PALMERSTON NORTH TEAMS CHAMPS

Well well well, what can you say. The ultimate meeting of the season, the NZ A-Grade Stockcar Teams Champs, just gets better every year and this year was no exception! To be honest you had to be there to believe it!

Plenty of hard hits, rollovers, fires, good racing, and the atmosphere was phenomenal as usual. The overall winners were the Palmerston North Panthers, who deserved to win, as they raced well all weekend, as a complete unit. Runners-up were the Rotorua Rebels - without a car finishing in the final!, third were the Baypark Busters with a Rodney Wood 51M benefit after a lot of help from 92M Kyle Fraser, and fourth, were the defending champions, the Wellington WildCats, it just wasn't their weekend especially as their lineup was 1NZ, 5W, 81W, 11W & 71W. All teams raced well and the $3,000 flying farewell at the end of Night 2, was taken by 35B Steve O'Dwyer. Support races on Finals night only saw the appearance of A-Grade Stockcar Consolations, with names like Stan Hickey 515R, and 2NZ Ross Thurston just to name a few, also the Manawatu Modified Champs, 16 cars faced the starter, casualties included 1NZ Murray Gordge, 66N Tony Frost, 63N Trev Wishart (in a violent roll), among others. The overall winner of the Manawatu Modifieds was 23W Dean Owens, with the runner-up being 69W Mike Moore, and third 2NZ (29C) Glen Leech. Sidecars also had hair-raising antics with approx 8 units presenting themselves for some good racing. Overall, what a weekend!. Rock on next year!!, the dates are 21st & 22nd February 2003, make sure ya book accomodation quick, as this event just gets bigger by the year!.

For a more detailed review/overview check out NZ Stockcar Crazy!! - www.nzstockcarcrazy.cjb.net
WILDCATS PHOTO: The Wellington Wildcats before their first semi-final. Left to right: Geoff James (81W), Brian Musgrove (11W), Tony McLanachan (5W) holiding the trophy, Wayne Hemi (1NZ), "Kiwi" Keith Webling (Manager), & Kim Lace (71W).