As it stands, one group that races at Western Springs has flagged concerns with the Serious Fraud Office after a letter with an allegedly dubious provenance made it before Auckland’s mayor and councillors.
The letter was purportedly signed by Auckland TQ Midget Association president Michael Brough (Midgets are a popular class of racing car)
Brough said he told a senior council officer, Anna Bray, he believed the letter was fraudulent.
“She said fraudulent is a strong word and I said ‘you can call it whatever you want – manufactured, counterfeit, whatever the right word is, but when it doesn’t come from me, it wasn’t written by me’,” Brough told the Herald.
Bray acknowledged shortcomings over how the letter was created and put on the governing body agenda but said it was withdrawn before councillors decided to spend $11 million consolidating speedway with stock and saloon cars at Waikaraka Park.
Questions about the authenticity of the midget club letter surfaced after a governing body meeting on October 24 was adjourned after Speedway New Zealand general manager Aaron Kirby claimed another letter on the agenda in support of consolidation was “a complete misrepresentation”.
After 96 years, speedway is moving from Western Springs to Waikaraka Park in Onehunga. Photo / Jason Dorday
The debate over speedway, as Mayor Wayne Brown pointed out last year, has been contentious.
“We have to make more of our existing facilities. Waikaraka Park is an industrial area that does not have noise problems that have plagued Western Springs,” he said.
A dispassionate observer would likely agree with him that there is a better location for speedway than an inner-Auckland suburb.
But fans of Western Springs are nothing if not passionate.
Former stockcar driver Lance Anderson described Western Springs as “the greatest place on earth”. and felt the process to move it had been an “absolute sham”.
Jason Jones, a volunteer on the safety crew at Western Springs for 25 years, said the speedway community and the public have been left out of the process, saying the future of the sport is at risk of being downscaled to a smaller venue.
Jason Jones (left), and councillor John Watson are critical of the process to move speedway from Western Springs. Photo / Alex Burton
Former Western Springs promoter Bill Buckley told the Herald last year he was “really p***ed off” about moving motorsport from its “beloved home”.
The process has also left ill-will around the council (which voted 11-8 to move to Waikaraka Park).
Case in point is Albany’s John Watson, who similarly said it was a “sham of a process”.
There has been enough disquiet over the move for the council to run the ruler over it and give stakeholders certainty the decision was sound.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
