Being a bit of a ‘Don’t leave home til you’ve seen the country’ sort of bloke, it was bloody good to go somewhere different to race. Like most of you, I’ve driven past Te Kauwhata on numerous occasions over the years, and have even driven through the place once or twice. And did you know the old Great South Road is now called Wayside Road? If you are younger the about 20, probably not.

So, out the back of the village, they have this Vineyard Road, which lives up to it’s name. Down the end of this road, there is a paddock, just waiting for a bunch of offroaders to come along and soften it up for maize planting. And in real rural country, not a pylon, a housing development or a shopping mall for miles.

Class 3 racer Vinny Harvey flys into debris in Te Kauwhata

Going into the delayed-due-to-the-bloody-rain-gods second round of the series, Class 3’s Lindsay Pointon and Steve Lowery’s ProTruck shared the points lead. Steve’s chances took a bit of a dive, with only 3 entries in the class, while Lindsay’s looked at risk with 10 entries in his class.

Lyndsay Pointon cuts a trail to be point leader after Round 2

That didn’t faze the Elf-sponsored driver one little bit, as he took 4 wins from 4 starts, winning the Feature capping off a good day’s racing. His strongest opposition came from the Colour FX car of Vinny Harvey, until he blew second gear in the third heat, and CMORC prez, Warren Rogers, who is starting to get a handle on his new Enzed-sponsored Yankee racer. Shane Cato just kept keeping on, picking up the points. Jay Murray’s day turned to custard with a broken R/F tie rod in Heat 3.

Watching Ferg fly by. Grant Ferguson in his second to last competition.

In Class 1, The Lowara Pumps entry of Grant Ferguson was doing it fairly easily, the extra power of the turbo seeing him the fastest at the event. It all went a bit pear-shaped for Ferg after contact with another car in the Feature possibly led to a rear puncture, which took too long to change, leaving him out of the points. Rob Ryan had a good day, although not having the power of the turbo. Rob continued his good form this season, although trying a little too hard maybe, as evidenced by a big bicycle through the esses, and a gentle roll over. The self-built Ryan Honda looks the business, though. The VW Shoppe’s Paul Smith tries really hard, but it’s maybe a Heartland versus Air NZ Cup sort of thing, to use an analogy.

Darren Rollinson, a right genial bloke if ever there was one, dominated the Super 1300 class. That duck shooter’s paint job is rather unique, and Darren seems to have found some aggressive driving pills this season. Dennis Raynel joined the rollover club, but still took second in class. Brian Garrett was on the pace early, but a bit of a love tap from Darren put him out after the second heat.

Mike Peters’ little, in comparison to himself, Class 7 needs someone to race, anybody out there with a stockie? With nothing to prove, and to avoid getting in the way, he wived the Feature.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Raana Horan is The Man. While we were tearing up the cockie’s maize paddock, there were a bunch of trail bike riders having a play on another part of the property, along with the usual hangers-on. A bunch of them perched on top of a disused milking shed, and it was pretty obvious they were Nissan fans, dividing their attention between their dirt biking mates and "Big Black". Raana capped a good day with second overall in the Feature, his only ThunderTruck opposition coming from the big blue v8 Cruiser of Graham Steadman. Alas and alack, at the start of the 3rd heat, it went ‘lurch, crack, leak’ as the trannie let go; it took the removal of the transfer box to get the truck out of the way. It sounds pretty cool when he gets the v8 wound up, though.

The Naki, Greg Mullins, won a prize at the end of the day for his fourth buggered gearbox in a season. Naki claims he was bitch-slapped by nameless, but one does wonder. The Challenger battle was therefore left to Shawn Dickins and Geoff Matich to fight over. Strangely off the pace was Shane Porter, while newcomer, James Peters, Mike’s young fulla, showed potential in the ex-Troy Tufnell car, and may be worth keeping an eye on. Shawn was the man doing the business, besting Geoff in the heats. But just to keep him humble, he broke an axle. Not during a race, mind you, but returning to the pits after the third heat. What a bugger! So Geoff top-scored the class, putting himself into a position to gain his third series title.

The 20 lap, all-in Feature was a cracker. Lindsay had been nailing his start during the heats, and from the delayed-by-class start, had picked up a couple of places by the first corner. Darren led initially, going hard. It took Lindsay quite a few laps to catch Darren, but his win had certain inevitability about, especially after Ferg got that puncture. Raana drove like Raana, and got second overall in the Feature.

Truth be told, the Class 3 Super 1600 battle was so absorbing, I lost track of the overall positions fairly early in the race. Warren was going rather well, but Lindsay just drove away from him, Jay hung in there for third in class. There were a number of private scraps going on, so the interest was high throughout the race.

The Mechanics Race at the end of the day was won by Raana’s mechanic, although a bi bicycle caused a few heart-stopping moments, especially for Raana, who was in the quiet seat for a change. Ivan Rogers ran in the old man’s car, again demonstrating that he has a bit of talent. Craig Murray just showed he is rusty, after a few years out of the cockpit.

The final round is scheduled for November 30th, but may have to come forward a day, due to a clash with an ATR event. We will keep you posted on that; there is a committee meeting this Thursday, and a decision will be made then.

How does the old saying go, you can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Who’d organise a race meeting, eh?

See you at the motor races.

Dink