Good crowd, great weather, good fields.
Alot of work went into the track during the week, with water going into the trcak every day except Tuesday. The track was heavily rolled in an attempt to provide a smooth surface. The suface was bump free and moist all the way down in the screwdriver test. The track was too wet for the bikes, the clay was just too sticky for them to strut their stuff.
The mods turned up and had ran two 15 lap prelim races. In the first 1nz spun and like so many other mod and super saloon drivers these days didn’t hit the picks but rolled down into the path of the oncoming traffic. Inevitably Murray Gordge was hit by another car with no where to go and the yellow was thrown. Whilst Muzza was able to continue the referee deemed that the 1nz was cause of the stoppage and sent him rear of field. The other car involved Chris Olsson retired infield with a broken Jacobs ladder. Steve Hall rode the wall and bent the front axle in another incident whilst behind all mayhem broke loose with Malcolm Halls dumping big time right out by the wall in a three car incident.
In the first heat Mike McCall had his left rear tyre go flat after being hit by Stratford’s John Jackson in 71s in the first corner, and in the second heat lost the tyre from the same wheel after the 1nz car climbed over the 15a very early in the race. In the 25 lap Dirt Cup McCall suffered his third flat left rear of the night but this time after his steering locked going in cementry bend and he spun into the wall.
Phillip Game won the big race from grid 4, Murray Gordge was second from Grid 2 and Waikato hard charger Tony Galbraith got to the finish for a change and finished a well deserved third. The track had grip early on but went a mite dusty in the later stages, as it normally does during endurance races. Several cars were picking up wheels including of course Colin Entwisle who is exciting to wwatch even if he is the only car on the track. The 4r was taken out by a lapper late in the 25 lap race. 4th in the big one was pole sitter Ricky Martin.
The bikes struggles with Tony Nagel taking two falls in the first races. Finlands Petri Kokko did most of the winning but like everyone struggled to break traction on the sticky surface. Slovenia’s Matej Ferjan was quickest when the track offered alor bit of hope for the internationals to race properly and was the most spectacular to watch. Pom kid Andy Appleton (16 years old) was brave and inspite of an ugly style raced well in the reserve bib replacing the injured Kiwi Tony Briggs after the second race pile up.
Stockcars raced well on the track and all though the standards copped a couple of races where the track was very slippery in the early going entertained the crowd and no complaints were made about the track being prepared for bikes and mods. Billy Neill won two races in different cars on the night that included a trip back to his home to vandalize his own stockcar for parts to repair damage in one of the race cars he was borrowing.
Limited saloons had a good field and Nigel Ross showed that there was plenty of drive around the outside in winning two of the races for that class.

Rider	Country	Points
David Baugh Paul Jensen Paul Atkin Nathan Murray Tony Nagel Brendon Manu	N.Z. N.Z. N.Z. N.Z. N.Z. N.Z.	10 10 9 8 5 1

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