World 240's Weekend

NZ Welding School World 240's, Rotorua

Well now that the dust has settled, it appears unanimous in almost every review and posting that this meeting was a major success. The biggest winner of course was Frankie Wainman Jnr doing what everyone knows he is capable of, except normally it's a given that someone will take him out in heat three of any championship which is what makes this win pretty special. I particularly liked his post race comments to Barry Brown when he said that so many people told him the car was too weak to win "but the car didn't bloody stop!" crossing the finish line one point ahead of an impressive 87r Pat Westbury and a further point back to 1nz Malcolm Ngatai.

No need for a review then as both Percy and the Rotorua website have excellent write ups on all the action and results. I think it was only last week there was a posting on Macgors about "The end of Superstocks..." but you only have to go to a meeting like this to realise how amazing the class is and the incredible wealth of talent involved. The World 240's continues to be one of the highlights of the speedway calendar. I do wonder how very different this meeting would have been with Hemi, Redfern or Wade in attendance or indeed with Rees or any combination of Hunter's in the finals but one thing is sure, we wont have to wonder about Rees as he has booked his place in the finals for next year already by virtue of winning the second tier championship...

The only possible negative from the weekend were the injuries sustained in the Steve Hampton/Roydon Collingwood crash. I saw the initial impact as we were in turn three but completely missed the drama (as we focussed on the 66r) as the 94p continued on and having seen the You Tube footage I am amazed and thankful that nobody else was injured. Scary stuff indeed BUT not as scary as the other incident that has not had much coverage and that was the group of UK supporters that were encouraged to come and be photographed at the turn three fence. Never have I seen such pasty skin and white legs, almost blinding us if not for our trusty BluBlockers. It was hard enough clapping for FWJ when he won - we shouldn't have to endure the Brits in summer apparel!

Also a special mention about the printed programme which was light years better than the one from Napier last week and well worth the $5. The commentary team was a perfect mix of info and entertainment and MOST IMPORTANTLY gave points updates, pit updates and interviews that you could hear. Paradise Valley was really humming and I think half the art of putting on a really great meeting is getting the right people doing the right jobs, something the Rotorua club seem to do effortlessly.

Meeting rating : 8.5/10