It seemed like ages since I'd been at a speedway track and having been away on holiday in Coromandel I timed it right getting home yesterday and WP scheduling it's last meeting for the year, which didn't appear to have any featured title apart from "Meeting Five" in the rehashed printed programme from the rained-out "Christmas Cracker" meeting. A stroll through the pits showed that there were plenty of cars and a few new Stockcars making their first appearance. I took great interest in one car because I had seen if for sale on Macgors site for $3500 and noticed that it had been sold to Auckland and I wanted to know if anything under $5000 is worth racing these days...
The feature for the night was definitely going to be the Modifieds and they had a great field of 15 mostly Auckland registered, I think the only visitors were 18r and 55s from memory. There were other classes, 4 Supersaloons, 1 Superstock, 10 ATV's, 18 MiniStox, 18 Production Saloons and about 10 Saloons but the real question for me was whether two classes (the Modifieds and Stockcars) could carry a whole meeting? Well the good news is they did. Along with some fireworks and the opportunity for three people to have a go in a two seater sprintcar, the meeting went pretty well. With both the NZ title for Mods and Stockcars being raced at WP this season, it was a taste of what is to come with both classes providing fantastic action.
In the Modifieds it was Jamie Fox once again who appeared to dominate racing winning the first heat, 55s Paul Ward managed to take the second heat and in the third heat the sensation of the night (in my opinion) 2nz Allan Haigh, who ran off the back of the field in all three heats managed to catch and pass Fox until a mechanical problem halted his race just laps from the finish. The pass (in traffic) brought a HUGE cheer from the crowd, such is the dominance of Fox and really had my heart pumping, what a great race which Fox went on to win. The NZ title should be one of the meetings of the year if this is anything to go by. Also grabbing my attention was 18a who was fast and unpredictable at times and usually seemed to be in the thick of the action including a mix up which ended the night for 36a Phil Crumpe.
The Stockcars had their biggest field of the season with 26 cars and immediately the mayhem began from the very first corner. The $3500 car I mentioned earlier was 68a, a former Rotorua car and so I spent most of the first heat watching him, not one of the fastest cars but still competitive and in the action immediately even being taken onto the grass at one stage in a huge spin, the car finished the race in a cloud of smoke and wasn't seen for the rest of the night but for a real cheapie car it performed better than I had expected. Heat two had a huge rollover for 651a and the feature race continued the mayhem with probably less than 10 cars finishing. A return to form for this class and again, like the Mods, the NZ title in February will be a 'not-to-be-missed' meeting. A few of the Auckland drivers, 168a, 99a, 64a, 441a and 29a are going to be major chances for a win at this title the way they are performing... bring it on!
The rest of the classes were decidedly average, I hope the production saloons were a 'one-off' though and not going to become another semi regular class like the ATV's who with only 10 bikes were keeping the caterers busy. It doesn't matter how much the commentary team get excited (and trust me they can do excited, you would think Jesus himself was riding one of the ATV's) you can't have both these classes AND the MiniStox and not lose a few people's interest!
(pics to come)
Meeting Rating: 6/10
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