Stock cars: Steiner gears up for UK event

Rotorua stock car racer Bryce Steiner has just finished his best season. Now he's preparing for the BriSCA World Final in the UK this September. Photo / Ben Fraser

It can be a brutal sport, but stock car racing has been kind to Rotorua driver Bryce Steiner this season - not counting a broken pelvis.

After a win-filled campaign of race meets over the last seven months, the 43-year-old is now preparing for a trip to the UK to compete in the BriSCA World Final this September.

Steiner and his team rounded off their best Kiwi stock car season last Saturday with a win at the Speedfest meet at Huntly Speedway. "It was a good way to end the season on a high," Steiner said yesterday.

Victory at January's World 240s Superstock Championships, at Rotorua's Paradise Valley, ensured qualification for the UK meet. Steiner, who owns Central Auto Dismantlers in Ferguson Place, is now gearing himself up for his first-time racing overseas. "It's pretty tough. I think the best result a Kiwi got over there was fourth place ... I want to give it a good shot."

The World Final will be at King's Lynn in Norfolk on September 19.

Rather than transporting his own prized stock car halfway across the world, Steiner will race in a British vehicle at the meet, and is flying over at the end of August to get in some practice.

"[They have] totally different engines and structure of the car," he said.

Travelling with Steiner will be his trusted maintenance crew, and he was quick to pay credit to this team for the important part they played in this season's success. "I have got a pretty good support crew, and during the off-season we put plans in place to get the car speed - the work paid off."

Nothing, however, can be guaranteed in such an explosive sport. "It comes down to a bit of luck on the night."

And it might have seemed like Steiner had fallen foul of fortune at the ENZED Superstock Team Champs at Palmerston North in February: the driver suffered a broken pelvis after being rammed by another car on the track.

But scheduling was on his side. "The six weeks we had off we only really missed one meeting ... I got a full medical clearance, and the next Saturday night I was racing."

Steiner said the broken pelvis was the only serious injury he had suffered in 25 years of stock car racing, and claimed the sport was "in the blood."

"When I was a young fella in the 70s my dad used to race ... I would see a stock and get all tingly. The first job I had, the first thing I started saving up for was a stock car."

A quarter of a century later, that piggy bank dream has paid off with a trip to the UK - and the chance to be crowned world champion.