SPEEDWAY COMMENTATOR'S CALL COMES TRUE 3 JANUARY 2012
Nelson speedway commentator David Birdling is something of a visionary, a prophet, a sayer of sooth.
He announced at the start of the South Island superstock championship meeting that Nelson's Brett Nicholls was the defending titleholder. He wasn't then ... but just over two hours later, he was.
Nicholls was, in fact, the 2010 champion and he added another trophy to his collection last night at the Tahuna Beach Holiday Park Speedway, outlasting a field made up almost entirely of Nelson entrants, then surviving a post-meeting chat in the officials' office.
With Invercargill, Dunedin, Greymouth and Blenheim no longer fielding any superstocks, only Nelson and Christchurch feature the showcase class but the Canterbury cars were conspicuous by their absence last night. Five entered, just one – the doughty Jason Smith – actually fronted.
With Carey Harwood's car being withdrawn with low oil pressure and Mike Delaney unable to compete due to a lack of prior race meetings this season, 14 Nelson cars lined up around Smith but he needn't have been concerned. Contact was more by accident than design with only the occasional spin to tantalise a large crowd who opted for superstocks over twilight Twenty20 cricket or jazz noodlings in a city park.
The telling factor for the class; for all the classes on the programme last night, became the track surface. In a bid to cure the dust issues at the Richmond raceway before next week's national super saloon championship meeting, track preparation guru Murray Teece and his band of merry men ripped up, drenched and relaid the clay but it scoured badly, opening huge ruts in the surface and showering clods of clay over the customers.
It also tested the strength of man and machine as even the heavyweight superstocks lurched and bounced across the canyons in the corners.
Teece is sure to have the problem under control before the next meeting but last night the sidecar class chose to abandon their club championship after one tentative heat and racing resembled space hoppers more than speedway.
Nicholls was undaunted though. While Craig Boote finally found the flag again in the first heat of the night, Nicholls claimed the second, then the deciding third, to wrap up the Cycle Shop (Stoke) South Island title by three points.
In a strong runnerup slot was teenager Dale McKenzie, a second-season racer who has appealed as a future champion from the time he strapped his slender self into a superstock. McKenzie scored a fourth and a pair of thirds to get home two points clear of Shane Harwood, who improved by the race with a sixth, a fourth and a second.
Current national champion Dale Ewers battled a migraine – which wouldn't have been helped by the bone-jarring track – and a heat three spin to share fourth overall with Nick Fowler, while Boote went backwards as the night went on to finish sixth overall.
Blair Cunningham's Tank struggled to seventh in the championship but he made amends with a scorching win in the feature race, heading Nicholls and Harwood. Nicholls' night ended with a hearing over grid placements which might have worked in his favour, but the matter was soon resolved and his championship confirmed.
Both McKenzie and Cunningham cut their speedway teeth in the youth ministock class and the class has another tidal wave of talent ready to move up, judging by their performances this season.
With a club title at stake, the names Roydon Winstanley, Morgan Frost and Ryan McKenzie were being bounced around but they had to bow to superior driving display from Dylan Clarke.
After opening with a third place finish behind Frost and Winstanley, Clarke picked his way through the track's tricks to score wins in both the second and third heats, his last race his best as he left Frost to battle traffic as he won by five seconds. Clarke tallied 61 points with Frost always challenging on 59 and McKenzie filling the podium on 57 points. Winstanley and Keightley Teece completed the first five.
With the sidecar field wisely choosing to trailer their bikes for the evening, the programme became somewhat condensed. The production saloons and streetstocks had three races apiece with the super saloons getting a final hit-out before the nationals.
Kirsty Russ was another unfortunate victim of the bumps as she led for all but the last lap of the production saloon opener. She'd built a substantial buffer when a yellow flag brought the pack back to her bumper and she lost the lead with a lurch through turn three, Steve Watson squeezing through for the win. Other wins went to Dave Leitch and Blenheim's Dave Allan, while Patrick Ward had the quickest car in the class and was another unlucky not to get a well earned win.
The streetstocks delivered much of the hitting that had been expected of the superstocks. Damage pruned an initial field of 14 to five mostly mobile cars after three heats although some of the carnage was the result of ageing Australian parts failing as the cars ploughed their way through the bumps.
Ryan Musgrove, Daniel Kitto and Steve Thomas shared the wins around and everyone took a few jabs at their opponents, Shannon Marr and Dylan Shadbolt successfully crumpling their cars. The field was boosted by the arrivals of Steve Soper (ex-youth ministocks) and Ryan Bowater (superstocks).
That left only the super saloons, taking one last chance to work on their setup before January 13-14 and the ENZED New Zealand championship meeting on the Nelson track.
Any information gained last night would be best written on perforated and absorbent paper and popped in the loos, though, as last night's surface is unlikely to look anything like what Teece will deliver for the championship.
Nine cars had a crack with the Nelson club championship at stake, Josh Boulton claiming another big win with a point back to fellow Canterbury racer Richie Taylor with Nelson's Ian Burson in third.
Passing was an adventure, almost an impossibility with no grip out wide and a cattle stop in the corners, but Boulton managed to gather the points he needed despite his Corvette's engine sounding flat and sluggish.
As one of Nelson's hopes for the finals next week, Burson's crew would have been hiding the cutlery from him after a dismal championship effort but a storming drive from the front in the feature race, which he won by nine seconds and posted times a full second a lap faster than the chasers will have restored a spark in the 21N Corvette camp.
The super saloon meeting will open with a free practice next Thursday from 7-9pm with qualifying on Friday from 7pm and the finals scheduled for Saturday, January 14.
Written by: Pete McNae
5 DECEMBER 2012Every paying patron got to take home a souvenir from the Tahuna Beach Holiday Park Speedway on Saturday – around 500g of fine clay dust in their hair, ears and eyes.
With 16 of the South Island's finest super saloons in town for round two of the ELF Super Cup series, the big 700 horsepower cars with their wide rear tyres were always going to squeeze every drop of moisture out of the track a couple of laps into each race. But, with Nelson hosting the national super saloon championships in January, and the field growing from 16 to 20 and more laps scheduled, a gas mask and plastic bubble might be worthwhile additions to every speedway fan's Christmas list.
Under the circumstances, the ELF Super Cup field did brilliantly to get through two heats and a pole shuffle without coming to grief in the dust. It wasn't until midway through the 25-lap final that the wheels began to fall off – literally – with three cars failing to finish.
Two of those three were Nelson's Ian Burson and Shane Carey.
Burson's new car still has more teething problems than a city creche and he surrendered his sixth place on the starting grid for the final when a brake caliper fell off on the warmup laps for the final. He was joined on the infield on lap 17 by Shane Carey, who had been running impressively in second place, before the left rear wheel came away from the car and completed a half-lap on its own.
Telltale scars on the nose of Kane Lawson's 17C car suggested that the loose wheel wasn't the fault of Carey's crew, Lawson later saying he would rather have finished cleanly in third, than take second by disabling Carey's Camaro.
Ahead of them all, though, through four restarts and the clouds of clay, was Josh Boulton. The 2009-10 champion surrendered his title to Richie Taylor last season and they loom as the two most likely to fight over the trophy this season.
Taylor had the better of two qualifying heats, scoring a pair of fourth placings and making the most passes, while Boulton won heat one but was pinned in 10th in the second, won by Ray Stewart.
Taylor and Boulton survived the "win-and-stay-in" pole shuffle to claim the front row of the grid but Taylor opted for the outside line and lost five places in the slippery stuff as soon as the flag fell in the final.
Boulton cleared away, posting the quickest laps of the night while, behind him, passing was at a premium in the murk.
Mike Verdoner spun away fifth place and a multi-car pileup in turn four forced another restart before Carey farewelled his left rear wheel while holding off Lawson for second.
Neil Robertson's car also scraped the turn four wall to force another yellow flag but Boulton wasn't to be denied, leading Lawson, Stewart, Taylor and lone Nelson survivor Mark Carey across the line
The ELF Super Cup has three rounds remaining, in Christchurch and Dunedin with the final scheduled for Cromwell
While the super saloons created a few atmospheric issues, their wide wheels certainly smoothed and flattened the track for the other six classes, some fast lap times the result.
Standing out in that area were the youth ministocks, the lightweight bumper cars scorching the surface. Five cars cracked the 17sec barrier, which would have made them competitive among the full-sized stockcars and even capable of running with a couple of the V8 superstocks.
Morgan Frost led the way with a 17.802sec circuit for the win in heat three, other victories going to Alex Bright and Dylan Clarke. With 21 cars fronting, the teenagers have raised the bar at each meeting this season.
Superstock numbers were down, however, just seven available to start the night and a couple of them stress-testing the concrete before the meeting was done.
Brett Nicholls needed to show the pesky engine miss was gone from his car to secure a place in the Tigers team and, with two wins from three races, that question was answered and an exclamation point added. National champion Dale Ewers won the other heat to join Nicholls, Shane Harwood, Blair Cunningham and Ian Clayworth in the Tigers for Saturday's trip to Palmerston North, while Dale McKenzie surrendered a certain second place to make a hard right turn on Ricky Boulton 10m from the flag.
Kerry Hill also had a brush with the wall but bookended that with two excellent drives, scoring a hard-running third in the opening heat.
Stockcar numbers had taken a pounding at the previous meeting with just 11, including four Blenheim visitors, fronting for heat one.
Ricco Gray swept all three heats, with Nelson's Ben Smith, Cody Teece and Ash Kelly settling for second placings. Smith put a shot on Blenheim's James Mackel, Mackel got Dion Fisher, Fisher hit anyone who looked likely and Gray's "partner in grime", Gavin Marshall, sent Smith high and hard up the wall in pit straight.
Streetstock racing saw the return of former champ Kynan Reed but a win in race one was as far as he went, his borrowed car breaking in race two. Paul Leslie turned up the wick for a pair of wins while the likes of Ryan Musgrove and Steve Thomas were happier to stir it up.
The sidecar class saw the pacesetting team of Dallas Kelman and Adie Drake beaten for the first time – with an asterisk. A half-lap handicap was too much for even the 2NZ bike to overcome, Nippy Ching making a welcome and winning return with Justin Smith on the chair. Mike De Gray and Tony McKenzie rounded out the top three teams.
The final class running in a busy programme was the production saloons, who contested the first round of their club championships. Winners were Jared Blanchet, Mike Arnold and Patrick Ward, Blanchet's first, second and second putting him in a points lead with Arnold and Steve Russ chasing.
Nelson speedway takes a two-week break before resuming on December 17 with the Xmas Xtravaganza, featuring the club championships for sidecars and superstocks, round two of the TQ midget champs and a hit-to-pass promotion for stockcars.
Written by: Pete McNae
28 NOVEMBER 2011Superstock racing in Nelson is a little like marathon running in Ethiopia; if you hope to win races, you had better be among the best in the business. A strong field of 13 faced the first flag, with all 13 still on hand by the third heat, despite a fair bit of push and shove from the likes of national champion Dale Ewers, Blair Cunningham and Jared Gray.
While Craig Boote's dream machine took race one and Thomas Stanaway guided his new superstock to a win in heat three, the best finish came in the other race with teenager Dale McKenzie swapping the lead with three-times national champ Boote before bumping him off line in the last corner to get home by 0.4sec.
A production saloon triples promotion attracted a similar field of 13, creating some mathematical mindbenders, splitting a prime number into groups of three but, in the end, the only figure that mattered was the points tally amassed by the Green team of Steve Watson, Jared Blanchett and Blenheim's Dave Allan.
A one-two finish for Blanchett and Watson in the final heat, with Allan also contributing consistently, left them streets ahead of the competition. The other race wins went to Steve Russ while David Leitch posted the fastest lap in the class.
A small field of four fronted for the Mark Thorn Memorial Trophy race for sidecars but it was always a race for second with the team of rider Dallas Kelman and swinger Adie Drake winning all three heats by half-a-lap.
The pairing of Neil Hill and Rodger Delany rebounded from a nasty spill at the last meeting for second overall with Sam and Kieran Satherley in third.
Three-quarter midgets were also in short supply with the highlight being the emergence of first-season driver Mark Bezett. After tracking Greymouth's Steve Thompson in the first two races, he was awarded his first career win when Mike McWhinney tried to bully his way by Hadley Dawes with both being relegated.
The programme was completed by the bulging youth ministock field, with Dylan Clarke, Roydon Winstanley and Morgan Frost getting up for wins. They had to work hard, though, with Keightley Teece, Brad Neiman, Ryan McKenzie and Alex Bright tapping at their bumpers..
Nelson races again this weekend with the ELF Super Cup series bringing 16 of the South Island's best super saloons to the Tahuna Beach Holiday Park Speedway at 7pm on Saturday.
Written by: Pete McNae
For all cancellations