Community > Speedway New Zealand Saloon Grand Prix at Stratford Speedway

Speedway New Zealand Saloon Grand Prix at Stratford Speedway Date: 21/01/12

The NZ Speedway Saloon Grand Prix was held at Stratford Speedway on the 20-21 January 2012, and what a fantastic couple of nights of racing. A field of 32 cars  were entered for the event and racing was hot and fast right from the start.  The cars were split into two groups with the top 9 point scorers over 3 races in each group going through to the final on the Saturday night.  A repercharge was then held for the remaining cars with 1st and 2nd place getters going on to the final.

Most of the racing was fast and clean and often the lead in each race changed many times with each driver trying the best they possibly could to get in the finals.  There were a few breakages with drivers scrambling to repair cars for the next race and some unfortunately not being able to achieve that.  29s being one of the drivers as with under 2 laps to go in the second heat and his position changing backwards and forwards from 1st to 2nd his left front wheel was clipped by 2nz and broke his brakes but he carried on and when he got to the corner found his steering was gone as well.  Not a good mix with the wall beside you.  His car was unrepairable that night but with many hours work and souricing of equipment the next morning he was back at the track for racing again.  124m (Daniel Corrin) made an unclean pass and caused brothers 24s (Dave Hinton) and 46s (Mark Hinton)  to meet with each other which resulted in 46s rolling his car and 24s hitting the wall.  Both cars were then out for the night and 124m lost his points for that race.  24s and 46s were unable to return on the Saturday night due to the damage caused.  24s had massive damage to his new (2nd meeting of racing) $100 car and will need to replace his roll cage, front end, body and lots of other bits.

Saturday night it was all on.  Daniel Corrin came out flying to win his run off for the final (he ended up being 9th equal at the end of Friday's racing).

Racing was fast and furious with very few incidents.  There was a run off in the King of the Mountains for 2nd place after 11W passed 29S right on the line and won by .002 of a second which put them both on 54 points.  11w won the coin toss and chose pole position with 29s left to set the pace.  In the start block 11w was in front of 29s, at the first corner 11w went wide and 29s went underneath him, 11w came back down on 29s and connected with him.  The officials stopped the race and a restart was to be had.  11w had popped a tyre so was unable to cotinue leaving 29s to complete the four lap runoff alone.

The overall competition winners were:

NZ Saloon GP:

1st    146 Nigel Ross           52 points

2nd    1NZ Brent McClymont 49 points

3rd    124m Daniel Corrin       47 points

 

King of the Mountain:

1st    28s John Young        58 points

2nd    29s Jarrod MacBeth  54 points

3rd    11w Ian Shingleton    54 points