Popular Burgess Hill driver Dave King won the Southern Championship for bangers at a packed Arlington Stadium.

Twenty-seven cars was a good turnout and included most of the South's big names, the car of the night being an enormous and very old Austin Sheerline driven by Crawley's Dez Wood.

Needless to say, it was in-volved in most of the action in a lively first heat, in which only seven of the original starters managed to last the race.

Among those who fell by the wayside were Wood, Ricky Miller, who overturned, and the defending champion, Jerry Ansell, from East Grinstead.

Ansell could not repair the car in time for the champi-onship, which looked as if it was going the way of former world champion Colin Farley, from Horsham.

A mid-race stoppage when three cars were involved in a crash, however, saw the field closed up for the restart.

King made the most of the opportunity to get at Farley and went past him in a couple of laps.

Farley fought back for a while, but King's fast Granada eventually pulled clear.

Behind them, most of the field went out at various stages, leaving Paul Tompkins on his own in third place and just six drivers managing to complete the distance.

The evening ended with a spectacular destruction derby, in which Richard Flockton went on a Rambo-like mission to wipe out the rest on his own and almost succeeded.

Eventually, there were only him and David Wild left. Flockton's car, however, had handed out too much punish-ment by then and Wild's car was the one still left running after the final crunch.

Stock rods were also on the bill, contesting another round of their track championship.

Although this is a non-contact formula, the crowd must have thought the bang-ers had come out a race too soon.

There was an enormous pile-up at the start of heat one when somebody's engine blew, covering the pit bend in oil, which all the following cars skidded on and then crashed into each other.

This accounted for almost half the field of well over 20. Fortunately, the rest of the racing was less destructive.

All three races featured close finishes and produced two rare heat winners in lady racer Sophie Bunoz and Heath-field's Gary Marchant, who was winning for the first time in the formula.

It was business as usual in the final, though, with track champion Andy Sturt timing his run to perfection to take the lead from impressive newcomer Mark Latter with two laps to go.

Bunoz did well to hang on to third place ahead of champi-onship leader Joe Smith and former holder Kym Weaver.

The superstox completed the programme with another fast and furious session.

Heat one gave East Anglian driver Carl Buckle his first win, but there was no stop-ping former English champion Chris Bradbury after that.

He romped to victory in heat two and the final, although the drive of the night came from world champion Mark Eaton, who came through to claim second place from the back of the grid.