortunately this time luck was not on Antony's side as he got caught and ended up in 5th place coming into the 4th lap. Antony was part of the front pack of 5, although the lead that they had was shortening by every lap and eventually mark Willis (65) over took Antony on the inside and another two cars followed in front of Antony's 98 pick up truck as it was struggling with understeer. This left Antony back in 8th place but was challenging every lap to regain his places but Paul Poulter and Tony Mumford were making the job very hard for Antony. Although there was a break through on the last corner, as Antony came side by side with Mumford but the chequered flag came too soon and Antony just missed out. Antony's position of 8th was very respectable and a great platform to build on in the next race! Race Two After a very good place in the first race, Antony was hoping for a similar position, as the mechanics tried to fix Antony's understeer problem but in fact it did not turn out this way due to the immense heat on the track. So Antony started the race on the outside of the 4th row because of his good 1st race position, and held up well, keeping with the pace but the same problem with understeer came back to haunt him and Antony finished the race in 13th place, which under the circumstances was a good performance by Antony. All in all this was an extremely successful meeting, which has helped Antony's confidence and championship places. Boothville Roofing Joins Team SCSA Pickup Truck Racer Antony Hawkins will be joining forces with the Northampton based company Boothville Roofing for the June Thunder Sunday meeting at Rockingham. Hawkins, 39, joined the Pickup Trucks last season after a chequered career in Hot Rod racing. He adapted well to the cut and thrust of Super Speedway racing finishing second in the 2004 Rookie Championship. “I'm a Northamptonshire lad born and bred,” says Antony. “I lived in Syresham, a small village two miles from Silverstone circuit for the first 22 years of my life. Our Hawkes Racing Pickup Truck Racing team are also based in Brackley, Northants, next door to the B.A.R. F1 team. I’m very grateful to Nigel Johnson and Boothville Roofing for their support – it means a lot to have such a good local company supporting us at Rockingham.” The SCSA Pickup Truck Racing championship continues at Rockingham with the next ‘Thunder Sunday’, 5th June.  Pickup
Trucks Round 1 RockinghamAfter the long break the team were looking forward to the start of the new season and it was great to be back at Rockingham Motor Speedway. The Saturday testing didn’t go very well. Antony reported that the truck felt very twitchy and loose in the corners and ended the session 15th quickest The team had a discussion about the handling and decided the truck needed to be set up properly with the aid of scales so Steward Racing kindly offered the team the use of their scales in their garage. After about 2 hours the team had totally changed the truck set up under the guidance of Nigel Steward.  Race 1 At the start of the race the usual fast boys were off and Antony started to settle into a rhythm not knowing how the truck would handle after the changes, it felt a lot better but it was tight through turns 2 and 3. This was down to the track still being damp after the heavy thunder storm over night, with about 8 laps left the push had gone and the handling was much better passing some truck in the final laps we finished in 13th place  Race 2As the green flag fell Dave Briggs in truck 2 who started in front of use missed a gear change and Antony ran into the back of him which messed up our start, dropping us well back but with the truck handling well Antony started to put in some good lap times passing several trucks, drafting with Paul Thurgood truck 5 Antony finished in 8th place the team were very happy with the progress they had made over the weekend. Special thanks to the steward racing team for their help and advice. Also congratulations to Paul pouter on his double win Next race Mallory Park may 22nd Revised Calendar for 2005 Race dates at the Eurospeedway, Lausitz for the Pickups, have now been dropped for 2005, over some technical issues of the official fixture list. saying that, there is chance they might race there in August according to rumours. Race Dates 2005
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Goes to GermanyThe Short Circuit Pickup, in its "winter" paint scheme has been dropped off at Team-West-tec who are transporting it along with a two seater and race car from the Days of Thunder series to the Eurospeedway, Lausitz to help promote the series and gain some tyre evaluation tests on 29th October. At the moment we are not sure if the Pickup will actually run on the 2 mile German oval, but it will be used to promote the Pickup series as it planned they will be racing on the German oval for the first time in 2005. “The Pickup Truck Series will continue to provide valuable experience for drivers looking to move up into the Days of Thunder series, also there are a number of established Days of Thunder teams looking at running Junior teams in Pickups to provide up and coming drivers with large oval racing experience before they race in the Stock Car Series. News Archive - 2004 season
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