My 200th posting on this website! May not seem like much but in the world of blogs it's like 10 years worth. This posting was going to be a midweek one but after arriving at WP for the Wednesday night meeting and wisely looking through the gates into the pits to check numbers I didn't part with my $15 and for the first time ever, got back in the car and drove home. Sounds like there was some action but mostly in the pits and clubrooms! Anyway take two was last night for the Auckland Superstock title, the Streetstock World 290's and the North Island Solos which is a fairly good line up for the increased $20 entry, the meeting also included a Mad Butcher Demo Derby which meant a huge crowd so hopefully the club made up for the losses they must have incurred with Wednesday's shiteous effort.
The Solo bikes were already having their qualifying heats when I arrived which was a good move because I'll be the first to admit they are not my cup of tea and endless bike racing would have been a downer so what we did get was three rounds of racing on the new track on the infield and a fairly close final that Jason Bunyon won over Stuart Robson and Andrew Bargh who took third. One thing I did notice was that with the way the races were started (a guy holding an elastic cord thing that he let go) the guy on pole was at a disadvantage because he basically had to look right to watch as opposed to the other riders who probably could see in their peripheral vision) anyway the racing was better than I had expected.
The Streetstocks managed a great field of 19 cars including visitors from Wellington, Kihikihi, Rotorua, Stratford and Gisborne - good stuff. The 'black cars' from Stratford certainly made themselves known with some great stirring and indeed the 88s of Brett Barron took the title from local hope 45a Bill Peat and one of the two excellent Gisborne drivers 71g Frank Hartley. 51r Chris Gerrand took the stirrer award.
The Auckland Superstock title had 18 entrants and I have to say that the racing was top notch. Two fast but fairly tame heats were followed up by a third heat so full of action that it's been a long time since I can remember the Superstocks turning it on like this at WP. 87r Pat Westbury managed to go pretty much unnoticed unlike 515r Stan Hickey and 135r Scott Hewson who battled for every point to gain their podium positions in a Rotorua clean sweep. 38r Ross Ashby in the tank and 351a Paul Vasey both had major problems in the opening heat and were out for the rest of the night.
The rest of the meeting ran pretty smoothly, the jalopy races were appalling but I guess a huge chunk of the crowd were there to see their mates drive them so you have to cater to the crowd, and the crowd were really in to it which is the irony I guess. Superstocks turn on a real pearler of a race and get some muted clapping and then some beat up old demo cars have a non contact jalopy race and raise the roof. Anyway good comeback for Waikaraka after an interesting week but some of the gloss may have come off Saturdays meeting when I read today that the Auckland Allstars are not taking part in the Palmy Superstock Teams in two weeks... can I say disappointed!! I guess we will have to get out our Union Jack t-shirts and cheer for the Brits, wont be the same though.
Meeting rating : 6.5/10
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