The shadows were long and the smiles were wide when the Waihi Beach Dirt Track Club staged a mid-winter speedway meeting in perfect conditions on Saturday.
The fourth annual Queen's Birthday weekend fun day saw saloons cars, stock cars and production saloons in action while the quickest laps of the D-shaped oval were turned by the duelling TQ Midget of Darren Webster and the Minisprint of Alan Wong.
The super stock usually campaigned by Auckland racer Paul Vazey was pedalled by four different drivers ensuring some thunder boomed around the scenic hillside track and the production saloons produced some close racing with Nissan 300ZX driver Chris Johnson along with David Campbell (Honda Civic), Damien Laird (Toyota Corolla) and Katie Robinson (Honda Prelude) all showing good pace.
After three heat races the saloon car final was won by Tauranga's Murray Guy who was chased hard by Waihi Beach racer Chris Woodward (aka Joe Lunchbox) with Graham Brockelsby taking third place.
The event wraps up a busy 2011-12 season at the Waihi Beach Dirt Track Club, which in addition to its own regular race meetings, also hosted the Jalopy Dust Up hot rod event and visiting Motorsport BOP competitors.
