Speedway: Young drivers show their skills

Jarrod MacBeth

Photo: Denham won the King of the Mountain Stockcar Champs at Five Star Liquor Stratford Speedway on Saturday night. Photo by Cookies Photography.

Speedway’s youngest competitors showed that they know their way around the race track when the Repco Youth Ministock Spectacular was held at the Dicksons Service Centre sponsored event at Five Star Liquor Stratford Speedway on Saturday night.

Available to drivers from the ages of twelve to sixteen, the Youth Ministock class not only provides racing opportunities but also teaches valuable car handling skills, life skills and works as a great stepping stone to the bigger classes.

The Youth Spectacular featured visiting cars from throughout the North Island as well as a whole bunch of locals and was the junior competitors opportunity to headline the evenings events at Speedway.

Competitors were split into boys and girls groups and raced throughout the evening. Wellington racer Nikyah Pou dominated the racing in the girls division, placing second in her first race and then wining the next two to take the top step of the podium by a very comfortable margin. Stratford driver Lucy Joblin and another Wellington competitor, Courtney Clayton, were tied on equal points for second place. Joblin made a last lap pass on Clayton to take second overall with the latter third.

In the boys division, Stratford driver Liam Cronin-Prouse was the most consistent, earning two second places and a fourth over his three races to amass a points total of sixty one, enough to win the event by a three point margin from club mate Blake Luscombe. Wellington driver Jesse McPhee beat Stratford driver Riley Symes in a run off to take third place.

A near full field of twenty eight Stockcars raced for the King of the Mountain Champs. Despite some handling issues in race two, Shane Denham’s two second places and a fifth made him the man to beat and he won the champs ahead of Gisborne contracted driver Brittany Carpenter who was performing very well for her first time driving the Stratford oval. Nathan Alexander was third.

Four Demolition Derby teams provided plenty of on track carnage over four qualifying races and two finals. After the qualifying races to see who would race for third/fourth and who would race for first/second, we saw JYD and Unforgivin race for third place with JYD too strong for their opponents and taking third. Naki Bits and Karmageddon faced off for first and second places.

Despite losing one of their cars in the first lap when Matt Hill’s Honda managed to become parked on top of the concrete wall, Naki Bits destroyed their competition to take first place with Karmageddon second.

Vintage Sprintcars and Superstocks completed the program with the Sprintcars giving an insight into how speedway used to be while the Superstocks provided some good racing. Competition was tight with Repco vouchers up for grabs for the race winners. Brad

Uhlenberg ran away with the race one win, William Hughes nabbed race two and Brad Podjursky raced a brilliant race in race three to take the chequered flag with Hughes right on his tail.