A nice fine day saw plenty of open wheel fans make their way down to Placemakers Huntly Speedway for the North Island Midegt Champs. Sadly there was barely a Huntly fan in sight and the crowd was very disappointing for a meeting of this magnitude. Mind you, after the poor support programming and the Stockcar Teams, huge delay due to track conditions at the Waikato Superstocks/Super Saloons and a controversial NZ Saloon Champs it's no wonder Huntly regulars were taking the week off. Tonights meeting featured a 30 minute electricity delay and ended up being a four and a half hour marathon!

When Michael Pickens gets interviewed after the warm-up and describes the track as dry you know it's not flash. Given recent issues I will suggest the track staff were reluctant to put a large amount of water in the track. The result was a very hard and dry track that slicked up from the first Midget heat. The track staff did well to resuscitate the track as best they could and passing was possible for most of the night. The track was smooth although a small hole rolled a couple of Minisprints entering turn 1. One bizarre aspect of the night was that the water truck didn't hit the track during the 30 minute electricity delay. It was an opportunity missed. 7/10

Being positioned between the two Midget races proved less than ideal for the Ministocks as they had to deal with the track being watered. In particular 34h Sarah Lines had a troublesome night but she wasn't the only one. The were numerous stoppages and the racing lacked cohesion. Still, the cream rose to the top as they say.
Winners - 5h Sean McKenzie, 14h Mathew Kiddie

6 saloons were joined by the Super of 36a Mike Pegler. Race 1 on a greasy surface saw 69k Mike Wilson employ a high line to round the entire field. As the track improved he was run down but Wilson had enough to take the win. Race 2 was barely underway when bang the lights went out and the race was called. The class re-appeared for a third heat where quite bizarrely the cars weren't gridded up before the green was thrown. Wilson stopped on track causing a yellow before restarting just in front of the leader albeit a lap down. He was black flagged for his efforts.
Winners - 69k Mike Wilson, 808r Joe Lunchbox (2)

A small field of 12 Stockcars punched well above their weight, entertaining fans with all sorts of antics. 6h Lindsay Trotter was debuting a new tank that in all honesty looked ugly to this punter but it was used effectively. Race 1 leader 39h Daryl John was despatched to the concrete coming out of turn 4. But the hit of the race was a big launch from 97h Andrew Deardon on 57h Courtney Syveston. Deardon didn't get all of it but he got enough to cause damage to the side-rail of Syveston. Race 2 was more of the same will almost every driver mixing it up. A valuable addition to the programme.
Winners - 33h Russell Mitchie, 9h Amy Pitt

Two races for the TQ's and they were much tidier than their Midget cousins. The star of the opening heat was 56a Ross Linklater who made good ground through the field. But even he couldn't compete with runaway leader 14a Paul Le Cren. The second heat saw a fierce battle for the lead pretty much throughout the race. 98a Chris Gwilliam and 13a John Hopewell were always in the thick of things. They appeared to be beaten on the line by 99a Darren Warren only for the 99a to be declared a lap down. It didn't appear that way to me.
Winners - 14a Paul Le Cren, 99a Darren Warren

A big field of 20 Minisprints put on some quality racing. Race 1 in particular saw some outstanding passing from 1nz Shaun Cooke, 55h Daniel Thomas and 73a Brian Edwards. Race leader 9h Zac Kennedy was in front until late in the piece when he drifted wide in Turn one, allowing Cooke up the inside. Race 2 was different with the quick guys near the front. It was the type of race you rarely see in Minisprints but it proved the depth that is starting to come through in the class.

19r Chris Street led from 73k Brian Edwards who was passed by Cooke. Just behind was Thomas and the four of them were close throughout including through the lapped traffic. It all happened in the third heat. Cooke passed about 6 cars on the drop of the green and never looked in doubt making his way through to the lead. Two cars completed solo rolls in turn one. 26h Dayne Maxwell and the #61 entry were the two victims. Under yellows Cooke stopped in the middle of the back straight and couldn't re-fire, handing the win to Thomas.
Winners - 1nz Shaun Cooke, 19r Chris Street, 55h Daniel Thomas

The class was split into two groups for qualification purposes. Both groups missed the setup for the opening heat race due to the dryness of the track and the result was a lot of stoppages. The opening heat saw 54a Michael Pickens spectacularly make his way through the field. Further back 21a Carl Worboys was also making consistent progress. It all went horribly wrong when Pickens tried an ambitious move up the inside of race leader 1nz Shaun Insley. The resulting pile up saw Worboys eliminated to the infield and Pickens relegated to the rear. But never fear because Pickens made his way back up to fourth. Through it all 17h Michael Brunt kept out of trouble and made up plenty of ground.

Race two took no fewer than 4 attempts to complete the first lap. 95s Duane Hickman was the main casualty after 33a Graham Standring got a bit sideways in front of the field. 11a Shayne Alach outdragged Standring off the front row every time and easily won the race. Behind him it was still "all happening". The turn one fence claimed 22a Craig Steinbring and 13a Brad Mosen - both rolling. Mosen was restarted in what was his third restart for the race.

The second heat for the first group saw drama before the green flag as 1nz Shaun Insley didn't make the start. Pickens was once again outstanding, passing Worboys for the race win in clinical fashion. The final heat saw 81a Michael Kendall stake a claim for the championship as he revelled in the slick conditions. But he wasn't quick enough to run down 2nz Bill Clarkson Jr or 13a Brad Mosen. The B-main was cancelled in favour of a 22 car A-main. That's 22 cars on a track the size of a bath tub and as such the race featured plenty of early stoppages.

Pickens and Alach were off the front and it was Alach who took the early lead. Through the early stoppages Pickens would close right up on Alach and then a yellow would fall. Those two appeared to have superior pace on the rest of the field. Mid race Pickens started experimenting with lines and made a magnificient pass around the outside of Alach to take the lead. Kendall also had a good patch mid-race, running as high as third if my memory serves me correctly.

The number of cars who rolled was growing, 21a Carl Worboys went over big time coming out of turn four, 15h Matt Shaw, 2nz Bill Clarkson Jr and 66a Dave Harding all added their names to the list. With ten to go 13a Brad Mosen found the high line and took off like a rocket. He went past Kendall and Alach before beginning to put pressure on Pickens who was using the pole line. Kendall fell back before yet another yellow closed up the field with five to go. On the restart 33a Graham Standring slid under Alach for third as Mosen and Pickens battled it out.

Mosen got up alongside Pickens on the straight with three to go. Pickens drove hard into the corner sliding up to the high line. Behind them Standring went into the fence to bring on the yellows yet again. From the restart Pickens used the high line and all of a sudden Mosen didn't look so fast. Behind them it was disaster for Alach as he ran out of fuel coming down the back straight, handing third spot to the ever improving 96a Chris McCutcheon. Pickens had superior speed on the high line and drove to victory from Mosen and McCutcheon.
North Island Champion - 54a Michael Pickens

An extremely busy night for the officials and they produced a mixed bag. The opening TQ heat saw a shocker of a start that was somehow allowed. The second TQ heat saw both Warren cars become entangled due to others. Both were re-instated to their previous positions yet when 9a Hayden Williams brought on the yellows in a similar incident he was put to the back. Then there was the 99a non-finish, sure looked to me like he was on the lead lap. Ministocks saw cars penalised for not stopping quickly enough under reds which was good to see.

The officials didn't bother gridding up the Saloons for their third heat and then black flagged Wilson for his indiscretion. Fair enough too. The black flag also made an appearance in the Midgets for 4a Dave Gick who had a flat left rear. Re-ordering of the Midgets was a little pedestrian and they appeared to make an error in Midget group 1 when 96a Chris McCutcheon was placed ahead of 17h Michael Brunt and 95a Tony Fabish. I didn't think he was all that close to either of them prior to the yellow.

Mosen's three restarts in the opening heat was interesting. I always thought it was only 1 but that might not apply to qualifying races. The points awarded were also quite perplexing. Per the points read out to the fans cars were given points for DNF except those who retired without a lap being completed. Surely the race starts from the drop of the first green flag and if you are going to give DNF points then you need to give points to everyone who DNF's. The officials seemed oblivious to the time situation and lengthened proceedings by not instructing push trucks to start pushing until all crew were off the track. 5/10

This is a tough meeting to rate. But overall I came away feeling less than impressed. We were behind time early on yet there was no effort whatsoever to speed up proceedings. Fans were subjected to watching the water truck do seemingly endless laps in-between races. Then the race cars came out to do more laps to pack the water in before we went racing. Couldn't we have done the two together? Lets not forget that the meeting attracted plenty of Auckland fans who had at least a one hour drive to get home. I ended up getting home at about the same time I got home from my company Christmas function! (albeit my level of intoxication was quite different). There was a real lack of priority given to running the Midgets despite some changes to the race programme. Evidently not everyone was looking at the same coloured clouds I was and when some spits were felt this punter was getting very nervous.

Had this meeting run to it's natural conclusion it would have been the North Island Midget Champs held on the 13th/14th of December. The promotion and officials failed to adapt themselves to the situation and it was that factor which detracted from what was at times some top quality racing. 17 races in 4 hours is simply not good enough. Sure there were more incidents than one would normally expect but it wasn't that bad. When Michael Pickens won the North Island Championships at 11:32pm it was a meeting destined to be consigned in the history books as yet another late night SNZ title in which off-track issues dominated what was some quality on-track racing.