Wairarapa drivers at Manfeild meeting

THREE Wairarapa men raced at Manfeild at the weekend, with varying degrees of success.
Young Formula First racer Matt Stubbs discovered just how cruel motorsport can be on Sunday. Starting from the back of the grid, he charged through to fourth at the finish. In race two, however, he got caught up in somebody else's accident and the rear of his car was seriously damaged.
Some amazing repair work saw the car repaired for race three, but unnoticed damage to the front suspension saw him crash out again.
Veteran saloon car racer Peter O'Leary (below left) dusted off his 1290cc Datsun for a day of fun in clubman racing.
And he was circulating at times not far off those of his best ? "not too bad for a geriatric on 200-year-old slicks," he reckoned.
His good race engine went bang two years ago, and until now he's lacked the enthusiasm to rebuild it, but a replacement motor is putting out similar power, around 120hp at the wheels. The gearing wasn't right ? the diff he chose was a 4.1 instead of the 4.3 he wanted. That meant he was getting a maximum of 8000rpm instead of the 9200rpm the correct diff would have given.
A day's fun on the track left him determined to rebuild the race motor and go a little quicker next time.
"While it's a runner I'll use it," he said. "It's no good sitting in the shed."
Third man out at the weekend was STAR touring car racer Spike Taylor, (bottom photo) who had an indifferent weekend.
He was 7th in race one and in race two he led for the length of the straight before fading to 6th.
Taylor got a blinder of a start in race three and was battling for the lead when the manual gearshift failed. He also has a pneumatic shifter but was using the manual because it was kinder to a suspect gearbox. He switched to the pneumatic, but the gearbox then failed completely.
The car is due for a rebuild anyway, plus a sleeker look and new paint in Master Blaster and Western Auto Mart livery. It is understood the STAR cars will be sharing a meeting next season with the Aussie V8s, which they closely resemble, on a smaller scale.
Conditions on Saturday were excellent, but on Sunday it was wet and freezing cold.