Author: Matt.Bylett

Race Report

We headed back home to Palmerston North speedway for our final round of the season at the big grand finale meeting. We had a small lead in the track championship points we were keen to retain and a couple of new things to try on our 1NZ car. Format for the night was standard, two heats for qualifying with marble draw grids then a 15 lap feature.

Race 1 we drew grid 10 which put us quite near the back of the field. Our setup was good and we managed to make a couple of spots early and continue to pick them off through the race to move up the field. The leaders got off to a big gap early while we were stuck in traffic but we were able to drive right up to them in the final laps, just couldn’t make the pass before the checkers came out. We wound up third which was a great start to the night.

Race 2 was a better grid on third, however this pinned us to the bottom lane for the opening corner. We ended up losing a spot in the first lap as the top lane quickly got rolling. We moved upstairs and got a pass away but couldn’t reel them in to make any further ground. Our setup was close to the mark but we didn’t really have what we needed and had to settle for third. Our two grids would put us third for the feature, however the top qualifier drew the invert marble to reverse the grids for the feature which made a job for us all.

With a few cars retiring through the night we moved up to grid 7 for the feature and with 15 laps on the books were confident we could make some ground. The opening laps were hectic, we shot through the middle of turn 1-2 on the opening laps to gain some spots then just picked them off as we caught them, going where they didn’t to make the pass. We eventually got to third and wound the leaders in quickly before making the pass for second.

The race went to caution a lap later for another competitor going upside down, and the restart order pushed us back to third. This pinned us on the low lane again for the restart and killed our chances of moving up in the last couple of laps as our competitors who followed us through the field were able to get the passes made on the preferred top lane. We eventually got settled in and started to make some ground but ran out of laps and ended up fourth. Luckily this was just enough to defend our season points lead and gave us the track championship for our first time.

Despite the tough second half of the season we were lucky enough to tick off all of our main goals this season, winning the Oval Superstars Tour, Manawatu Champs and the Palmerston North track championship as well as the big one, the NZ Minisprint title also held at Palmerston North. We were also lucky enough to have podium finishes at the North Island champs, Waikato Champs and King of the Mountain champs.

It was a full on season, and thanks to our awesome sponsors Wallace Heron Ltd, Enzed and Fragola we were able to make it our most successful one yet!

Race report

We headed back to Stratford for the grand prix with some new ideas on the car hopeful we would make up a bit of ground on speed. The heats would be spread over three races with each competitor in two races on the night. We drew heat one and three and two middle grids which would add to our points for qualifying.

Heat one we started 7th on the inside row. The track was very heavy and quite difficult all running around the bottom.  We had a pretty even start but snuck a couple of spots in the opening laps to settle into fourth spot. We moved up on the guys in front but ran out of laps to make a pass and settled with fourth spot.

Heat two we started sixth and after a false start got a blinder down the outside of 1-2 top of three wide to jump up a row. We grabbed one more spot early before the field strung out. Again we made ground on the cars in front of us but couldn’t pick our way through even with the help of lappers in the short heat. Third would be our takeaway from the heat which put us up the pointy end for the feature grid where we would roll off third.

The feature was over 25 laps, and we bolted on some good tires and our tuned up setup to see if we could work our way up. The start was not good for us however and we got muscled into the wrong lane then lost a couple of spots, briefly falling to sixth spot with a tight tending car. We got back rolling, found our groove and dialled in the shocks to make a tear for the front. We moved up to fourth quite quickly then set off after the leaders.

They had built quite a margin but we continually cut that back and eventually were in position to make a move when a caution came out. We ran about looking after our tires and packing the top groove but after the restart for whatever reason our car went to junk. We lost our forward drive and had no exit speed onto the straights and no amount of dialling on the shocks made any real improvement.

The laps wound down quickly with us stagnant in fourth and that would be where we would finish. It was a shame we couldn’t get back on the podium in an event that had previously treated us well, but the positives from the weekend are we have found the speed to race for the win again and we can head to Palmy in a couple of weeks with a fast car again.

The last round of the track championship at Palmy will be on the 29th of April and with all going well and no rain that will wind up our season. Hopefully we can grab ahold of the checkered flag there!

Race report

The final round of our tour was moved to Palmerston North following a string of rain offs and interruptions through the season. We were happy to be back at the track that had treated us so well this season.
We would run three heats for qualifying then a feature to finish the night.
We had a solid lead in the OST points but needed another clean night to round out the season.
We drew grid 7 for the first race and got off to a reasonable start however on the slippery track I made a little error and caught the fence damaging our rear suspension. We carried on but not at great pace and lost some spots to finish about 10th.
It was an easy enough fix for the next race and we were back out with our car tuned up but a lot of work to do starting back in 15th. We got a killer start and sliced through cars left and right through the opening laps before the field spaced out a little and it got more difficult to pass. By the end we made our way up to fifth which helped to make up for our bad first heat.
Second heat we started off 2 and got off to the lead. We quickly caught the back of the big field and worked our way through lapped traffic albeit a little too cautiously as it turned out as we lost the lead in the last lap after dodging a spinning car in front of us. We hung on for second but it was a little bit what could have been. The results qualified us sixth for the feature and gave us a lot of work to do on the very slick track.
We fired off in the feature okay, getting the setup where we needed it early and made some ground up the field. However our progress stalled about mid race once our rear tires began to give up and we were stalled at fifth spot. While it wasn’t an amazing nights racing for the team it was hard to balance being cautious for points versus attacking for the race win. On final count we had done enough to win the series, with none of our close competitors taking any points off us in the final round. It would be our second OST tour win in three seasons and a great reward for our resilience through the season.
Our next round is to be at Stratford speedway for the third attempt at getting the Grand Prix meeting in. Hopefully we can score another weekend of dry weather and challenge for another win in the naki

The next round of the tour took us back to our ‘home’ track of Palmerston North and while it’s still a long trip down the country it was nice to be back in familiar territory. After a bruising few weeks the field was a little depleted but all the contenders were there to put on a good show. As always we drew a tough grid, putting us off 11 for race one.

The track was still quite heavy as we drove out the gate, but we were much better on setup than we had been for the last few weeks and managed to make some good ground. Picking cars off through the race to finish up in fifth spot. The reverse grid put us off two alongside our good mate in the 2nz car, promising to make an exciting start.

We got the jump heading down to one but stayed high in 1-2 and the top lane just didn’t have the grip we needed causing us to fall back to second. We followed through the other end before getting the run and reversing the move at turn 1 the next lap. Making the dive and getting it done for the lead. Our car was pretty perfect for setup and we cleared out for a strong win.

The heat results put us in a three way tie for top qualifier. However we scored quickest lap time through the night which settled the tie breaker. The format was to invert the top six and this put us outside row three for the feature.

On the race start we had a blinder running down the outside then cutting to the bottom to take the lead into turn one but when we get to the back stretch the yellow comes out for a jump start, reason being the front row not entering the box even. We had to try again from row three but lightening wouldn’t strike twice and this time we couldn’t gain any ground. It took us a sec to get rolling but once we did we were fast, moving up a little and scoring fastest lap in the process but we couldn’t make the passes on the primarily one lane track and had to settle for fourth.

It certainly wasn’t the result we hoped for after having such good speed but it was another good points night and helps cement our place at the top of the ladder. With all the rain offs we now only have one round left of the tour at harrisville speedway on Easter Sunday. The daytime show at the outlaw track is always a challenge and we will have to apply ourselves well to get a good result.

Our next race is back at Stratford for the speedway nz Grand Prix title and will be another important weekend. That will be after a well deserved week off where we can get into the car and make sure we finish the season well.

We headed to our home track Huntly for a two night show supporting the modified nz title. Unfortunately Friday night ended up getting rained off while we were at the track so we packed up and regrouped for Saturday. With an early start we were met with a challenging track, which went very slick early and then as it turned out came back to be quite drivey later in the night, something we hadn’t really experienced before.

For our first heat we drew grid 10 and after a dicey first corner we dodged all the carnage and were lucky to make some good spots in the first heat. We jumped to about fifth after the opening lap then picked off a couple more through the race on a slick track despite being setup for a much different track and wound up third.

We started off mid pack for the second heat and managed another good start from the outside lane and jumped to second where we would stay. Our car wasn’t where it needed to be to challenge for the win but second put us into a good spot for the last heat.

Our final heat put us in a strong position from mid pack again but we battled to make ground after the track started to turn drivey again. We managed to move up a couple spots but couldn’t really capitalise to race for the win. Our finish put us third for the Waikato champs which was a little disappointing after such a strong start but it was good to come away with a podium with the strong field.

The final feature race was for the Waikato war round of the oval superstars tour. We started third and got a good start to jump to second. Despite the long 20 lap distance and a caution that got us right into the mix we never really made any inroads on the leader to battle for the win. A second place finish did help our points in the overall tour and it was good we could salvage some results despite not performing at out best through the night.

Our next round will be this coming weekend at Palmerston North. It will be good to get back to the super speedway, hopefully we can get back up front.

We made the trip to Palmerston North speedway for the nz title event our biggest race of the season where who gets to run the coveted 1nz is decided for another year.  24 cars faced the starter for a complex format of qualifying heats before the main 25 lap feature where all would be decided

Our grid draw was 11 which put us last and first in the primary group for our two qualifying heats and meant we had a lot of work to do in race 1 of the night. We had 12 laps to come through from the back and were lucky to make some good ground early. The track narrowed up after the opening laps which stalled our progress but after a couple of mechanical failures for other competitors we climbed up the field to fifth which we hoped would be enough to qualify towards the front for the feature.

For heat two we tuned up the 72P car and had an absolute weapon that dominated out front from grid one, however our main competition behind us also managed to make good ground and although our car was fast on aggregate points from the two races we only qualified fourth spot for the one race final.

We knew we would have our work cut out to try and slice through the quality field from that far in the pack but we tuned up our best setup and bolted our best Hoosiers on for a shot at the big race.

When the flag fell the top row shot out to a good start and we catapulted to second place however our car was pretty average to start with and we soon dropped back to third. We battled away for maybe five or six laps with an ill-handling car before our setup came right and we finally hit our straps. We found a good groove out by the wall and the car came alive. We quickly moved around to second spot and then set our sights on the leader. It took maybe five or so more laps before we made any inroads but then the gap started to reduce at an ever increasing rate until we got down towards the end and we were right in the hunt.

We had to move off the wall to putt past the leader on the bottom and somehow managed it, we then led for half a lap before a poorly timed caution for a spin put us back to second spot. Under the yellow everybody had a chance to catch up and sort their in car adjustments out before the green came back out. We had an average restart but cruised back up to the leader quite quick staying out of the dramas that unfolded behind us. It took a lap to get our momentum but we shot down into one and pulled off the same pass as a couple laps earlier to lead with only a few corners to run. We rolled around the bottom for the final lap to seal the victory and secure the coveted 1nz.

It was a spectacular result for our team and the culmination of five years of hard work and learning to put our name on the biggest trophy in our sport. I want to thank everybody on our crew for all of their hard work and dedication and thank the Palmerston North speedway for putting on such a great event and prepping such a racy track. We get a week off next weekend to come back down to earth before we head back to stratford speedway with our new number to contest the north island champs on the 4th March.

Race Review

Check out the full race review in Stuff here