The drive from Auckland to Rotorua seemed like a drive around the corner given the recent trip to the South Island. A good crowd turned up to witness the event. The reduction of qualifying groups from three to two turned out to be a big positive as another group would have seen the meeting stretch out. It's a beautiful day here in Rotorua for night two and there will be a massive crowd tonight. Those in attendance on night one should be back as the Rotorua team put on a good value for money meeting.

With no big tyre classes on the card the track was hardly tested. Still, you have to prepare it well and prepare it well they did. Moisture content was bang on from the start of the meeting and was regularly topped up. The track allowed for passing in all classes including the Minisprints and only dusted up a little in the last big Superstock race. The track team spent plenty of time in turn three working on a patch of track than in all honesty wouldn't have bothered plenty of track teams around the country. Great stuff. 9/10

A good field of 17 cars lined up to do battle over three heats. 15r Derek Price had a horror night, the car not running well at all. He might have completed half a lap despite appearing for all three heats! A sideshow stole the show in the opening heat as 21r Blair Castleton locked horns with 2nz Steve de Malmanche and 16k Trevor de Malmanche. If memory serves me correctly Castleton used to run with a K on the side. Castleton came off second best and wasn't seen for the rest of the night. 96r Ronnie Tawler certainly upped the entertainment factor with some aggressive driving but managed to attract plenty of attention as a result.

4p Dean Dingwall, the de Malmanche boys and 59r Alan King were the dominant players on the night. After three heats King was crowned the winner. Heat three saw a late battle between clubmates as 2nz locked horns with 88k Patrick Haden. The class added plenty to the spectacle on the night.
Winners - 59r Alan King, 45a Bill Peat, 46a Wayne Warrender

An insanely large field of 36 cars faced the starter. It is almost impossible to try and recall all the action. As you can imagine cars were going everywhere. 8m Scott Fredrickson was a first heat casualty. Heat one also saw 77r Ivan Lammas line up the 62g entry coming out of turn two and put him up the wall in a well executed move. The other stirrer to impress was the bright green 39r Douglas Stanaway who was hitting anything and everything in the third heat. Thank goodness for electronic lap scoring. I think Mike Ranger may have been crowned champion but in all honesty with every class running the three heat format this title got lost in obscurity.
Winners - 39r Douglas Stanaway, 36r Mike Ranger, 94r Shaun Stewart

With every other class running the three heat format surely sense would prevail and the Minisprints would be running a fastest to the front style format? Hahahaha yeah right. The Minisprint Grand Prix got lost in obscurity tonight as the three heat format once again failed to fire. 2nz Shaun Cooke and 72k Brian Edwards were head and shoulders above the rest of the field, executing passes at will. Cooke was a little lucky in the third heat as two stoppages and a restart melee helped him out big time. The final result saw Cooke take two wins and a second place with Brian Edwards recording a win and two second placings. The difference on the night proved to be Cooke starting ahead of Edwards in two out of the three races. Once again the Bullshit three heat format fails miserably. Lets line them up fastest to the front as see who the real winner is because tonight proved nothing.
Winners - 2nz Shaun Cooke (2), 72k Brian Edwards

The overseas drivers + qualifiers had three spins on the track. Other than 55uk Frankie Wainman Jr and 390uk Stuart Smith Jr our guys don't have anything to be worried about. There was a bit of incidental contact just to keep everyone honest. Both 58p Peter Bengston and 92r Kyle Fraser looked the goods. It will be interesting to see if not qualifying on night one proves to be an advantage or a disadvantage for them.
Winners - 92r Kyle Fraser, 58p Peter Bengston, 390uk Stuart Smith Jr

Race one saw a start to finish win for 94p Roydon Collingwood. The major casualty was 37r Darcy Hunter as he pulled infield and recorded a DNF. Making up the big ground was 5g Joe Faram with 16 places and 7p Shane Penn with 13 places. 66r Steve Hampton made up 11 places while 351a Paul Vazey barely registered on the radar but also made up 11 places. But it was disaster for Faram in heat two as he recorded a DNF along with 94p Royden Collingwood. With those two out the way 7p Shane Penn looked to be the class of the field, duely reeling off the passes to take the win. 1nz Malcolm Ngatai made up 13 places , 3nz Brendan Higgins 11 and 99r Mark Decke 9. Darcy Hunter managed his only finish on the night and in doing so put $5 of Percy's money at the TAB down the gurgler as he is unlikey to win the repechage.

The final heat saw what might have been for Faram and Collingwood as both recorded good finishes but would miss out on a qualifying spot (more on this later). Penn was once again unstoppable, all class in coming from 9th on the grid to take another win. 8p Scott Miers picked up 10 places but it was the unheralded 119r Lance Aldridge who made up a whopping 16 places to finish second in the group behind Penn. Now there's an outsider for the title. But even he couldn't top Collingwoods effort of 19 places and he must go in as favourite for the repechage. For a list of qualifiers see the Rotorua website.
Winners - 94p Roydon Collingwood, 7p Shane Penn (2)

It was disaster for 492c Campbell McManaway as he failed to get off the grid in race 1. Like Collingwood, 2nz Dale Ewers recorded the win from grid 1 as 515r Stan Hickey chased but was unable to make any impression. 72p Scott Joblin passed 18 cars, 64p Kev Smith passed 14 and 22r Bryce Steiner got 10. Like the red group heat two was the heat that claimed the victims. Hickey cut a tyre and Joblin ended up in all sorts of difficulty. Crucially both managed to finish and avoid the zero points being given out for DNF's. Ewers looked the goods again making 9 placings, 16c Mark Osbourne made 17 and 31p Andy McCabe 14. 10p Peter Rees wasn't so fortunate and joined the list of non-qualifiers via a DNF.

Heat three was a little more routine. Ewers was the pick of the drivers, making 13 places. As good as Ewers was his performance was overshadowed by that of Penn. There is no doubting going into night two who the man to beat is.
Winners - 2nz Dale Ewers, 68r Barry Hunter Jr, 16c Mark Osbourne

Fantastic stuff from the officials tonight. Very vigilent on putting cars back on the red lights and not one driver could have a complaint about the distance they were put back. The red lights were used appropriately and were bang on time most of the night. A couple of times saw false starts or restarts and drivers were put back before the race was allowed to resume. Heck they even managed to re-order a Minisprint field fairly effectively. But the call that made my night was a brilliant piece of officiating. 68r Barry Hunter Jr pulled off on one side of the track and then resumed racing from the other side a few laps later. The officials were onto it and disuqlaified him. Use of the grass is the only issue the officials may be more vigilant on but consistency appeared to be shown. 10/10

It doesn't take much but Percy is confused. Two groups of 23, so how many points do you give the winner? Apparently 26. Why? There were also no points for DNF's. These combined really penalised DNS and DNF's. The DNF thing I can almost understand, the points I don't. Sadly enough it had an effect. 94p Roydon Collingwood missed qualification by three points. If we had been awarding 23 to the winner instead of 26 Collingwood would have been level with the last qualifier in his group, forcing a run-off. I think he has every reason to be aggrieved and I think everyone who put money on him at the TAB has a real reason to be aggrieved. If there were 18 in each group would you still use 26 for the winner? What if there was 14?? Surely 23 cars equalls 23 points for the race winner??