14 November 2009  

We had fourteen visitors contesting the Stock Car Gold Cup on Saturday night. Six from Rotorua, five from Auckland and three from Huntly. Not only did these visiting drivers provide some extra competition for our Baypark drivers they brought their own style of competition to this very special event. They were easily identifiable by their track code which is alongside the race number on their cars. The letter M is for 'Mount' cars, H is for drivers registered to the Huntly track, A is for Auckland, but Waikaraka Park not Western springs, and R is for Rotorua. There are separate track codes for every Speedway New Zealand track.

There would have been fifteen visitors but Regan O'Brien from Napier was injured in a race crash on Saturday 7th Nvoember and he had to withdraw to recuperate. His injuries are not serious but are bad enough to side-line him for a couple of weeks.

Ben Finemore's debut in a sprint car ar Archerfield near Brisbane was less than ideal. Ben was involved in a tangle that was not of his doing in his first race and he rolled his race car putting him out of action for the night. Ben, his Dad Gary, and crew didn't quite get the repairs completed in time to continue in the last chance races but Ben will be at Maryborough, North of Brisbane, Saturday for another try. The racing at Archerfield was pretty torrid. There were more than thirty sprint cars entered and Ben wasn't the only one to get upside down on the night.

Ryan Hunt in the stock cars and Alister Clark in the mini stocks have both won their respective feature races on the first two of our race nights this season and they will be out to try to make it a hat trick with three in a row. This isn't something that is easily done particularly in the race divisions these two compete in.

Colin Entwisle celebrated the milestone of reaching the big 50 yesterday and celebrated with friends and family recently. Don't count on this slowing him down any as he has big plans for his sprint car racing for the immediate future. Watch this space.

The New Zealand Saloon Championship being held here at Baypark on January 1st and 2nd will be filmed for television and will screen on TV1. We will keep you informed of the screening date and time as soon as they are confirmed.