One thing you can say about Auckland is that not only is the weather fickle but so are the crowds going by the sparse turnout for WP's second meeting of the year. The Black Friday 'Biff and Bash' was essentially a club night meeting and I thought that car numbers would be light given the fact is was being run on a Friday but although down on the opening meeting the pits was still very full and included a number of new cars.
Paul and Craig Chatfield made they first appearances in a while sporting what can only be described as "Chatfield Racing Green" on two very slick looking cars. Also debuting was 9a, 82a, a very welcome return of 441a Andy Weir and 24a Trevor Cook. Numbers for the stockcars (19 in the pits) are very impressive this early in the season. Superstocks managed 9 cars which isnt too bad considering Rotorua only pulled in 8 last night at their meeting. Huntly cars took out all three wins but 61a Nicholls looked promising in the first heat although gremlins appear to have ended his night early ("We burst a pressure line from the oil pump, nothing sinister, we will be back next week") emailed from Tim. 85h Jared Wade learned the hard way that if you take on one Marx car (there were three of them racing: 53a, 63a and 73a) you will be punished and so the honour of first rollover in this class for the year was his after a perfectly timed hit by 63a. Don't mess with the Marx! 28h Glen Drabble won heat one, was second in heat two and took out the feature.
Supersaloons managed a very decent field of 10 cars and once again 99a McInteer was the one to watch although 38h Peter Hemi kept him honest. Keep an eye on 51a in the beautifully presented Mainline car, this guy has really stepped up a gear. 61a Roy Walker took a clean sweep of the Saloons and looked the goods in a field that could only muster 11 cars. The rest of the racing included a whopping 35 Ministocks, 8 Modifieds and 9 Streetstocks in some pretty tame racing. My only real gripe perhaps is the starting grids for some of these races with Jamie Fox barely tested with front row starts, likewise for McInteer in the Supers.
So a another small step forward in regards the actual show being put on, I'm sure the crowd will be huge at the next meeting being a Demo Derby. Special thanks to whoever was in control of the flow of events as there wasn't a single break in the programme and the 21 races were completed before 10pm giving the Modifieds a bonus race at the end of the night. When its as cold as it was last night, simple things like this make a huge difference. Also putting up stirrers money for all three Stockcar races made them the standout class for the night. Not sure of who took the money but 441a Weir, 007a Fergusson and the real surprise of the night 21a Brett Dixon who found his inner mongrel must have been contenders. Onwards and upwards then for this new promotion hopefully.
Meeting rating : 6/10
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