End of the season

Whangarei Speedway Final Meeting

If ever you needed proof of the true power of 'Macgors' website, this meeting was it. A few weeks ago a posting advertising this meeting hoped to attract at least 12 cars to be included on the programme. Numbers were slow to begin with but did reach at least 20 entries and despite the threat of rain produced about 15 actual cars on the day. Also proved was the theory that if you are having a drought, just organise a speedway meeting and rain will surely follow! Also running were decent sized fields of Ministocks, Supersaloons, Saloons, Quad bikes and a few Production/B Saloons.

The racing was great, a track surface that would put some of the big venues to shame and little or no downtime between races, in fact most classes got in four heats. Overall winners in the Stockcars were 21a Brett Dixon in his newly acquired Kuriger, 137a Steve Fox and 6a Andre Stenson tied for second place, 345wr Neville Macken in the highly competitive home-built tank in 4th and 95a Gary Lonergan rounding out the top five. Hopefully 344wr Stacey Macken got the 'stirrer of the day' as he was involved in most incidents although Auckland's 23a Tony Baldwin was equally entertaining until gremlins stopped him making it out for some of the racing. I think 5h Richard Horne probably had the honour of receiving the biggest hit of the day being sent flying backwards up into the bushes at the far end of the track. Awesome stuff. 48a Phil Towgood topped the saloons but very impressive driving from both 43a Aaron Tonks and 74a Scott Lansdown kept him honest. 57a Shane McInteer was his usual spectacular self in the Supersaloons.

Only negative of the day was an incident in the second to last race where the 4a Saloon caught fire after a fairly innocent spin in the pit bend while leading the 'ladies v men' race. Within seconds the car was on fire and thankfully the driver who I believe was Anita Sloot was able to get out of the vehicle and be attended to. Hopefully she is not badly injured but it was a pretty scary moment. Anyway, Whangarei's final meeting was a goodie and hopefully will become a great end-of-season tradition for a lot of driver's going by the feedback.

Meeting rating : 7/10