After a horrendous week of bad weather, I'm sure everyone's fingers and toes were crossed for opening night at Robertson Prestige International Speedway, Palmerston North. The weather gods played nice, and it was fantastic to see the pits were full of cars from all around the country. The hotdogs were hot and the flag dropped right on 6:30pm. The programme of 20 races included Superstocks, Super Saloons, Stockcars, Minisprints, Historic Stockcars and Youth Ministocks. Which was surely way to whet the appetite of any speedway head after such a long dry season without speedway. And it truly didn't disappoint.
Lucas Oil Superstock Series saw a quality field of 20+ machines line up for the first round of the series. Heat one saw 89w Dale Robertson take the first checked flag followed by 10g Peter Rees out in his new car. When seeing the photos of Peter's car I was a little unsure of its new look, but under the lights last night it looked and sounded very cool - he was very fast holding two of the fastest lap times of the night, 28s Blair Uhlenberg took the other. In heat two 971c Jayden Ward decided to mix it up a little and tried to show a couple of cars how to tap dance, but at the end of the race it was 82s Hamish Booker who crossed the line first followed by Robertson and in third place 23a Jordan Baldwin. Ward had hung up his tap shoes and put on his runners for a very convincing win in the final race ahead of Rees and Robertson. We also got to see our first rollover of the night in heat two, and the award goes to 77g Sam Hughes thanks to the gentle persuasion 156p Trent James.
The Lucas Oil Super Saloon Series started out with a quality car field of 10+ drivers from Palmerston North and Hawkes Bay. The racing was spectacular amongst the drivers, and they certainly put on a good show for the crowd. The feature was taken out by 58p Peter Benston who held the highline beautifully for a very classy win, followed by 6b Grant Flynn who took the chequered flag in race one also, and third 44p Brendon Sharland who also took the chequered flag in race two.
The Stockcars ran four races with over 40 cars in the lineup, with each race having someone different on the podium. There seems to be a lot of talent this season and can see some good battles and great driving already from the mostly local drivers. 82p Roydon Winstanley, 9p Zeon McNabb, 48p Josh Mulcahy and 97h Kacey Cheetham all took race wins on opening night, which isn’t an easy feat amongst the quality field of Stockcar drivers. There was some outstanding driving by 134p Rebecca Barr getting a second and third, who clearly shows she can hold her own with the boys in this competitive class.
18p Daniel Nickel took the chequered flag in the first race of the night for the Minisprints, but sadly in race two went up and over between turn 3 and 4 after riding a wheel while trying to go around the outside. The Minisprint feature was won by 1nzs Karl Uhlenberg, second 54p Jayden Williams and third 2nzp Glen McCutcheon. The fastest lap time of the night went to 1nzs Karl Uhlenberg.
There were four Youth Ministock races with a large field of over 40 cars. There were many outstanding drives of the night - 294p Charlie Newman with a first, second and a third, 52p Boston Joblin with two race wins, 23p Kobe Dorn three second places, 18p Aiden Waihi who got a third in race 1, started on grid 22 in race two and ended up coming in seventh with one of the fastest lap times of the night.
It's always a blast from the past to see the Historic Stockcars out there racing, and a packed field of over 20 cars from different decades jogged a lot of memories from the years gone by. Three races saw 3r Hilton Parker take the chequered flag first up, followed by 6p 'The General' Dave Evans himself taking the chequered flag in the next race, and finally 6p Elvis Rowlands in the ex-Dave Evans tank collected the final chequered flag for the night.
By Nicola Street
Full results - https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/3276068
