NZ STD STOCK CHAMPS 2004/2005

NZ STD STOCK CHAMPS (08th & 09th January 2005)

The NZ Std Stockcar Champs is always a big event in the std stock field. Baypark Speedway got to run the event for the 2004/2005 season and with the qualifying night being rained out on the Friday, it was a Saturday/Sunday meeting.

147 cars entered for the championship, after all the scruiteneering and checks were done, 117 cars were ready to race. Four qualifying Groups were sorted out with all evenly spread numbers of good cars.

After all the rain on the Friday the track was a little worse for wear. The ruts in the track were deep and nasty, cars through qualfying were getting airborne out of the ruts and tyres were popping like crazy. Not the best track for qualifying and a lot of top cars like defeding champ 1NZ Keith Spanheke was one of the victims. The final 35 cars had been chosen and only 1 spot left with 3 cars tied on points. Sunday started off with a run off between 71H Tony Wooten, 94P Brad Lucas and 68A Billy Neil. First corner and Wooten took Lucas intot he wall with Neil foot flat to the floor. Wooten chased Neil for laps while Lucas waited. Lucas managed to get Neil after white flag came out and Wooten got through to take the chequered and the final spot in the NZ’s. However Lucas hadnt finished and climbed onto Wooten car in the siderail causing a bit of damage. Wooten went straight into the pits for a ‘quick fix’.

The final cars were as follows
051S, 3NZ, 22W, 9W, 89W, 66A, 165A, 81A, 145M, 8M, 10A, 71H, 54P, 15P, 166R, 15R, 14R, 16R, 19R, 34A, 43G, 19P, 32P, 58M, 35M, 226S, 86R, 36R, 8R, 11M, 66M, 18K, + 4 More.

Heat One saw 3NZ on the infield with a blown diff in the first corner, on turn 3 there was a big pile up involving 10A, 66A, 43G. 145M Shay Oliver was having problems and creeping along the wall trying to keep her points up. 54P was leading and 8M Fredrickson was chasing him down until on the back straight Jay Knight 051S took a dive for the infield but ended up in a big pile up taking out the leading cars and causing major damage to the 34A car of Mark Wearing and damaging the 10A car of Craig Collins. 8M suffered a blown tyre from the incident which slowed him down incredibly. 54P wont he first heat with 89W Dale Robertson in 2nd and 58M in 3rd spot.

Heat Two saw fast paced racing action with M Scott Fredrickson taking off and driving hard. He passed most of the field to get in the lead with 89W Dale Robertson in 2nd and 14R Steve Axtens in 3rd.

So going into the final heat 89W Dale Robertson was leading in points with 54P just in behind. The top 7 cars where all very close on points. 15R Paul Maybe was up there with 8M Scott Fredrickson, 165A Phil Briscoes, 5P Miers. Fredrickson did a quick repaint of his car and lined up on the grid, Robertson was off the back in the final event so it was going to be a tough drive for him.

The green lights went on and they all took off, first turn 54P was taken to the wall, second turn 3NZ Paul Vazey stopped Scott Fredrickson and causing a flat tyre on the right rear for Fredrickson. 54P was turned around again and 5P taken to the wall. Robertson was under attack by nearly every car on the track with only a few Wellington boys there to protect him and a few auckland cars. Paul Maybe was driving up fast when he got attacked but managed to survive and stay on the pace. Briscoe in the 165A car was leading the race and slipping thorugh all the small gaps. Robertson got taken to the wall but managed to get out of it and carry on. Briscoes crossed the chequered flag but a few points too little with Robertson taking the 1NZ title.