RESULTS

The "Keystone Painters Ltd"
NZ Streetstock Grand Prix Finals
Saturday 11th February 2006

Heat 1. The track preparation looked likely to produce an awesome night of racing. The 26 qualifiers took the start grid and not long after the green flag dropped the crowd were provided with the racing spectacle they had missed out on the night before. The tame racing from the qualifying heats had changed to become very hard and fast in comparison. 12a Mark McNabb continued his weekend of horror by hitting the turn 3 wall really hard and nearly rolling his car. More action eventuated from this first heat than had occured almost the entire previous night. 73c Norton Gowans was looking very quick while in the lead for at least half the race until pulling infield and handing the lead over to 2nz Simon Bland. This was short lived however, with the ever quick Falcon of ex NZ champion 17c Blair Leigh soon taking over the front spot. This he held easily to take the win but not before some heated action in the last few laps saw many DNF's for some top running cars. 1nz Shane Anderton pulled to the infield with oil smoke trailing him which looked terminal. Minutes later it was revealed that his engine had indeed expired putting a "leg out of bed" ending his grand prix and any chance of clinching the "double".

Heat 2. The start grid was only missing 3 cars for this heat but the carnage was about set to continue. 73c Norton Gowans & 97a Stephen Beale provided some hard hitting entertainment in the front straight resulting in the Gowans car retiring infield. Hits continued to become more frequent and very hard throughout the field of cars. 55a Merv Lewis, 14gm John O'Callaghan, 2nz Simon Bland, 19c Chris Leigh, 10e James Carroll & 15e Matt Watson all joined the infield sitters having to watch the race continue without them. Blair Leigh drove another calculated race to to take what appeared to be another easy victory.

Heat 3. 17c Blair Leigh started this heat from way back in the 8th row but 63c Steve Jackson who was closest on points started from the front spot on the grid. At first Jackson was looking good to take the win and appeared that confident that he was spinning cars easily as he lapped them. The pace was extremely quick while the lower placed cars seemed content with causing mayhem. A red light was deployed to remove a stricken car which gave a few drivers the chance to look where the points leaders were placed on the track. At mid race the cars littering the infield were 2nz Simon Bland, 15e Matt Watson, 33i Steve Dryden & 88b David Hampton. It wasn't long after the restart that Leigh caught Jackson and made an easy looking pass for the lead. 14gm John O'Callaghan brought out the red's again when he suffered a huge roll-over after contact with 28i Rex Nelson. It was at this point that the lead cars had already crossed the finish line and we had our new Grand Prix champion. 17c Blair Leigh had won 3 races from 3 starts. 63c Steve Jackson had easily done enough to clinch 2nd overall but 3rd place required some points calculations and this soon resulted in a run-off situation. 18c Stephen Lennon & 54c Kirk Aldridge had tied on points and the run-off was required to determine the final place on the podium. Aldridge got away early and looked like an easy winner but suspension failure gave Lennon the chance he needed to race past for the win and the final championship placing. Overall the racing in this class tonight was very quick and the Grand Prix showed why Streetstocks never fail to provide the contact spectacle that race fans always want to see.

Support Races. The Streetstock non qualifiers were not to be outdone and it appeared paybacks from the last 2 weekends of racing were being dished out where applicable. 84c Natasha Rodgers completely dominated the Modified class winning all 3 races but not before two huge rollovers from 67c Nigel Nevin & 74c John Dickson. The 25 lap streetcar race was won by 13 Lee Whinnery who lead the event from start to finish.

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