The NZ Superstocks, for which Paradise Valley Speedway won Event of the Year at the NZ Speedway Awards, attracted a bumper crowd. Photo / Sportsweb Photography
The NZ Superstocks, for which Paradise Valley Speedway won Event of the Year at the NZ Speedway Awards, attracted a bumper crowd. Photo / Sportsweb Photography
Rotorua Speedway fans have long known what a treasure their Paradise Valley Speedway is but now it has been recognised at a national level.
Paradise Valley, and those who toil away at making it a great, received multiple prizes at the New Zealand Speedway Awards at the weekend.
Recognised for decades of dedication to the venue and the sport was Paradise Valley Speedway secretary Sonja Hickey, who was named a New Zealand Speedway life member, just the 13th person to do so.
The club also won Event of the Year for the NZ Superstocks.
The commentary team of Paul Hickey, Mintie Mead and Barry Brown won Best Speedway Commentary.
Speedway NZ director Wendy Coutts QSM (left) presents Rotorua's Terence Dorrell with the Ministock Competitor of the Year Award. Photo / Supplied
Sonja Hickey said her lifetime membership was a "great honour".
"Apparently it was a unanimous vote," she said.
"That's huge because there aren't many life members and they're all people I've regarded as peers or mentors so to be standing alongside them is pretty special."
Having been involved with the speedway more than 20 years, she said "the passion's still there".
"A third of my life has been speedway and I do enjoy it. I enjoy the challenge. There are not many jobs where you wake up in the morning and by lunchtime, you're doing something totally different to what you anticipated.
"It's always changing, it's always different and I love seeing the kids come through and grow and mature. I've got kids of kids coming into the ministocks now, it's really neat."
She said all the awards were a credit to the entire Paradise Valley Speedway community.
"Winning Best Event was a bit of a major because we knew we'd run a good event but with the rain-offs and everything we had, we thought it might impact on how it was perceived.
"We had a very full table of awards, we were very blessed. What makes our track so good is we do have all those people doing all those great things like articles for programmes and the commentary team. They all do a great job."
Rotorua's Sonja Hickey, pictured with the trophy for Event of the Year, was made a life member of Speedway NZ. Photo / Supplied
Paul Hickey, who once won Commentator of the Year five years running, said it was nice for the whole team to be recognised because it was definitely a team effort on race day.
"Traditionally, they haven't given the Commentator of the Year to a team, it's generally been one person," he said.
"When we get to the big events, the group of three we have are all passionate and knowledgeable about the sport but we've also all worked as professional broadcasters, so we try to bring that level of expertise to our speedway commentary."
He said it was "fantastic" to see multiple awards heading to Rotorua.
"It solidifies the fact that we're one of the best tracks and organisations in the country with what we do behind the scenes, the actual way our events are run and our competitors as well.
"It is the people behind the scenes as well as those on the frontline. Like anything, you need everyone doing all those little jobs to make these things happen. We have a team that has been together for a long time as well, which helps."
Hickey said the speedway usually only hosted the NZ Superstocks every 10 years or so the team was eager to make the most of it.
"We have the big screens and livestreaming now," he said.
"We want to do things a bit differently and from a cultural point of view, we do things like the ceremonial handover of the trophy from the previous champion to the new one with the Māori warriors on the track.
"We do a lot of pre-show stuff too, which isn't normal, but we wanted to turn it into a real show and take it to the next level."
