THE ACTION PHOTOGRAPHER
Ian Abrahams
Speedway on Water Photo Essay.
Saturday 25th April 1998.
ian.abrahams@xtra.co.nz
The show started with the Deep Purple song Smoke on the Water being played.
Waikaraka Park was fulled with water.
The Speedway track was submerged. The meeting started with a bang, after half a minutes silence
as respect for the soldiers who died in the wars (it was Anzac day).
The meeting ended in a bang or 29 (one mortar failed so only 29 star
shells went into the sky). In between all
the action was on the track
or more accurately in the water.
The Jet Boats thundered. The rough water caused a few problems but
there were no major dramas, just some close calls.
The Jet Skis raced but it was hard to follow.
They started up to 10 in a race,
some starting
on the front straight, others going the other way on the other straight.
One hit the wall, another a side of the container in the middle of the pond. Many hit the buoys
several riders fell off and there was contact between craft.
As a spectacle it was great.
For Speedway fans who like to be more involved
it was disappointing.
It was hard to see who was winning, passes for the lead went unnoticed, competitors were hard to distinguish between each
other and the starts were chaotic and too delayed.
The Thundercats are not really suited to flat
water, not that Waikaraka Park
was a mill pond, and their prop guards took
away too much of the boat's speed. The racing was confusing
to the spectator who liked to be
able to analysis the race as it happened but to those who just
watched the splashing and banging
the spectacle was exciting. By the Thundercats last event when the
course was fill of justling boats
the crews had settled into an entertainment mode. The inflatables
crashed into each other, barged at the
buoys, and took short cuts to make passes. It was like Stockcars on water.
The wake boards were disappointing and obviously needed more water to perform their tricks.
They packed up and went home early.
Although a lot of the crowd left early most stayed to the end. Some thought the show fantastic, others won't come back.
Lots got wet.
Me, I had the best seat in the Stadium,
even though I stood up most of the time.
I thought the Show was great. The stadium was packed. 6,500 odd people
watched from the outside and one from the in-field, or as it was flooded
the in-pool. Or was it 6,500 people watching from the spectator enclosures and one odd person from the in-pond?
When the television crew decided to keep their cameras behind the safety fences
it left me, as photographer, the only person in the middle.
I stood on a container
in the middle of the pond and had craft turning on buoys metres away. I was a couple of metres up in the air and the
Jet Sprinters passed directly underneath my filming platform.
Yes, the boats rattled my perch, any open cans of Coca-Cola were vibrated over and the liquid spilled
whenever a Jet Boat roared underneath. From where I saw the meeting
I could not fail to enjoy it. Yes I'd go again, even if I wasn't allowed to return to the in-pond.
Yes I think the Speedway track should be flooded every year and Boat racing
under lights in a metre of water inside the stadium an annual event.
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