1984

7th October 1984 Northampton, National Championship
Report from Motorsport News by Graham Brown

After his recent run of bad luck, Malcolm Goodman managed to get it all together at just the right time at Northampton last Sunday, Malcolm winning the Grand Prix Midget National Championship from a middle of the grid draw.

Following their damaging outing at Arena the previous weekend, the field was missing a couple of notable drivers among them Alf Boarer, Mick Bonner and the injured Dave Cox. However Malcolm still had a fair bit of opposition to overcome. A demon start to the 25 lap event certainly helped Malcolm's chances, but it was Alan Riley who held the early lead as Goodman rocketed into second from the fifth row! As Goodman rapidly whittled away at Riley's lead, Paul Holloway and Tony Brewer battled to try and stop the fast moving Basil Craske from moving up the places too quickly. Craske was not to be denied however and soon after Goodman hit the front coming off the pit bend, Basil was through to second and chasing after the leader. Though Craske closed in on Goodman for a while, Malcolm never made any mistakes lapping the many backmarkers he had to go past. Finally, with three laps to go, Craske had an 'off' at the far turn. Despite his rapid recovery, this was more than enough to allow Goodman to extend his winning margin to over half a lap, and in fact Riley, who'd never been that far behind, just snatched second in the dying moments, with Craske third followed by Brewer, Roland Parker, Brian Forrest, Ray Coulson and Holloway.

In the solitary heat that followed the championship race Steve Jobson headed them away, some rapid place swapping behind him bringing Pat French into second with Duncan Reed, Wayne Doidge, Brewer and Paul Woodman following. Jobson retired and handed French the lead, but his was a brief stay out front, Doidge and Brewer both going by to begin their own dice. They were joined by Craske and Goodman soon after, but when Doidge's engine let go it was all change and Craske took it up, Basil going on to win from Goodman, Brewer, Parker, Coulson and Forrest.

Reed was the first to show in the 20 lap final with Paul Rodgers second for many laps as the rest bunched up badly at the back. Finally Holloway and Brewer began to break the deadlock but they'd left it too late because Craske and Goodman were hot on their heels by now. The two stars soon passed by and it wasn't long before they'd taken Rogers as well and started to reel in the leader. This task was made even easier as Reed's motor was getting progressively sicker and inevitably Craske and Goodman were soon holding the premier places. Malcolm was able to mount a brief challenge when they encountered traffic, but at the finish, Craske was the clear winner from Goodman, this pair half a lap up on Riley, Parker, Brewer and Reed.