Bikes a roaring success

People in the know said there were more than 10,000 people at last year's Boxing Day motorbikes ? and then started to back off that number.
There's little doubt that there will not be any back-tracking on yesterday's crowd, which all rated the biggest for the past 10 years at least and considerable above last year's.
Visitors reported far more cars being parked in Wanganui's outside streets than in previous years.
The crowd relished the close racing between stars Craig Shirriffs and Andrew Stroud, were probably disappointed that Aussie sidecar ace Stacey Sellar's expected opposition didn't eventuate, but enjoyed massive fields in the Super Motards (42) and formula three events (30-plus).
Shirriffs won five of his six races, and broke the lap record four times to boot.
Crowd behaviour was good ? with the exception of a few bouncing on tree branches on the railway overbridge corner ? and there were no arrests up to the end of meeting time.
Several riders were taken to hospital for checks after crashes, but there was no news of serious injury.
See sports section for more details.