Stratford Speedway: Hawke’s Bay driver wins New Zealand Streetstock Grand Prix

Darren Melling (#72) won the Mowtika Lawns & Maintenance New Zealand Streetstock Grand Prix at Stratford Speedway on Friday night. Photo / Contact High Photography

The Motika Lawns and Maintenance New Zealand Streetstock Grand Prix scheduled to run at MG Taranaki Speedway on Friday and Saturday nights was reduced to a one-day event after organisers spent the days leading up to it watching the weather and determined it was too risky for Saturday racing.

So over 40 of the best Street stock drivers from New Zealand, from as far south as Invercargill and north to Auckland converged in Taranaki to race for the event. Competitors were divided into two qualifying groups and raced two heats to find the 26 qualifiers for the three final heats.

Qualifying racing saw some good close racing with the suspected front-running drivers making it through to the finals, including seven local competitors.

In the finals Rotorua, Hawke’s Bay, Stratford and South Island drivers led the charge with Nelson peddler Ryan Musgrove picking up the heat win from another Nelson driver Steven Soper while Stratford competitor Nic Smith was third.

Hawke’s Bay driver Darren Melling won heat two by a two-second margin from Rotorua’s Stephen De Malmanche and Nelson’s Cody McCarrison while heat three was won by Invercargill’s Steve Dryden from Melling and Rotorua competitor Shane Bracken.

The racing was so close that after the three heats it was all tied up at the top of the points table with Dryden and Melling first equal, necessitating a four-lap run-off to determine the champion.

Melling got away to an early lead in the run-off but a couple of laps in Dryden caught him pushed him to the wall and rolled him over, leaving Dryden to complete the remaining laps of the run-off on his own. However, officials deemed the contact to be outside of the rules and Dryden was relegated, leaving Darren Melling the winner of the Grand Prix ahead of Dryden whilst Cody McCarrison was third.

Karl Uhlenberg (#28) won the Minisprint King of the Mountain Champs. Photo / Contact High Photography

The King of the Mountain champs, which was the second tier event, was won by Stratford driver Haydyn Fox who was racing in his first event of the season. Another Stratford competitor, Dyland Smith, was second and Nick McGrath (Whanganui) third.

Minisprints raced for their King of the Mountain champs on the same night which was won by Karl Uhlenberg from Cody Ogle and Mark Phipps while in the support classes, Modified races were won by Carl Hinton, John Jackson and Jason Kalin. Youth Ministock races were won by Liam Cronin-Prouse, Boston Joblin, Blake Luscombe and Chase Korff.

The West Coast Stockcar teams champs that were scheduled to run on Saturday night will be rescheduled for later in the season. Speedway now takes a break for one week with the next event being on February 10.