Barry Butterworth Classic and John Webster Memorial
This years version of the John Webster (the 10th running believe it or not) had no Superstocks on the programme which was odd considering it was John Webster's passion, but I have to say that was the only foot they put wrong on Saturday night in a very cohesive show that included the Midgets and TQ's from Western Springs along with Solos, Stockcars and SuperSaloons. Great racing in all classes in front of a decent sized crowd with the 40 lap 'Barry Butterworth Classic' Midget race delivering one of the best races of the season to put the full stop on what has been an indifferent year for the club.
Peter Hemi 38h took out the Auckland SuperSaloon title from the only other real contender 96a Lance Jennings, who's car is for sale now that he is retiring which will leave a huge hole in the class at WP. The Midget title also came down to a two horse race between 1nz Shane Alach and 54a Michael Pickens with the latter taking the spoils in a truly awesome race. A big field of 22 Stockcars took to the track but it was only really 23a Tony Baldwin who took to the rest of the field in a pretty quiet end to their season. Numbers dwindled during the night and a few cars were missing due to the Kihikihi Teams event on Sunday.
So a quality show that deserved the good reviews it has been receiving, if only we could get this consistency each week, and to think they still had Superstocks, Streetstocks and Modifieds up their sleeves in reserve...
Meeting rating : 7.5/10
Footnote: one of the odd (but funny) rituals of going to WP this season is to check the programme for who is being maligned in the Abrahams rant each week. Usually it is SNZ or Palmerston North who are the targets, but instead this week it was the entire internet community. See how cleverly it was woven into an article about Barry Butterworth of all people:
"...these days thanks to the internet anybody can become a self promoting legend of their own keyboard and spread their opinions around the speedway community anonymously. Barry Butterworth earned the right to have opinions the hard way, he earned respect with his on-track (and off-track) actions. He was no shrinking violet, firing pot shots from the safety of a padded chair, behind closed doors and too ashamed to put his real name to his opinions..."
Boy oh boy have they sung this song a few too many times. You can just imagine the pained expression on his face as he spewed out the word "internet" in the sentence above. Please someone, send them a telegram informing them that the internet is not going away anytime soon. People have always had opinions, good, bad or indifferent and it would probably be easier to fix the problems in your own backyard rather than shooting the messengers.
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