Huntly Opening Meeting / WP Practice

Here are a few photos from the opening at Huntly Speedway which was the fireworks meeting resulting in the gates being shut and a full house. Also a few shots from earlier in the day at the final practice for Waikaraka Park.

And so it begins again...

Meeting 1
Waikaraka Park
October 25, 2014

The off season whizzed by pretty quickly I thought, maybe its because of the 'access all areas' world of Facebook where we can see what's happening in sheds all over the country and 'from the horse's mouth' updates from drivers and crews. Sometimes its a good thing but I do miss the surprise of a new car you've never seen or an unexpected return of a driver from past days on opening night. I have to say, as I wandered around the pits on Saturday I fairly much knew every car apart from a few new saloons although there were plenty of rumours of interesting machinery that should be turning up in the next few weeks...

Overall numbers looked good although when you split them into their actual classes some were a bit light, Superstocks 5, Modifieds 5 and Streetstocks 8 will need to get their act together if they want to provide good entertainment. Superstocks have been rebuilding over the past few seasons but with Paul Vasey, Sean McKenzie and who knows who else leaving during the break, its a blow to the class.  29a Scott Tennant the pick of the bunch showing his continuing climb up the ranks and will be one to watch this season. 316a Greg Mitchell driving the car Scott had last season a welcome addition also. I hope Bruce can weave his magic and entice a few more to the Park. Modifieds look as though they will have good numbers (on paper) and provided some great racing on the night, Ray Chatfield in particular driving like a spring chicken for a win and two second placings. Jamie Fox as always all class in the renumbered 99a Mod for this season. Streetstocks thankfully had a few visiting cars making up numbers but this is one class that could be so good, but has been struggling for ages its seems.

Ministocks 20, Stockcars 25 and Saloons 13 (including some supers) on the other hand had strong numbers and provided most of the entertainment. The ELS system was down so any results we got for the night were via the old fashioned manual lapscoring, commentator Mike Howe did an awesome job getting results through to the public which wasn't easy considering some scum have helped themselves to some of the sound system. I heard Rosebank Speedway has suffered the same fate too. Anyway, the commentary all night was great (thats $10 bucks thanks Mike) keeping the freezing punters entertained and informed when you are flying blind with no computer system to speak of. As far as I could tell 651a Troy Power, 5a Mike Harris and 69a Dave 'Flag Racer' Seymour took out the wins although there were a few cars showing their hands early with the 98a Eustace car showing good pace and 23a Che Takarua testing out the bumpers guest driving the Tony Baldwin car for a few meetings. 44h Anthony McNeill the only visitor bravely fronting, but I think he only made it out for heat one, placing 2nd.

A brief burst of fireworks ended the night, the crowd size seemed okay for a holiday weekend when most of Auckland leaves town. The place looked like it always looks, no obvious make overs that I could see but with the "super city" council coming up with absurd ideas for it's stadiums, you have to wonder why anyone would invest money in WP when you have no firm indication of its future. I hope it has a future as I love this place but if the Western Springs operation does get moved to Mt Smart I would be surprised if two speedways were run at either end of Neilson Street. Funny how the residents of Onehunga (me being one of them) have been told the new speedway could have up to 25 meetings a season whereas currently they have about 12 at Western Springs. I would like to know why they can have more at one stadium than the other as they are similarly surrounded by residents?

BK Supersaloons & Stockcar Rumble

Burger King Pro Dirt Supersaloon Series
Waikaraka Park, March 1st

Here are a few photos from the final round of the Pro Dirt Series raced at Waikaraka Park last March. Mark Osborne pretty much had the series wrapped up by this stage and really didn't need to overdo it but still showed the class that has made him back to back New Zealand champion this season. Split into two groups, heat wins went the way 24a Ben Harding and Grant Flynn in group one, and 88w Bryan Comerford and 81m Dean Waddell in group 2. Harding's performance in heat two of group one was a standout as he ran the outside line almost around the whole field. Then the BK pole shuffle was completely dominated by 6b Grant Flynn seeing off Dean Waddell who had put out Lance Jennings, Jennings having defeated Kristen Vermeulen. Flynn then probably provided the highlight of the night victorious over 3nz brother Grant and beating 24a Harding in the final shootout, moving up to pole for the final.

The 25 lap final had 1nz Osborne starting way back on grid 9 of the 17 starters, 24a Harding winning the jump for the lead over Flynn in the first corner but a bottleneck of cars would cause some grief with 4m Trevor Rogers almost into the wall and 13b Mick Quin receiving some panel damage. The front four cars would make a break on the field, 24a, 6b, 3nz and 81m until bonnet damage on the 43m John Roberts car would bring on the caution lights. 1nz had moved up to 5th by this stage, before our next couple of incidents including a spin for 4m and a coming together of the luckless 24w Martin Halcrow, who had a miserable night, locked together with Comerford before separating on the back straight only for the 88w to be hit by 66h Craig Marsh. 88w, 66b and 13b all retired at this stage. The battle at the front had been epic only for 6b Flynn's car to erupt into an expensive cloud of smoke retiring 5 laps front the finish, Harding taking the win ahead of 3nz Flynn, 1nz Osborne and local legend Jennings. An excellent evening of Supersaloon racing in a series that is a must see.

Also on the night was the Stockcar Rumble drawing a great field of about 40 Stockcars. This also required a couple of 10 lap heats for each group to find our finals field of 32. Wins for the two groups went to 29a Scott Tennant and 741a Craig Chatfield in group one and 95a Gary Lonergan and an impressive 82r Darcy Meurant for group 2. A number of incidents and retirements probably meant everyone qualified for the 3 heat finals for the Rumble anyway, but who's gonna complain about extra stockcar races on the programme! Rumble heat one provided plenty of biff and bash and a huge number of retirements. 23a Tony Baldwin and 14r Matt Nilsson were into stirring mode immediately while 32a Brad Wearing went for a wall ride in turn 4. 95a Gary Lonergan and 57a Aiden Eustace were both taken out of the lead and held up by 14r giving the lead to Craig Chatfield before the 741a retired to the infield joining 91a also dnf'ing. The 2nz Palmy car driven by Chev Taniwha took over the lead before red lights after a nasty incident, 88a Ian Smith and 14r ploughing into the wall and the 14r reversing out of the wall being collected by 45a Corey Baker. With two laps to go, 57a fired 42h Lance Gribble into the pit wall. 2nz surviving an action packed heat to take the win ahead of Tennant, 34a Mark Wearing, 441h Andy Weir and 22a Leigh Cossey.

Heat 2 had a few gaps on the start grid but no lack of action. 25a Jason Rowe driving over the front of 27h Brett Aitken while 23a held up 2nz pushing him back to last place. Lonergan had the lead ahead of 651a Troy Power before our first big incident, 22a Cossey taking 82r Meurant up the wall with 42h Gribble also involved. Unfortunately the reds came on too quick for Cossey to get down off the wall robbing us of some good stirring and by lap 3 we already had 5 cars on the grass. A spin in turn 4 for 57a dropped him to the rear of the field while 27h was tied up by 61a Leroy Neill. 42h Gribble had another massive hit into the wall in turn 3 while the reds came on for the stricken 145a of Jessica Peat. Lonergan, 10a Chanelle Gordon, Power, Weir and Tennant were the leading bunch before two more red lights stoppages. Gordon spun and retired with 2 laps to go while Neill held up Rowe dropping him well down the field.

Heat 3 had only 18 cars roll out of the pits, a measure of the action we had been treated to. 82r Meurant and 2nz Taniwha lead out for the first lap before being held up by 15a Mike Harris, letting Scott Tennant into the lead. Taniwha then decided to have a go at the locals putting in a huge shot on 45a Baker before 23a landed a heavy shot on the Palmy car. Meurant and Lonergan battled for second place for a number of laps before Taniwha ironically landed the killer hit on Meurant spinning him, Meurant hooking reverse and taking the 2nz to the wall also, both drivers chances gone just laps from the finish. Tennant took an emphatic win ahead of Lonergan, Weir, Ash Wearing, Jason Rowe and Craig Chatfield. Overall points and the Northern Rumble win went to 29a Scott Tennant (99pts) ahead of 441h Andy Weir (92pts) and 95a Gary Lonergan (90) in third. Ash Wearing (89pts) in 4th with 2nz Chevron Taniwha and 651a Troy Power tying for 5th on 83pts.

Superstocks and Ministocks rounded out a great night at WP, two feature events that really proved their worth and an excellent nights entertainment.