Underwhelming

During the 1980's I was one of the many defectors from Waikaraka Park who started going to Western Springs Speedway after having been a stockie regular since about 1971. But in 1993 I went to see the NZ Stockcar Title held at WP and with a record number of entries and a fairytale run-off between Kevin Free and Craig Pierce in which the former won his third NZ title I was once again hooked on stockcars and have been a firm follower since.

Fast forward to the present day and once again WP is holding the NZ Superstock title and lo and behold on the list of entries is one Kevin Free, or is he...

Qualifying Night



Even in the weeks leading up to this meeting rumblings could be heard on the discussion boards and at the big meetings prior to this one that all was not well. Saturday night we finally knew who was going to be participating and I believe there were 77 cars all up. A couple of former champs missing due to 'logistical problems' including Kevin Free who's only involvement in the weekend would be to hand out prizes for a banner competition and a few hot laps with the historic stockcars in his brand new car built for $6,000. Fairytale over.




The qualifying in my opinion was better than the finals night. This isn't a compliment, it doesn't mean that the qualifying night was out of this world, it sadly means the finals night was rather underwhelming for such a major showcase. Whether it was intentional or not there seemed to be alot of hits going in all of the heats and if the damage to the walls was any indication they were hard hits. Lets be fair, usually qualifying is just a whole pile of desperate flag racing with some chaos in the third heat from disgruntled drivers and std stocks who turned up to cause trouble. As seems the norm these days the entries from Palmy and Rotorua would end up topping the list of qualifiers and the home track managed only one qualifier in 8a Graham Goldsmith which must have been massively disappointing for the club. I know I was gutted!

It was great to see the five South Island cars rewarded for their efforts in just getting up here and also to see 54w Mike Pye qualify. He seems to have taken on the role that Richard Watkins once played for Wanganui when he was the sole entry in every championship steadfastly representing the "V".




The nights proceedings moved in a halting fashion but the points were at least being given out so we had some idea of what was happening. I think the overriding memory of the Saturday nights racing will be the Graeme Peters rollover, Rodney Woods empty engine bay, the Miers tank sadly grinding to a halt and chances of qualifying going with it and the ease in which Shane Penn qualified.




My best presented car winners are 86n Jared Gray and 16c Mark Osborne.

Finals Night

We arrived a bit later on the Sunday night and paid the price, with the upper grandstand almost full the three of us grabbed some rare space pretty close to our usual position and then we waited... I still can't believe that some sort of extra seating wasn't put up for this meeting but I'm never surprised. Now the band that played on the Saturday, OpShop, I dont mind, but this was never their kind of audience. As Frankie Stevens would say "it's all about song choice" wisely some classic hits were belting out of the ill performing speakers and so we didn't have to listen to people shouting abuse at the band!

I'll try to go easy with my recollections of the evening but as the title of this posting implies, it just never seemed to get off the ground. I'm as excitable about stockcars as Mintie is about cowbells but something just didn't quite gel. The pre race interviews before the first heat just took soooo long and my feelings on interviewing drivers are well documented, needless to say, to kill the boredom next time get everyone around you to scull everytime a driver says "yeah, nah" and you'll be plastered before the race even starts. As is the norm these days, when ever I tell someone "there's gonna be carnage in this race" it never happens. What proceeded was three fairly straight forward heats with minimal contact although the third heat did play out well knowing the full points situation and the whole Hunter v Penn battle at the front which Darcy Hunter played with the coolness and guile of a man who deserved to be the 1nz (even though I'll admit I was cheering for Penn). The gasps around us when Penn passed Hunter without either despatching him or making sure he wasn't a threat were palpable. It really was the defining moment in the championship in my opinion. As for the final outcome I was actually quite pleased, 337r a well deserving winner and as I mentioned, creating the win without team tatics, 591p always a major threat and 16c who really was the dark horse of the field. I wonder how different the outcome would have been had one Scotty Miers been in the finals.

The support programme for this meeting was appalling. When you have a field of super saloons with this much quality you don't play around with pointless 4 car or 2 car or any other odd mini version of a race! Finally they relented and let them all race together and it was the best 'filler' race of the weekend with 3nz Lance Jennings winning an action packed race with a great rollover to finish by 6a Doug Torrey.

The idea for the stockcar teams race was good but only made the rest of the bikes, minisprints, sidecars etc seem even more dire. Auckland beat Waikato in a fairly slow moving encounter but at least something with an 'a' on it won something.




My companions laughed when they saw the "bullring" and that just about sums up the bike action. Anyway, as soon as heat three of the title had finished we joined the mass exodus to the carpark to see if we could find an exit to actually get the car out of that hadn't been parked over by some late comer. The space issues at WP are a whole other posting but for now I'll leave it.

The programme cover is worthy of mention, I take it Neil Sampson did the drawing similar to the one he did for the 1993 programme but as with alot of this meeting, there were reminders of the glorious past but how things have changed...

I was recently at the NZ Stockcar title in Napier and as far as entertainment, value for money, action, excitement and crowd reaction, it far surpassed the display at WP this weekend. When I think of a NZ title for Superstocks I think of the meeting in Gisborne a few years ago, and that's what I expect or at least hope for. I'm taking nothing away from the drivers, I really feel the promotion and actual co-ordination of the meeting fell short.

There is a full report of the meeting on Percy's site.

Meeting rating : 6/10