As a reviewer sometimes you dread getting up the morning after a meeting and putting finger to keyboard. This is one of those mornings. A decent crowd turned up for night 1, although numbers were down on when I last attended this event two years ago. An early shower caused a delay of about half an hour to start proceedings. Unfortunately the meeting fell flat and failed to gather any real momentum throughout the night.

Whilst the late rain didn't help, the depth of moisture in the track surface suggests the track was prepared like any other week. The ideal situation would have seen a slightly drier surface. The moisture deep in the track ended up being compounded by the rain, producing a very sticky surface. With no big tyre classes on display it stayed that way all night without any water being dropped on the track. It was flat and would have been great for a normal meeting, but for a teams meeting it just wasn't quite where it should have been. 7/10

A big field of 28 Ministocks came together and put on a quality display of driver skill. Race 1 was held in treacherous conditions, providing a real test for the youngsters. The star of the show was 8p Jack Miers. Miers started deep in the pack but worked his way up through the field to second place. One move in particular caught the eye, a cut back through the middle of Cemetary Bend when there was very little grip on offer to do so. 11p Asher Rees also had a good night out. When the 16a car won heat two I think I heard the commentators mention a name other than Chloe Corban so if anyone has a correction to the race winner please send it through.
Winners - 22a Jason McLeish, 16a Chloe Corban, 8p Jack Miers

Given their Grand Prix is on the following night it was a good turnout of TQ's in the mid-teens. 1nz Shane O'Conner was proudly displaying the #1. The class put on three incident free races. Race 1 saw 4a Steve Smith put up a very credible performance, mixing it up at the front of the field for much of the race. O'Conner got himself stuck behind 61a Eric Smith back in the pack and was unable to recover. Race two saw O'Conner take advantage of a front grid to streak away. 15a Lawrence Baker was chasing until lapped traffic saw 56a Ross Linklater move into second. By the end of the race Linklater was right on the heels of the national champion.

The battle of the race was mid-pack betwen 64a Gina Harris, 16a Shaun Cooke, 14a Paul Le Cren and 13a John Hopewell. Cooke was able to clear that pack, firing the car into turn three like he would in his Minisprint. By heat three the order of the field had been established and I was looking for something a bit different. Either fastest of the front or the back would have given the fans something different to look at.
Winners - 56a Ross Linklater, 1nz Shane O'Conner, 15a Lawrence Baker

We were underway with the first teams race of the night. Palmy made the best of a messy start to get a 3 on 1 advantage. However things went south for them when two of their three leaders managed to take each other out down the back straight. This handed the Hawkeyes a three on one advantage. The lead Hawke Eye intelligently blocked but his team mates were hesitant to go by. This bought the Panthers some time and they were able to wrestle control of the matchup. They never looked back.
Winners - Palmerston North Panthers

A forgettable race for all concerned. In warm-ups 98h Karl Ross drove into the back of 114h on consecutive corners and ended up putting him into the Cemetary Bend concrete! Waikato ended up gained the early advantage as the Scrappers did their best to lose. At one stage the leader came across two blockers who totally ignored him and set upon the Waikato blocker. The tide turned when 8h Kevin Brooks pulled infield and went up in flames. 114h (no numbers in the programme folks so god only knows who is who) ended up on the end of a solid shot up the wall entering Cemetary Bend. 8s Gary Worthington provided some effective blocks and 282s took over and went on to record the win.
Winner - Stratford Scrappers

Machinery issues for the Kings saw just three starters. Auckland got the best of the early exchanges which saw 4a Warwick Ansty take the lead. Auckland decided not to employ any blockers and subsequently came undone when 24k Rick Taylor launched a perfectly timed hit on Ansty in Cemetary Bend. 29k who I will guess was Kerry Remnant took the lead as 8a Bryce Marx slowed to take up a block role. From there the race was virtually the race of the night. Remnant was held up, allowing Auckland to take the lead back. But never say die Kihikihi would put on a block and Remnant was back in front. But Marx would get Remnant entering Cemetary Bend and pin him to the wall, allowing 5a Paul Vazey and 6a Aaron Headington through with Vazey taking a 2 lap victory.
Winners - Auckland All-Stars

The feature match of the round saw the Tigers take an early advantage only to self-destruct. As race leader 85n Dale Ewers approached his own blocker, the blocker changed line right in front of him, causing Ewers to spin. 92r Kyle Fraser lined Ewers up and whammo! Ewers was stranded for four laps as 22r Bryce Steiner and 99r Mark Decke took control. 92r Kyle Fraser made the hit of the night on Ewers, putting him up the Cemetary Bend wall and rolling him. 82n Jared Gray launched a last bid effort with a huge lunge on Decke that saw Decke plant in the Cemetary Bend wall. But Steiner was able to carry on and take the win.
Winners - Rotorua Rebels

Disaster for the Scrappers as one of the Boulton's made it all of 30 metres being retiring. That was his contribution to the nights proceedings. With Midget ace 63a Bill Clarkson Jr racing for Stratford they weren't exactly odds on to make a comeback. 282s was again a shining light as the Panthers coasted to victory. The only memorable hit for Stratford was from the 282s who was Stratfords MVP on the night.
Winners - Palmerston North Panthers

With the Wanderers down to 2 cars Hawkes Bay decided to loan 34b Tony True who refused to hit any Hawkeyes. 96h Carlos Chestnutt and 31b Steve Jude both suffered massive failures on the start line. The 34b ended up coming under attack from the Waikato car who appeared oblivious to the fact they were supposed to be friends. Worst teams race of all-time!
Winners - Hawkes Bay Hawkeyes

The All-Stars shaky first up win over three man Kihikihi was compunded as they were thrashed by a well organised Rotorua side. The main resistance came from 6a Aaron Headington who made a particularly memorable hit coming out of turn 4. But Rotorua were hardly tested.
Winners - Rotorua Rebels

The Kings were back to four cars but were hopelessly outclassed by a Tigers side reeling from their loss. The Kings showed plenty of guts and a never give up attitude, always coming back for more. But the Tigers were always in control. I will give a special mention here to the sportsmanship of the Tigers. There were a couple of times where they could have landed the hit of the season but pulled out.
Winners - Nelson Tigers

I came away feeling a little underwhelmed by the standard of teams racing. Palmy, Rotorua and Nelson were a country mile ahead of the other teams. Simplicity is sometimes a virtue and teams appeared to over-complicate things. One factor that didn't help was the clash of colours. The eight races saw no fewer than four colour clashes. The number of teams in black is a real problem but don't fear Percy has a solution! Welcome to the new SNZ colour code.

Palmerston North Panthers - Black
Nelson Tigers - Orange
Rotorua Rebels - Dark Blue
Auckland All-Stars - Sky Blue
Stratford Scrappers - Brown
Kihikihi Kings - Marroon
Waikato Wanderers - Yellow and Red
Hawkes Bay Hawkeyes - Purple
Manawatu Mustangs - Green
Christchurch Glen Eagles - Red
Otago Cougars - Gold and Blue
British Lions - White
Wanganui Warriors - Grey

Tonights meeting really struggled for momentum. The weak support programme was found out by the rain delay. It wasn't until 8:30pm until the first teams race got underway. We finally got some momentum with two good teams races, AKL vs Khkh followed by Rot vs Nel and then out came the Ministocks. The crowd wanted to get into the meeting but the lack of continuity in the entertainment resulted in very little atmosphere.

One disturbing trend that is in our sport at the moment is the poor programming of support classes. Ministocks must be the least stood down class in NZ Speedway. The class certainly has it's place in the sport but not on the big nights. Another thing I see is support classes only running one night out of two. Why? Why can't a class run both nights? The Auckland club is strong in Saloons so lets programme Saloons for both nights.

The call everyone is talking about happened before the first teams race. After hot laps it was decided there was a safety issue and the Palmy and Hawkes Bay Teams went back to the pits. The Ministocks came out for a race and the track was OK. Folks, I don't buy this for one second. The Minstock race hardly changed the track as the moisture was so deep in the race surface. It looked highly tactical to me. During the race there were several times when cars went infield but did not part from one another. One one occasion a competitor was spun well after he went infield. Lets give the officials credit for realising the grass was slippery and not overturning a race result.

The red lights were generally well deployed and really there were no drama's to speak of on the night. 8/10