Dirt

Published on January 30th, 2012 | by mrgrumpyninja

4

Baypark Midget Invitational

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Thanks to the crew from Salter Motorsport, I was given the opportunity to have the best view in the house for the Midget Invitational on Saturday night. The catch… Try and capture a few images good enough for them to use on their website.

When I accepted the invite, I knew a few of the top names were away down in the South Island, so I wasn’t sure how the event would play out but with field featuring names like Mosen, Williams, McCutcheon, Warboys and Kendall, I left home with high hopes for an action packed evening on the big Baypark oval .

So I wander out onto the infield after shooting some pit shots (those will go elsewhere- Ministocks etc) and out the gate first come the Vintage Midgets. It was pretty cool to see varying era’s of car on track and the owners not afraid to give what I assume would be fairly valuable machinery a little bit of boot.

Then I got to see Saloon cars for the first time for the infield. I have to admit, while I’ve attended a few NZ super saloon titles over the years, this has never been one of my favourite classes and somewhere when the likes of Sloman, Quinn etc moved on so did my interest in the class.  Yeah ok , there are super and saloons, but I can’t tell the difference and when your at eye level with them they all look the same and will do the same thing if they hit you  Do kinda like the 3 wheel style tho ..

The racing would prove to be pretty brutal with plenty of fibreglass and tires destroyed. This guy however knows a thing or 2 about how to win races, as evidenced by the 1nz on his car.

I was stupid enough not to take my Jacket onto the infield so actually missed the feature saloon race, which I am fairly sure went the way of Michelle Wymer, however the only image I have of her is a flat tire…so i’ll leave that out for now.

I’ll throw the Mini stocks in here, as I did snap a few of them, but I guess they are kinda something you’re either a parent or family member supporting a young racer, or they are a filler class. None the less, the young guys and girls go pretty hard and it always amazes me how many bangs and rolls etc seem to occur, all part of learning race craft one would image. This young guy ran away with the feature win.

Sprint cars are something that I truly enjoy, and we’ve seen some great racing this season out of our top Kiwis and visiting pro drivers. With the meeting being a week out from the NZ nationals, some had already headed South or in other cases were perhaps were preserving gear having already had a tough season. Out the gate though would come names like O’connor, Entwistle, Logan, Colson and a host of other fast locals all keen to mix it up.

Shae Oliver sat on Pole for race 1, but it wasn’t long before the man they call Skinny made a move for the lead.

Ryan O’connor would show the way in Race 2 in the Salter Cartage Kriner Maxim, showing the pace that has many picking him for first Kiwi home next weekend.

Hot on his heels was the other #8, local driver and from memory expert in the art of the on field victory donut, Colin Entwistle

The feature race for the night was a strangely aborted affair, as the Midget feature was run first to ensure it got in before the 10pm curfew, Ricky Logan taking what I suspect was probably one of his easier wins for a long time running what I think was less than 5 laps before the yellow and chequered came out at the same time bringing the night to a close

The main attraction then, depending on your view I guess as many probably loved the memories the vintage midgets might have stirred, were the competitors in the midget invitational.  A mixed field of national champions right through to those in F2 midgets having their first competitive season were on hand, and they would battle over 2 heats before a fastest to the back final race, where the fastest driver picked the guy next to him and so on..

Quite a bit went on, so here are just a few grabs. First up, the much discussed online Shane Alach drive  #49

Michael Kendall is a 5 time national champ and always dangerous in the terminator chassis

Wayne Green is another hard charger who seems to have had some bad luck this season

#2nz Chris McCutcheon has had a rough few events, being fast, but also ending up on his lid a few times. He would grab the Heat 2 win.

Allister Wooten is starting to show good pace as he comes to grips with the HLR #17 Hauraki machine, sadly his event would end with a big tumble in the feature.

Angus Mcleod is another to have placed in a national title and more than capable of turning on a solid performance.

It wasn’t all plain sailing , and as we got to the feature, #67 found out that cars do not levitate well after going into turn 3 backwards

Off the back of the grid as the fastest qualifier would be former #1nz and long time racer Carl Worboys in the Turbo Pro #21. Worboys had smashed the field in race 1 and looked like a man on a mission. Worboys drove a solid feature race and would end up taking the 3rd place.

In second place for the Midget invitational was Dayne Maxwell in the #8 Peter Hunibel car. The young man drove a great race and showed good composure and consistency to hold his spot in a field of tough and experienced campaigners

Out front tho, after starting at the back with Worboys was the #88 CRC Synergy King chassis of Brad Mosen. Mosen was simply too fast through the traffic and moved to the front, never looking like being caught.  Here are a few images of the car in action, and a nice little closing shot that shows how the team felt about taking the win after a tough and challenging week

Congratulations to Brad and the Team, and a huge thanks to Salter Motorsport for inviting me down for the evening.

More images will be up tomorrow evening here  click here

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