Meeanee Opening Meeting (Read 9,623 times)

[Higgins]

A cold and wintry old day here in Napier on HB Anniversary Day today but things are looking much better come the 007 Paintball Grand Opening Night for the 2022-23 Hawkes Bay Speedway Season on Sunday. A quick squizzo at the forecast for Sunday shows that it will be sunny for the entire day with an expected top temperature around the 20 degree mark. Naturally things will cool off come flag fall time so make sure you bring warm clothing to ward of the drop in temperature as the night rolls on.

Higgins was unable to attend the solitary practice held on Tuesday night but did hear a little bit of noise drifting over from the Papakura Domian (home of HB Speedway) so things must have gone ok.


Things are looking really encouraging for Meeanee's opening night with over 130 competitors signifying their intentions to race, and there is still a couple of days to go! Hopefully there will not be too many casualties from Palmy on Saturday night and the numbers will hold up or even exceed the current list. We do know that stockcar numbers won't increase as the maximum allowed of 32 has already been reached (but there may be some changes in manes after damages from Palmy on Saturday are known) so it seems the stockcar class reps will be rather busy! Superstocks have 18 down to start but whether one of those will be 13B Mad Marty remains to be seen. They will be racing the second round of the three round Lucas Oil Series so with something tangible at stake there might be a decent amount of bumper use on display.

The other highlight, for me anyway, will be watching the 26 TQs down to lineup. Not sure whether they will race all in (isn't 20 the maximum allowed on the track?) or have two groups. Regardless I have always enjoyed watching the Efficient Moving and Storage TQ racing at Meeanee where there is always the chance for unexpected pileups and high flying acrobatic rolls when least expected. To have large numbers of these cars buzzing around the track going like the clappers pulling off some somewhat unorthodox passing moves taking whatever racing lines are available makes intriguing watching.

A quick word of warning that the first race on Sunday is at 6.30pm so please make sure you are not late. If that shags up your dinner times there is a real good selection of hot foods available trackside so you have no excuse! If you can't make it trackside you still have no excuse as for a samll fee you can livestream the action www.kiwimotorsportmedia.co.nz/

Other information can be found here www.meeaneespeedway.co.nz/news/classy-fields-for-sundays-season-opener and here www.facebook.com/Meeanee-Speedway-176452289040549

Fingers crossed for an action packed night of Speedway racing!

[FlyingTheV]

I headed along last night to the Meeanee opening.

There was not a heck of a lot to report really. The TQs had good numbers from Auckland dialing in for the NZ Champs later this year.

Superstocks were well.......superstocks....with no use of the steel bits around the car in evidence. Wins were spread around with 76B Ben Milne, 66A Randall Tarrant and 235G Regan Penn sharing the spoils.

Stockcars had good numbers with the Feature entertaining as the locals made sure the visitors did not make it a clean sweep of races. 992P Taylor Lampp and 94A Sam Wright had taken out the first two races and 12P Hodge?? (programmes had all gone by 6pm) was looking at making it a 3-peat before 19B Caleb Ireland (I think) made sure that didn't happen so the win went to 65B Royden Hynd.

Super Saloons were probably the most entertaining with 5B Steve Flynn using the high line to good effect (mostly). There was some excellent bonnet to bonnet racing between the two Flynns, 95B Grahame Strong and 24P Martin Halcrow which kept the crowd entertained.

Anyway, it was a big crowd so the promoters and club will be happy.

Cheers.

Roger Morrison.

[Higgins]

I was present last night too but have not had computer or internet accesss to provide my review on how I saw things until about an hour ago. As it turns out FlyingTheV and I saw things reasonably last night, and probably see them in a different light to many others. Anyway here is how I saw things.

Higgins' Review
The weather in the Hawkes Bay was beautiful all day with narry a cloud in the sky all day and temperatures reaching to about 20 degrees so the omens were set for a brilliant night of racing come 6.30pm when the 007 Paintball Opening Night at Meeanee Speedway got underway. A really good sized crowd must have put everything together and decided to come along and take in what they hoped would be an action packed and entertaining night of racing. Well I can say they were right on the ball with all classes putting on a really pleasing display.

Three Quarter Midgets:
First out of the gate were the TQs which had a total of thirty cars present. Obviously too many for all in races so they were split into three groups of ten and raced each other group with the top 20 points scorers going through to the Efficient Moving and Storage Feature
Well it was not long before the crowd were up and cheering with the unfortunate victim being 28B Christine Bargh ran into the back of 6b Duane Todd and was up and over for the first roll of the season and it took just nine laps of the season’s very first race for that to be achieved.
The crowd, who sometimes do not give the TQs the attention they deserve, were eagerly waiting for what promised to be an exciting Efficient Moving and Storage 15 Lap Feature and they were rewarded for the optimism
Local hot shot Todd had grid one but the real threat of Humble was the pace setter on grid two. As is often the case grid 2 shot to the lead right from the start but Todd pulled off a lovely outside pass on the top bend of the second lap to take the lead. He was about to lose that lead when the yellows came on after a couple of cars tangled on that same bend on the same lap and the yellows came on. At that point Humble retired to the infield with some sort of problem that I forgot to find out what it was for. From the restart Todd really stamped his authority and streaked out to a lead of about sixty metres and it looked all over rover.
97A Ben Morrison was having none of that though and as the race wore on it was obvious he was making small gains on the leader each and every lap and looked like he might be a real threat. He was helped with a couple of yellows closing up the field but Todd managed to win the retarts and established a ten metre gap that he fought doggedly to maintain. Morrison threw everything at him but did not get quite close enough to accidentally use his front bumper to shunt the 6B car out of the way! No Morrison was also having to use eyes in the back of his head to keep an eye out for 56A Regan Tyler and 22R Terence Dorrell as they were having a real ding dong tussle that got them close to Morrison. Tyler actually got past Dorrell on the 2nd last lap but Dorrell pulled off a glorious inside pass on turn three of the last lap that saw a minute bit of slide job contact between the two cars to snatch back the final podium spot. Man it was so nice that I almost clapped! In the end Todd got home with 0.538 of a second to spare so it was real close!
TQ Results
Heat 1 Group 1 v Group 2 (12 laps for all heat races)
56A Regan Tyler 1, 22R Terence Dorrell 2, 6B Duane Todd3, 46A Aaron Humble 4, 8A Dylan Cooke 5, 66B Tony Meechan 6.
Heat 2 Group 1 v Group 3
4A Troy Pennington 1, 97A Ben Morrison 2, 71B Sam Barry 3, 11B Adam Coonan 4, 8A Dylan Cooke 5, 66B Tony Meechan 6.
Heat 3 Group 2 v Group 3
46A 1, 187A Shaun Cooke2, 6B 3, 74B Ryan McGregor 4,97A 5, 27W Vaughan Smith 6.
Efficient Moving and Storage Feature;
6B 1, 97A 2, 22R 3, 56A 4, 18A 5, 66B 6, 71B 7, 74B 8, 8A 9, 4A 10, 11B 11, 14A Jakeb Le Cren 12, 44A Kayden Barker 13, 14B Chris Wifin 14, 21A Dayna Lowry 15, 81W Damon Smith 16, 15B Hayden Millard 17, 27W 18, 7G John Taylor 19. DNF 46A.
Todd’s wsa the fastest in the Feature with 15.643 lap but that was not enough to knock Tyler’s race one effort of 15.547 off top spot.
An excellent nights entertainment from these guys thanks you very much. In fact I am going to say the same about all classes but there was one that stood out head and shoulders above all others but more on that later!
Cars Present: 4A, 4B, 6B, 7B, 7G, 8A, 11B, 14A, 14B, 15B, 17B, 18A, 19A, 21A, 22B, 22R, 24B, 27W, 28B, 33B, 44A, 46A, 56A, 66B, 71B, 74B, 77G, 81W, 91B, 97A

Superstocks:
Cars Present 5B, 6B, 15B, 16B, 18B, 22B, 24B, 25B, 29B, 46B, 47B, 66A, 76B, 81G, 99B, 118R, 235G, 422R, 606B
Lucas Oil Series Results:
Race 1: 76B Ben Milne 1, 235B Regan Penn 2, 24B James Tollison 3, 22B Zach Lawrence 4, 81G Jason Jones 5, 25B Kairyn O’Brien 6.
Race 2: 66A Randall Tarrant 1, 235G 2, 46B Quin Ryan 3, 76B 4, 118R Bryce Steiner 5, 81G 6.
Race 3: 235G, 46B, 99B Jacob Buckrell 4, 47B Zach Glenny5, 22B 6, 6B Roydon Hynd 7. 17.877

I was surprised to see that 6B Royden Hynd had recorded the fastest time of 17.877 for a lap in race two so made special note to take an eagle eye on him in the third and am pleased to say it was rewarding to concentrate almost soley on him. He started from the rear of the grid in each race at his own choice (unsure how the car was going to perform after being off to the engine doctors as well as a number of other setup changes made that had not really been tested according to the driver) but made ground spectacularly quickly and even managed to chase down Randy T from about 40 yards behind to catch and eventually pass him in traffic (and that does not happen to the 66A car all that often) only for Tarrant to pull finger and rectify shortly after also in traffic. Looks like car owner Simon Porteous has got the former Joe Faram machine going more to his liking. Second quickest on the night was another up and comer in 99B Jacob Buckrell with minutely marginally slower 17.878 lap in the first heat. They took me by surprise as to my eyes, admittedly ageing these days, as 235G Regan Penn looked to be the fastest out there bar none. Just shows what you miss when you watch just the front runners I suppose!
I haven’t got to Meeanee as much over the last ten years or so as I would like but I am really delighted to see 76B Ben Milne take out a very meritorious win in the first heat when he led all the way but only to very narrowly avoid an all in last corner dive from Penn that almost had him smacked into the pit gate at a very fast rate of knots. Can’t recall Milne having had a win in Superstocks before but if he has had one previously this one further emphasises the talent he has and proved there is still more good things to be got out of the former Riki Kuru chassis yet. A very pleasing reward after the heartbreak the young guy had when his motor let go toward the end of last season. Well done Ben.
The racing was Round Two of the Lucas Oil Series (run over three rounds – Saturday in Palmy, Sunday in Meeanee and the final back in Palmy sometime in April) with the sashes for the round going to
1st 235G Regan Penn 64pts, 2nd 66A Randall Tarrant 52pts and 3rd to 76B Ben Milne 49pts.
Other placings: 4th= 6B Roydon Hynd and 81G Jason Jones 47pts, 6th= 25B Kairyn O’Brien and 47B Zach Glenny 46pts, 8th 46B Quin Ryan 41pts, 9th 99B Jacob Buckrell 40pts, 10th 118R Bryce Steiner 38pts, 11th =16B Brett Loveridge and 24B James Tollison 37pts, 13th 22B Zach Lawrence 36pts, 14th 15B Scott McEwan and 606B Rob Wheatley 31pts, 16th= 422R Dylan Ashton and 29B Matt Demanser 24pts, 18th 5B Richard Houston 23pts, 19th Shane 18B McGrail 15pts.

Stockcars:
These cars eventually made the grid for heat one
4B Courtney Hatton, 11B Brayden Munro, 12P Cody Hodge, 16H James Marshall, 17B Nick Holland, 19B Caleb Ireland, 26B Callum Shotter, 31B Darren Roberton, 41B Cameron Swift, 42B Lauren Swift, 46B Brett Kelly, 48B Scott Gallop, 65B Royden Hynd, 68B Ben Darrock, 69G Jayden Jarvis, 74B Shiney Palmer, 75B Leroy O’Reilly, 78B Gibson Tout, 81B Bradley Penn, 88H Justin Hutchby, 91B Zayne Pullan, 94A Sam Wright, 97B Daniel Dittmer, 97H Kasey Cheetham, 98G Bryce Simpson, 124B Richard Waty, 189R Milla Theobald, 533G Kyle Seabrook and 992P Taylor Lampp, whilst 812B Hayden Leveridge-Watkins made it out the pit gate but did not make it to the starting grid.
All up 30 cars were present so a really good effort for opening night. That’s about where the goodness ended for local drivers anyway with the visitors pretty much stealing all the prizemoney much to my chagrin who is very much wanting a B car to finish first, second and third in every single race! Still can’t really grumble as the visiting drivers did drive well and it was not pure flukey luck that got them their results. On the other hand a decent chunk of the spectators go to see the hits and spins and they were not disappointed as the local boys added to the spectacle with an acceptable amount of bumper work and quite a bit of walling action being meted out to all and sundry. Thankfully the locals finally got it all together in the feature taking all the podium spots showing they can do it when they set their minds to flag racing rather than bumper racing!
Race results were
Heat 1: 992P 1, 12P 2, 97H 3, 65B 4, 19B 5, 91B 6.
Heat 2, 94@ 1, 992P 2, 65B 3, 19B 4, 98G 5, 26B 6.
Feature: 65B 1, 91B 2, 46B 3, 12P 4, 19B 5, 992P 6.
Overall you could say they certainly gave the crowd their moneys worth with cars spread round the track and plenty of little battles going on it was hard to know where to look to ensure you did not miss out on any big hits.

Super Saloons
It is not often I say this but this class was easily the best of the night with the race three battle between 24P Martin Helcrow and 5B Steve Flynn worth much more than the $25.00 admission money on its own. Please don’t take that confession as a reason to justify an increase in ticket price though Mr. Robertson!!!!!!!
The race was simply breathtaking for 80% with Helcrow glued to the pole line and Flynn barely one car wide of the pole line. They pretty much raced side by side for most of the race thrilling the crowd with the spectacle they provided. Helcrow had slightly the slower car but was able to get the power to the ground quicker coming out of the corners to nudge ever so slightly to the lead only for Flynn to take the lead going into the next corner. Lap after lap it carried on until there was a slight coming together (the only touch between the two cars that I noticed) entering turn 4 and that must have done something to Helcrow’s handling as he brushed the wall on turn two a couple of laps later and it was all over for him after the yellows came on. Somehow the sister Flynn 6B car managed to get past the 5B car and took the win but it was almost unnoticed with the crowd still in raptures over what they had seen during the 24P/5B titanic struggle. From memory the 95B car might also have had a brief moment in the lead after an inside pass on turn four but the yellows saw him having to retreat back into third place. The other races also provided a lot of action with 5B seemingly an accident waiting to happen with some superbly spectacular cornering where he had his tail out so wide it was amazing he did not spin the car. In fact so good was his car control there was never any real moment that it might have happened. Well done Steve Flynn on your amazing car control.

Race results
Heat 1: 5B Steve Flynn 1, 95B Grahame Strong (that’s not a misprint in case you were wondering – good to see the old fella back out there!) 2, 242P Ashley Helcrow 3, 33B Chace Rodda 4, 24P Martin Helcrow 5, 6B Jacob Flynn 6.
Heat 2: 24P 1, 33B 2, 5B 3, 6B 4, 95B 5, 92B Kevin Martin 6.
Feature: 6B 1, 95B 2 5B 3, 92B 4, 33B 5, 24P.

The Super Saloons also had a two night series with Palmy Sat/Meeanee Sun and the results were Meanee Round: 6B 1, 95B 2, 5B 3.
Overall Series: 6B 1, 5B and 95B 2=.
Thank you very much Super Saloons for the fantastic exhibition you put on!

Streetstocks.
Cars Present: 7B Al Howatson, 17B Nick Beck, 18G Jared Ingoe, 46B Brent Redington, 55B Shilow True, 56B Glen Shepard, 57B Hayden Lowe, 64B David Brand, 66B Paul Dixon, 67B David Rogers, 72B Darren Melling, 75B Adam O’Sullivan, 77G Brett Durston, 87B David Adams, 95B Tim Towler, 177G Samantha Durston, 199R Jason Whyte, 806B Rusty Franklin and 858R Shane Bracken.
There was no lets have a race or two to sort out our cars for these guys as they were into it right from the very start with plenty of spins, both forced and self inflicted (and the same when it came to taking a close look at the concrete wall) to really keep the crowd enthused. There were a pleasing number of three car “spins" and these were not solely restricted to the corners either. A good number of them seemed to involve 46B, 56B and 72B so it seemed that none of these regular front runners were prepared to let each other steal a march in the points table even though it was just the first night of the season. Will this keep up for the rest of the season remains to be seen but is sure to be a serious consideration to decide to attend every meeting at Meeanee this season in case it does! Not such a good start for 95B Tim Towler who tonked the Napier Straight wall hard very early on which surely would have seen his new car not quite as straight as it was when he loaded it onto the trailer to get it to the track. Plenty of incidents and what not from these guys that earned their class a big tick next to their name from me at least anyway. Keep it ups guys!
Results
Heat1: 46B 1, 72B 2, 77G 3, 64B 4, 56B 5, 7B 6.
Heat 2: 72B 1, 7B 2, 77G 3, 56B 4, 46B 5, 177G 6.
Feature: 77G 1, 64B 2, 72B 3, 46B 4, 18G 5, 177G 6.

Ministocks
A large number of these guys were in attendance and after getting to the track almost right on kick off time did not have any chance to suss things out. Forgive me if I am wrong it looks like it might be one of those seasons where there are a lot of newcomers coming into the ranks and a lot of the older kids have reached retirement age and no longer eligible to take part. I might be wrong or course but there seemed to be an awful lot of new names unknown to me. Anyway they did put on a reasonable display and one possible rollover in the one race that I missed as I was out in the pits collecting results etc but did hear an ominous metal clinking against concrete sound followed by a silence as the red flag was waved.
Results for this class were:
Heat 1: 14B Ryman Dittmer 1, 21B Tom Steel 2, 76B Korbyn Morris 3, 48B Riley McLachlan 4, 86B Bradley Singer 5, 10B Kierren Flower 6.
Heat 2: 21B 1, 86B 2, 10B 3, 48B 4, 66B Cullen Smith 5, 98B Deegan Butcher 6.
Heat 3: 21B 1, 42B Seth Ireland 2, 86B 3, 98B 4, 14B 5, 88B Memphis Trengrove 6.
Heat 4: Sorry guys but I have somehow managed to delete the photo I took of the result sheet!
Not much damage to repair overall but keep learning and helping out on repairs to your cars guys as there will come a day when you have to do it all yourself so start learning when you are young and have the chance.

Not sure when I will be able to take in my next meeting at Meeanee but at this stage it might not be until the new year. Hopefully the entertainment witnessed on Sunday night will continue and get even more fans streaming through the gates.