Exciting season in store

Press, 9 November 1978, Page 9

Exciting season in store

The 1978-79 speedway season opens this weekend at the newly-named

and it is shaping up to be one of the most exciting for several years. Regional. inter-island and inter- , national events are cramj med into the programme t for the coming season, and to help fans keep track of the battery of attractions, a short diary of meetings follows. November 25: The South Island sidecar championships will be staged at the speedway, but Bruce and Wayne Turner will not be defending the title they won last year in Invercargill. They will both be riding their own machines this year, and their duels will be particularly exciting. December 9: The midgI ets will be in action, con- | testing the South Island i championships. Kevin j Proctor won the chami pionship in Invercargill I last year, and his coni sistent, often brilliant i driving, will ensure his I place amongst the fronti runners this season. December 16: The South I Island solo championships are scheduled for the 16th, and this year the meeting promises to be first-class. It is quite likely that Ivan Mauger will be competing, but other riders of the calibre of Larry Ross, who had such a good season in Britain, with Wimbledon; Graeme Stapleton. who rode in the United Kingdom as well; Roger Abel, who matured considerably in Britain over the, winter: James Moore and Roger Wright, will be racing as well. The meeting will have

added spice, for the rop eight riders will qualify for places in the ' ew Zealand final of the world solo championship, to be held in Christchurch in January.

December 26: No meeting will be held on Saturday, December 23, but on the night of Boxing Day the South Island sprint car championships will be staged. Peter Annan, one of the most consistent sprinters last year, has gone to Australia, but Peter Leversedge. Mike Allan, A. J. MacDonald, Selwyn Everett and Gary Jemmett will ensure a highly competitive field. January 2: Christchurch will host a round of the North-South sidecar championships, which are raced at different venues around the country. Last year’s Christchurch round was won by the Turner brothers, but stern competition was provided by Lew Findley, Noel McConnell and Terry Soffe from the North Island. Two sidecar outfits from Invercargill also raced, and it was quite an evening.

January 13: An Interprovincial sprint car meeting is planned, and the top drivers in the South Island — from Blenheim, Invercargill and Christchurch — will compete with the best in the North Island. An added attraction will he the performnce of one of the leading sprint drivers in Australia, Noel Bradford. January 20: The entire Invercargill speedway will repeat its performance

from last year and bring the whole track up to Christchurch. Last season, it took two massive flatdecks to transport the

show up from the deep south, and the meeting was quite impressive.

January 27: This meeting will be the undoubted highlight of the year for the solo enthusiasts, for the New Zealand final of the World solo championships is on in Christchurch. Mauger, Ross, Abel, Wright, Moore, Stapleton and others will take on the top eight solo riders from the North Island, to decide the best eight in the country. This band will then travel to Adelaide to take on the top eight racers in Australia, and the leading five riders from the Australiasian final will then go to the Intercontinental final. (The Australasian final is at present subject to review; possibly the top six Anzac riders will meet the best 10 British riders in a Commonwealth Final, and for the leading nine

scorers to progress to tne Inter-Continental Final.) February 3: The Trevor Morris Memorial Trophy Race will be the highlight of this meeting, which starts a week of highly

competitive midget racing throughout the South Island. The leading drivers from Auckland as well as the top South Island competitors, will take part in five meetings throughout the week. On February 4, the troupe will be racing in Invercargill; on Tuesday 6, Waitangi Day, they will be in Dunedin; on Wednesday 7 they will take part in a qualifying round for the national midget car Grand Prix in Christchurch; and the top qualifiers will race the following Saturday in the Grand Prix final. The promise of five highlycompetitive South Island meetings is sure to attract the top Auckland drivers, and Ted Tracey, Pat Johnstone, Keith Watson and the incomparable Barry Butterworth will bring the best out of the South Island entries.

February 24: In case any fans of th three -quarter midget class have felt left out of the season to date, the meeting on the 24th will satisfy them. Christchurch will "host the North-South T.Q. championship, and the top contenders from the North Island will be taking on Bruce Hobbs, Geoff Stone, Gavin Parr and company. Norrie Chandler, who was the star of the class last season, has moved up to

th? midget ranks this year, but his place in the T.Q.s is bound to be adequately filled.