NZ Mods 07

Night 1, pits full, grandstand empty!

A surprisingly low crowd turnout for the qualifying night for the NZ Modifieds title although the promotion team had done a lot of work readying the place for the first of it's big meetings this season. The wall had been painted, there was extra seating on the back straight, entertainment for the kids and heaps more catering on offer. Unfortunately two of the more important new implementations were the lap scoring system and the track surface which would both play a big part in this championship.

Twenty Nine Modifieds had turned up to contest this title which was about four short of the expected field but lots of quality machinery and a good support programme which incidently had caused a bit of a stir with Auckland unable to enter a team for the Stockcar Teams title in Wellington although a healthy field of 23 turned up for the Friday night and another field of 21 for the Saturday racing. MiniStocks and MiniSprints also appearing.

No major shocks in the qualifying but it was obvious that a few of the big name drivers were struggling a bit with the track conditions and a few hard luck stories meant they would need to perform well in the repercharge on Saturday to get through. Points were not forthcoming and problems were mentioned with the new computer system and although the commentary team made light of it, it's fairly important to us 'trainspotters' to know exactly were the drivers stand, it adds to the excitement factor and with a fairly small crowd, atmosphere was lacking a bit. Good racing though, and thats what was most important.







Night 2, Pits full, Grandstand fuller!

Now night two definitely had the atmosphere missing from night one. Walking around the pits pre-meeting there were quite a few new cars for the support programme including three new SuperStocks, 94a, 52a and 78a which must be the most Auckland registered cars in a few seasons, also a few new Stockcars appearing and the best of those was 4a. There was a real buzz and anticipation of a great meeting ahead.

First things first, the three heats for the NZ title were all excellent, even the repercharge had drama and the final results needed a three way runoff for the 2nz position with three of the best drivers taking part... so where did it all go wrong?

I love speedway but arriving at WP at 5.30pm and leaving at Midnight is too much of a good thing. I know that the promoters hands are tied when there are protests and that when a championship meeting is being run by SNZ they must lose some of the control but Joe Public in the crowd don't care, they want to see cars on the track and be given points updates and if they are getting points updates they have to be read out correctly! Also I have to mention the three way runoff, I had given up trying to work out points so I was unsure of who the three would be, and whether I could be bothered staying back for it and nothing annoys me more than hearing "we can't tell you who it is yet..." WHY??? Will we explode from the excitement? Can't you just say "Unofficially we have it as 11a, 9w and 19r tied on points..." how hard it that? This is not just a dig at WP, it happens at almost every track. Also what was the carry-on with heat two when most of the field ground to a halt before the start and we are told that "there is a bit of controversy about 88s and some of the drivers are making a stand" only to be interupted with important news about Stan the Mans foot long hotdogs! Good grief. This also happened again when someone mentioned Jamie Fox "for the first time ever not doing a pit interview because of..." interrupted by some other irrelevant comment. I guess it's a hard call for the commentary team to know how much the crowd actually WANT to hear, you don't want to blind them with science so to speak, but personally at championship meetings I want to know everything that's going on without having to go down to the pits to find out.

Enough about that, just quietly I had hoped Fox would win this one but after the first heat I thought he was gone for all money. After three laps he was still at the rear of the field something you NEVER see, so obviously something was wrong. The fact that he did get up to challenge for 2NZ was incredible in my opinion, talk about never say die. A few other moments that really stood out for me was the 5w McPhee machine, boy is he exciting to watch, the performances of a few of the lesser lights like 22r Lloyd, 99a Robertson and the heartbreak moments that unfortunately make these meetings memorable like 36a Crumpe's blown motor, 33a Drube's night one dnf in heat three missing out on qualifying and 71s Jacksons non qualification.

Congratulations to new 1nz Allan Haigh who with little preparation in a new car drove his way to the title in three of the cleanest (no yellow lights in heat one or two) Modified Championship heats I've seen in years.

Needless to say, under all the dust and insects (did you see those suckers attacking the lights on the top of the grandstand?) there was the guts of a great meeting. It was the execution of the meeting that fell short. Hopefully this was just a dress rehersal for what is going to be a super Dirt Cup in a weeks time. As someone has mentioned on Macgors, 'what are they gonna be like when they have 150 cars at the NZ Stockcar title'? Maybe all the gremlins happened this weekend, lets hope so because it's obvious that they are trying to put on a great show and everything has got to gel at some stage and wouldn't it be great if it's that weekend?


Meeting Rating 7/10

Footnote:

Since writing this on Sunday, I have been reading the comments on Macgors and the shit has really 'hit the fan' about this meeting. The amazing thing is the meeting was actually quite good (looooong but good) but there seems to be some major bloodletting happening and this meeting has been the catalyst. Unfortunately for Track promoters you can't challenge every spectator to 'come and see what goes on behind the scenes' because most people in the crowd don't care, they just want food in their hands and action on the track. It can't be an easy job but I believe the team at WP are the best thing that the Club has had in years. Unfortunately for them they don't come in with a clean slate because the jaded punters in the stand have been taken for granted for years by PREVIOUS promoters and that legacy is probably what fuels the harsh criticism the current team gets whenever something goes awry. Its not fair, but, to coin a tired old speedway cliche... 'that's racing'.

World 240's

I've seen minimal Superstock action this season so a meeting in Rotorua that had the cream of NZ Superstock racers plus five overseas drivers thrown in for good measure was not to be missed and the effort to get down there was well worth it.

Friday Nights qualifying was supported with Stockcar racing, the NZ MiniSprint title and the BOP Streetstock title, a fairly packed programme and apart from some delays with the MiniSprints, ran smoothly and was entertaining. My only two small gripes were with the food stands that were a bit overwhelmed and the sound system directly opposite the control tower where the speaker faces the infield and not the crowd. That wouldn't be a major problem at most tracks but the team here at Rotorua go to great lengths to let you know what's going on so that was a pity that you couldn't hear much. As I said those were the only problems, the rest of the evening was first class.

From the practice runs for the Overseas competitors it was clear to see that Frankie Wainman Jnr was going to be a contender as always but also 391uk Andy Smith was definitely on the pace. For the record the Overseas drivers were: 55r Frankie Wainman Jnr in his self built car, 391uk Andy Smith in Clinton Thickpenny's 73r, 218uk Derek Fairhurst in the 59b Wally True car, 231uk Mark Peters in the 33r Robbie Mabey car and 138uk Dave Willis in the 138r Russell Hunter car.







The qualifying races for the Kiwi drivers fairly much ran to plan, 5v Darryl Taylor looked awesome, also 53p Keven Roberts had his tank flying. A few of the South Island drivers and 515r Stan Hickey would have to hope for more luck in the repercharge Saturday night for their chance to qualify.

A full report of the racing is on the Rotorua site so check it out, I'll only mention a few thoughts about the title which was one of the best in ages, everything you hope for in a big SuperStock meeting but somehow never quite get. Heats one and two were great and were your usual mix of flag racing but as always with the tight Rotorua track there was plenty of contact but nothing compared to heat three which was the best single race I've seen in years. It turned into an enormous teams race from the very first corner and continued on for the entire race which included two red lights for rollovers of 74r Mohi and 16a Headington (although I did think the delay for Headington was way too long) and for quite a while I thought 55r Wainman was going to take the title as the Huntly and Palmerston drivers waged war on each other. Both sides had tanks that were doing the business (85h and 8p) they alone were worth the price of admission, and although Wainman had been hampered plenty, it was bad luck that seemed to get him in the end when 62r Stanaway lunged at race leader 58p Bengston and blocked Wainman at the same time, then a hit from 7r Wright finished Wainmans run and although he was battered still managed to cross the line for third overall.

3nz Shane Penn was the outright winner from 14n Dale Ewers who seemed to avoid alot of the carnage that was happening all round him, in fact he was almost invisible for most of the weekend and probably profited from the Palmy v Rotorua v Huntly v UK battle! When the dust settled after the race everyone around us was hyped and knew they'd just seen an awesome SuperStock race and and a spectacular finish to a memorable World 240's meeting.






I also want to mention 99r Shannon Orr in the teams race between the Rotorua Rascals and the Bay Park Invitation team which he stepped in to fill a gap for the Bay team. What a performance, one of the drives of the weekend and now surely a future Rotorua team member! The Stockcar class had some great performers out there this weekend particularly 33r Jason Gray in the ugly and noisy old black tank and I was keeping an eye out for contenders for the upcoming NZ Title in Auckland and you can add 16r, 16m, 58m and 68r to a growing list of hot favourites...

Once again another satisfying visit to Paradise Valley and a meeting that reminds you why we love SuperStock racing.








Meeting Rating : 8.5/10

NZ Superstocks Dunedin

I was unable to go to the NZ title in Dunedin this year but luckily I have received this report from Del & Rex Nield with a few of their thoughts on the meeting.

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Well everybody is putting there two cents in about the NZ Champs in Dunedin, so now it’s our turn. Unfortunately due to our flights we only got to see the qualifying nights racing so our observations were on events up to the end of racing on Friday Night.

Our South Island Week

Flew to Christchurch on 31/12/06 and picked up Motorhome, spent the rest of that day with my (Del’s) Dad who is in a Retirement Home there and on Monday the 1st headed on our way to Greymouth to check out the track there, Rex has never raced at Greymouth but we were interested to go have a look, a nice looking surface it was even though there were no race meetings to see. Stayed the night there then headed down to Haast and across the Island through Cromwell and onto Dunedin where we arrived and booked into the Camping Ground, some speedway supporters and racecars had already started arriving.

Took a trip out Wednesday afternoon to the track to check out the facilities and race surface, when we arrived we were shocked to see the track being ripped so close to the meeting. The guy in charge of the track preparation came and spoke with us and explained the reasoning for this, apparently the track surface is so hard they have trouble getting water down into the track, it seems to sit on the top and the track surface always slicks off within a couple of races. The guy was confident all would be well and I must say both of us were a little apprehensive about the kind of surface the competitors would get.

Thursday was spent seeing competitors arrive at the camping ground preparing racecars ready for practice on Thursday Night, headed out to the track about 5pm and there was a good turnout of drivers to try out the track. The surface appeared to be very wet with constant amounts of water being put onto the surface but was a good indication for drivers for gearing. Very few drivers came to grips with the surface on practice night. Rees, Hemi, Miers and Steiner seemed to have got it sussed by their second practice, others just had their brains in neutral and their feet to the floor, forgetting about trying to get round the corners, hence a lot of cars pushing and sledging out towards the wall.

Friday morning headed down to scrutineering for a look see and of course interested in cars, weights and the process, reasonably casual approach to scrutineering and no issues of controversy seen. Most cars weighed round 1460kgs a few very close to 1500kg and the lightest we seen was Joblin’s at 1408kg.

Friday we decided we wanted to sit on turn 2, so we were parked out at the track at 1.45pm to wait in the queue to get in the gate… they were still trying to do last minute things at the track, unfortunately there was only one gate for the public to get in and out of so it was rather congested. We had no issue with the prices and there was a 2 day pass for $40 each adult, so we paid $80 for the 2 of us and got a couple of normal tickets you can buy at the stationery shop, we thought these are trusting lots down here anyone could go down and buy a roll of this tickets and anyone that flashed one at the gate got in and out, we guarded this little ticket incase we lost it… as it turned out after we purchased a programme and read it, it said 'NO REFUNDS WILL BE GIVEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES' guess what, the finals were a rainout and we paid $40 each to see the qualifying night BUMMER! No refunds… suckers eh!

It was a busy night for me as I was lap scoring in the stands and sending through txt to Yaz of the qualifying groups as I seen it, generally managed to get down to the top six or seven okay. We had expected the track to fall apart and slick off real bad, but it was pretty good considering the amount of traffic and the Dunedin Club did a good job of the preparation. We felt the racing was good, a lot more action than expected for a qualifying night and generally the meeting was run at a fast pace, can’t say we enjoyed the saloons or streetstocks at all, but had to have those other classes there as the fill ins for the premier class on the night... saloon races took ages because of so many yellow lights.

The main highs and lows of what we seen and heard:

Highs

Being there to see some of the racing and looking round the cars competing, The friendly atmosphere down South, Frankie Wainman getting his car sorted from practice to the qualifying and watching him peddle a car is a real buzz, Stan Hickey looking good after a bout of ill health, seeing past speedway competitors and speedway friends we hadn’t seen for some time, some great drives by drivers to qualify.

Lows

Rainout on the Saturday and missing the finals, lack of knowledge of the racers from local announcers, advertising on radio only mentioned South Island cars, no hype about drivers who had travelled as far as Auckland to compete, hearing about Ollie Browne’s passing, and hearing that John Hynd suffered a serious injury to his foot after him rolling himself, a boring programme – felt it should have had some history of the NZ Champs or something in it, it just wasn’t something special like some of them are.

Things that gave us a giggle or we wondered why it happened!

The announcer calling a 6 wheeler water truck a 10 wheeler, like it was some HUGE rig. The announcer telling us to go get some TUCKER from the food stalls. The meaning of FORD – Federation of Real Drivers (like that one) Trying to understand John Hynd’s reasoning about trying to destroy his car attacking other drivers in qualifying when he still had a chance of qualifying in a repercharge… it’s a long way to go to a championship if you don’t try and qualify.

Overall a good experience, Dunedin did a much better job of the Championship than Invercargill did in the 90’s, it was a much better show that we had expected, disappointed that the spectator area wasn’t full on the qualifying night, felt that for the most part this was due to boring radio advertising… it didn’t make it sound exciting at all, the atmosphere is created by the spectator area being full, big fields of competitors and a championship meeting hyped up by the media and announcers, thanks to Dave Birdling his part of the show was good.





A great looking car and a driver who is still a champion





Proof that you never give up on the chance of qualifying as no one would have picked the cow car as the winner to go through on the repercharge, well done Blyth




The potential of this car has not been seen for some time...





A nice looking machine that Frankie built & peddles, he is a legend, a nice guy, takes all the punishment the kiwis give him and still comes out smiling... thanks Frankie





Congratulations to our newest superstock champion Simon Joblin, a quiet & sincere guy, a smooth driving achiever on the track who has helped build some history for stockcar racing following in his Dad's footsteps, a past NZ champ.

Auckland Mods '07

  

Just a short review of this meeting as there will no doubt be quite a few reviews of it here, here and here... one thing WP can't complain about is internet coverage! Anyway, when you have the pits bursting full of quality machinery it's pretty much assured you will have a good meeting and happy punters.

A huge field of MiniStox, 14 Saloons, 14 MiniSprints including the 1, 2 + 3nz for this class, 21 Stockcars, 18 Modifieds and 10 Streetstocks made for a pretty good nights racing which also included a round of the Ray White Series for Minisprints and I think the Saloons were racing for the Auckland Champs which was eventually won in a runoff by 77k Rossco Cresswell.

Again there were a few new Stockcars and also the appearance of two Whangarei cars although they ran with an 'H' next to the number which was interesting as previously we have had a few cars running with the 'WR' on the car, maybe they have an association with Huntly or something, if anyone knows the answer feel free to add it to the comments section below. Based on their performance hopefully we will see a few cars from the northern tracks appearing at the NZ Stockcar title in Feb as they weren't afraid to mix it up, particularly the 346h car of Bevan White. I'm hoping to make a trip up to the Northland Speedway later in the season and will get some pics of some of the stockcars they run.

The meeting did lose a bit of momentum towards the later stages and the final Modified race became a stop-start affair with five stoppages but Jamie Fox never looked like being challenged and predictably won. Good support from the Stratford drivers meant the field had some real class and apart from a few mishaps the 56a of Paul Blakeley was a standout.

One thing I did note that I have mentioned before is when "Randy the Trackchaser" was being interviewed about his hobby of going to as many tracks as possible that when he visited most New Zealand tracks he would be hard pressed to find a single souvenir badge, patch or even a blimmin' collectable spoon with the tracks name or the year on it. I think there is a HUGE market for this stuff, I know that if I was in Dunedin for the Superstock Champs apart from buying the programme it would be great to get a patch or badge that proves 'you were there' hope he enjoyed his collectable glow stick or whatever it was that he purchased... damn I wasn't going to mention Dunedin, the disappointment of not being at the NZ Superstocks meeting was softened a bit by having a good meeting at WP but thankfully there a few big meetings coming up that are a bit closer to get to!

  
  
  
  
  
  

Meeting rating : 6/10