05&06-06-2004
Taipa Queen's Birthday 2004
by Macgor
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Taipa at Queen's Birthday has always been a highlight of my speedway season
and the two day meeting just sems to keep on getting bigger and bigger
each year .
This year's edition will be remembered mostly for the large turnout
of competitors , spectators and the acres of mud brought about by fickle
weather that did it's best to make life as uncomfortable as possible for
everyone involved .
When it wasn't raining , and there were plenty of times it wsn't ,
the weather was sunny and warm .
Saturday was a reasonable day and a couple of good rounds of racing
were completed. Sunday was a whole different story with a squally shower
of rain coupled with a sharp drop in temperature coming across every hour
or so . The fine times were spent grooming the track back into a raceable
condition allowing at best one or two events to be run before the next
shower come over . Eventually at 3pm the plug was pulled and the meeting
ended .
There was good racing to be seen particularly on the Saturday when the
track was at it's best . All manner of classes ran
from the bassic Production Saloons through to Super Saloons and everything
inbetween including Stockcars and Sprintcars .
If there was a disappointment it was the two car turnout of Streetstocks
when several others had indicated their intention to attend .
Mostly the field sizes varied between 8 and 20 cars . There were a few
rollovers , minor prangs and plenty of door to door aggressive passing
moves that were impressive to watch . Also impressive was the number of
younger drivers out there giving it a go and doing rather well . I think
I heard the age of 10 years being mentioned in one case . The excellent
commentator reackoned that particular youngster has been hooning around
his old man's farm for years .
There were plenty of young females racing well too and I'm thinking
the sport of speedway is likely to be looking a whole lot more glamorous
in the years to come .
This is a short review , I filmed from a good spot that was remote from
everyone else thus was not up with the play on who was driving what and
with all that mud I didn't get around the pits as I would have ordinarily
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| No!! they didn't race without helmets . |
Taipa's Roy Walker was a winner |
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| The Waiheke club was there in force |
The two lonely Streetstocks that played well |
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Now there's some honesty |
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| Close enough for you? |
Huntly's Robin Greenland got caught out |
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| Them bloody marbles |
This car had to be heard , awesome grunt |
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| Lance Jennings towed 7a to Taipa |
A rare sighting of Roger Kesseler |
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| Reece Jones with sharp looking No 4 |
Don Galletly with flat left rear |
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| 88a Tony Newcombe looking good |
24a Ben Harding had a good battle with Jag V12 |
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| Just a little bingle |
Des Longville with ex Kerry Jones sprinter |
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Dave Harding was the sole midget that ran with
the sprinters |
Ron Salter is a Taipa Queen's Birthday regular
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