On Saturday night the Prestige Pools Waikaraka Speedway celebrated the 50th anniversary of stockcar racing at the park with a meeting featuring 29 races. The pits were filled to overflowing which meant some competitors had to 'park' in a 'back paddock'.
A maximum field of stockcars were entered, although a small group decided not to contest the Golden Anniversary Championship races. Gary Lonergan (95a) won the big race but the 50th Celebration Stockcar Shoot-out, V-shaped trophy was won by 735a Keegan Orr who made a successful from-behind, attack on Lonergan who had, initially, been leading the unique, three-car shootout final.
The capacity field of Super Stocks featured many visitors including from tracks such as Stratford, Palmerston North, Gisborne, Tauranga, Rotorua and Huntly. The feature was won by Waikato visitor Scott Redfern. Heat wins went to Huntly racer Jared Wade, and Tauranga's Mark Costello. Costello, who came home second in the feature set a quick lap in that race just 1/100th of a second slower than the track record set by Redfern earlier in the 50th anniversary season.
A large field of Super Saloons contested a round of the Burger King series. The racing was fast and furious which caused major collisions in all most every race and some serious damage to race cars. Through the carnage the cars that survived to win heats were Sam Waddell (Mount Maunganui) , Ben Harding (Auckland) and Mark Osborne (Christchurch).
Grant Flynn 6b won the B-Main. There a pole shuffle shoot-out that featured contact in most of the two lap dashes. The shoot-out was won by 16m Mark Osborne who defeated Dean Waddell in the decider but the most exciting match up was that of local veteran Lance Jennings and the eventual winner of the 30-lap final, Dan Corrin. The two went side by side for most of the two laps and at the finish line it appeared that 96a Lance Jennings had won, but the electronic lap scoring showed the Tauranga visitor to have pipped the Aucklander at the line. On measuring it was discovered that the radio transmitter under the Jenning's car is mounted 300mm more towards the rear than the transmitter in the front of the Corrin car.
Mark Osborne led the first 23 laps of the final, holding of a determined challenge from 24a Ben Harding for most of those laps, but he tripped over a lapped car and was stuffed into the concrete wall which caused the16r's front right suspension to break leaving the wheel askew and pointing in the wrong direction.
Dan Corrin, who started from grid 5, lead the final laps and won from 5b Steve Flynn with Harding (fighting an ill-handling car due to a damaged left rear shock) third across the finish line. Corrin's 124m racecar needed to be towed from Victory lane as he had damaged his rear axle late in the race when a brake rotor shattered. Earlier Dan Corrin set the fastest lap of the meeting, a 15.9105, in one of his shoot-outs, just a tad of a second over the all-time fastest Super Saloon lap around Waikaraka Park.