King back to hismajestic best butlady luck refusesto smile on him

He was the only Mid Sussex driver in action and soon showed his pedigree on an eventful night of fast and hard racing, as well as a rollover and several incidents of foul play.

It was largely frustrating for King in his first two races.

In the first race of the night, King was simply flying and had worked his way through from his usual position at the back of the grid, for a while going head to head, with the leader.

Suddenly, around the Hailsham bend, however, the car developed a mechanical problem that forced King to retire in front of the main stand.

The Burgess Hill driver was again in the thick of things in race two as he once more powered through the field from the rear, and was in third place after just two laps.

Very quickly he was hounding the lead car over every lap, eventually passing him on lap four. And he was beginning to extend his lead when all the hard work was nullified as the race was halted in the interests of safety.

From the re-start all the cars were bunched up for what became a three-lap dash. King had to work all over again to cement his position.

From the rolling lap, he was quickly back on the pace and stormed around the tight bends of Arlington, clearly determined to make his position count. Three laps later he thundered across the line to take the win.

The final was the liveliest race of the night with an upended car being pushed the length of the home straight before visiting driver Rice jumped out to warm applause from a relieved crowd.

Things did not go quite so well for King this time, as he was spun out of contention early on and from there was unable to trouble the scorers.

Now if only he could find a few more spare parts going cheap on ebay.