Western Springs Speedway contemplates future

Western Springs Speedway promoter Dave Stewart is still dealing with noise complaints. Picture / Martin Sykes

Dave Stewart is a very aggravating sort of chap. Plenty of people will tell you this.

I had decided in advance that he would be one of those bloke's blokes whose idea of fun is burning tyres in the back yard and starting up his leaf blower at seven on Sunday mornings.

He does, after all, have a reputation for annoying the neighbours. As you would if you happened to be the person in charge of promoting a speedway in a city.

Stewart is the bloke - he says he doesn't know what a bloke's bloke is - who, when he tells people what he does gets this response: an intake of breath and "really? You must be popular". He is emphatically not at all popular with Western Springs Residents Association members, who would really rather like Stewart and his speedway to go away. Or at least turn the noise down.

Nobody, least of all Stewart, is pretending that speedway is not noisy. "It's annoying," he says, looking as though he almost believes this.

But that noise, according to the enthusiasts, is a good part of the appeal: the drone, the mud, the speed. And "oh, hoping for a crash. The punters are. Absolutely".

I had asked Stewart what the appeal of speedway is because droning and mud and crashes does not sound to me like a fun night out. There was a time when such a combination would not have been top of Stewart's list of things to love either. He used to be a motorbike racing man. But since taking over the speedway two years ago, he is a convert. So, ask him and stand well back.

He arrives at the stadium in his big black - and yes, muddy - jeep, his cellphone attached to his ear, looking hunched and careworn. The frustration is written all over his face. He sent out a press release last month which was signed: "an increasingly distraught Dave Stewart".

He can't remember writing this. He is distracted; he has been lying awake at night, fretting. There will no doubt be more than a few people who are glad to hear it.

But get him talking about those funny, noisy cars and he perks right up. "It's really exciting motor sport. It's crazy, close up action. There's very few venues anywhere in the world where you have this bull ring shape and you're right on top of it and mud's coming out! It's almost like going back to the Roman arenas where you're sitting right there, watching this chaos going on in the middle."

You get the picture: Stewart rather likes his job.

It would be more truthful to say that he used to like his job - before it turned into what he says is "like living in a nightmare".

He would rather be doing his real job which is promoting speedway, not talking to media about legal battles and the arcane business of measuring noise. (No, I don't understand it either.)

I want to know whether he feels any sympathy for the residents who also feel that they are living a nightmare, a very noisy one. He thinks about that for a bit and then says that he does, and he doesn't.

"I feel very sympathetic to somebody who maybe bought a house four blocks away in Grey Lynn and then suddenly thought 'gosh, I didn't really consider the speedway when I bought the house and it's very loud on Saturdays when I'm trying to have a barbecue with my friends'. I can't really feel much sympathy for somebody who buys a house looking at a speedway track and then decides 'wow, that's quite loud'."

And where does Stewart live? "I live in Leigh." Where it's nice and quiet, eh? "That's why I live there." I tell him I think they should move the speedway to Leigh and he says, "I thought you'd say that."

In Leigh, he says, there is a fishery and "if I don't like the smell of fish, well I wouldn't buy a house beside the fishery. I think people have got to control their own destiny to a certain extent".

He does this frequently: drops very unblokey, new-agey sounding phrases into the conversation. The "destiny" thing is obviously a favourite and at one point he says, "I think everyone's got their own truth". I wonder if he reads those awful self-help books but he says he doesn't, he's "more a seat of the pants person" when it comes to learning things.

He was supposed to be a farmer. He has a diploma of agriculture, so he knows a bit about that cracked red dirt that is the speedway track. He decided against farming when he realised he'd be in hock for years.

He went off on his OE and ended up in Austria where, broke, he started making his own ski clothes. Then he started making ski gear for other people. He is handy with a sewing machine - he says farmers often are - having been raised by a mother who was "a great believer that you could create anything you like".

He was asked to leave town by the Austrian police because he was working without a permit and annoying the local retailers by pinching their customers. He's popular wherever he goes. "Yeah, that was probably my first neighbour fall out." He ended up in France working in the sponsorship area for a motorcycle team.

Now here he is sitting in a tatty little wooden grandstand flecked with the red clay off the speedway track looking up at the houses on the ridge.

I tell him I think he must be tempted to go around at 3 o'clock in the morning and start up a chainsaw. He shoots me a look which clearly says "don't be such a stirrer" and says no, of course he isn't tempted by any such thing. "I'm more conciliatory than that. I'd rather go into their houses and watch TV with them and try and work out where they're coming from." He concedes that is very unlikely to happen.

He has had to get used to being disliked. He also has the drivers in his ear about not being able to race. He says, plaintively, that "that takes a bit of getting [used] to I guess, because, you know, I think I'm a nice guy".

I tell the nice guy that I will no doubt get complaints from the anti-speedway contingent for writing about him. Never mind that, he says, "I'll get complaints about shameless self-promotion".

I will say that he hasn't done a very good job promoting himself as the bloke's bloke I'd expected to meet. Well, he says, "I guess I was a fencing contractor and a farm boy and I raced motorcycles and I like to be fit and active.

"But I also like designing clothes and spending time with my daughters and listening to music." He does not own a leaf blower: "Heck no."

But, hey, he says hopefully, "I've got a firm handshake". Actually, I say, I thought it was a bit wimpy. "Yes, but you're a woman, so I don't go ... " and here he makes a noise like bones breaking.

He looks delighted at the prospect, so perhaps he's not such a disappointment after all.