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'.