Stratford Speedway: Racers beat the rain in thrilling race meet

Paul Blinkhorne won the Kettle Handyman Service Taranaki Champs on Saturday night. Photo/ Matt Julian

With the track partially ripped open and new lime chip laid before the rain arrived last week and then an ominous weather forecast for the week leading up to racing, there was doubt speedway would get to run on Saturday.

However, the rain cleared on Thursday, allowing the track prep team to get the track sorted, and then stayed away long enough on Saturday for the race meeting to get through.

Of the six classes that were racing, five were racing for trophies, including the streetstocks racing for the Kettle Handyman Service Taranaki Champs, the first Taranaki champs for any class to be run this season.

Paul Blinkhorne, making his first on-track appearance of the season, was too fast for the rest of the field and won the Taranaki Champs after placing second in the first race and winning the next two.

Defending champion Nic Smith was quick, but just couldn't quite catch Blinkhorne and had to settle for second overall after recording a win and two second places. Veteran racer John Young came home third.

After one travelling driver elected not to come due to the dicey weather and another broke down on the way to Stratford, modifieds were left with just five cars to compete for the King of the Mountain champs.

After sorting some engine issues, Jason Kalin has found a lot more speed in his car and he won the event by two points from Blair Luscombe after winning the first two races and placing second in the other. Shaun Bloeman, whose car didn't seem to want to do anything that it should do, managed to bring his car home in all races and claimed the third step on the podium.

Stockcars raced with the biggest field on the night and included several visiting drivers from Whanganui in the starting lineup.

Carol Podjursky, who was in fine form, survived being slammed into the wall by William Hughes in race two and finished all three races to win the Heritage Shield by just one point from Hughes.

Karlin Painter-Dudley and Whanganui driver Blair Reeves-Smith were tied on points for third place, with Painter-Dudley cementing his place on the podium after beating Reeves-Smith in an entertaining run-off.

Carl Shearer was in great form as usual and beat home 13 other competitors to win the King of the Mountain Superstock Champs.

Brad Uhlenberg raced to a well-deserved second place ahead of his cousin Blair Uhlenberg who was third.

Uhlenberg would probably have finished higher up the points chart, but was slammed into the wall late in race three after a restart by Matthew Picard that dropped him back a number of places.

Minisprints raced for Best Pairs. Race wins were spread between Daniel Nickel, Cameron Hurley and Karl Uhlenberg, but it was the pairing of Nickel and Whanganui racer Brad McDonald whose combined points secured them the top step of the podium.

Ella Sharpe and Mark Phipps, who are both nicely coming to grips in their new class (both being ex-superstock drivers) were second and the pairing of Karl Uhlenberg and Jono Noonan third.

Gary Adamson dominated the racing in the adult ministock class, winning all three races.

The next race meeting at MG Taranaki Stratford Speedway is on December 18 and as well as speedway racing, Santa will be there with his sleigh to have photos taken with kids, there will be a Christmas-themed dressup competition for kids with prizes and giveaways and more.