KartSport Bay of Plenty hosts North Island championships

KartSport Bay of Plenty president Daniel Samuelson (left) and Mike Brinkworth of Bay Civil at the Apparelmaster Raceway.

October was set to be a busy month for KartSport Bay of Plenty.

And it was - just not in the way everyone involved in the club expected.

The club, based at Apparelmaster Raceway at the end of Alley Rd in Te Puke, was to host the return leg of a challenge against KartSport Taranaki on October 2, a round of the Top Half series the following weekend - and then the KartSport New Zealand North Island Championship over Labour Weekend.

Then the rain came - and came and came and came.

As October 2 dawned, the damage became clear - much of the track and Alley Rd were flooded. But worse was to come when it was discovered the stormwater pipes under a large chunk of the pit area had been damaged. They would need replacing.

The Taranaki racers were already in the Bay of Plenty and had practised at the track the day before. But running the meeting was impossible.

"There was just way too much rain," says club president Daniel Samuelson.

"I was standing on the grass in the centre of turn one, and the water was up to my waist."

He and other club members were trying to unblock the culvert that had become blocked with silt.

Although the track was covered in water, it was undamaged, but there was no way the meeting could go ahead and no way the following weekend's Top Half series could be staged either.

"We've been through a lot at this club. About 15 years ago, a big slip came down and covered the track - and that was a Top Half morning as well."

Fortunately, it's a sport where everyone is prepared to help out and KartSport Hamilton offered its track.

"We pretty much uplifted everything from here and went across to Hamilton. They gave us the key to their track and we ran the meeting - so it was still a Bay of Plenty round of Top Half, still all our staff, our rules, everything - just on a different-shaped track."

But that still left a lot of work to do to get the weekend's Debonair North Island Championships on.

"It's been touch and go," says Daniel.

The broken pipes have been replaced and the area filled, fencing has been replaced and, while the track might not look as pristine as had been hoped, racing is now possible. Te Puke Volunteer Fire Brigade used their hoses to wash the track down.

"Mike [Brinkworth] from Bay Civil has been out there pretty much since 10am on that Sunday in the digger on and off.

"It's a good job it's a strong club. There have been people out here pretty much every day doing something - a couple of hours here, a couple of hours there."

A new gantry had been put over the track early in September.

"It was all signed off and ready to go and we had everything all nice and trimmed and the lawns were looking good - we had done a lot of work to get it ready."

Daniel is philosophical about the damage caused by the deluge.

"You can't do anything about it, it's nature."

There are 123 entries for the North Island championships, including several national champions, across eight classes - the biggest being the Junior Rotax class. Friday is practice day and Saturday morning will have qualifying, with heat races in the afternoon.

On Sunday there will be pre-finals, with grid positions determined by heat points, then the final in each class being a winner-takes-all race.

It is the first time the club has hosted the North Island championships since 2015.

"So we didn't want to miss out - we had a plan B in place, but we didn't really want to use plan B - we were always aiming for plan A.

"It's an awesome club. Even Sunday it first happened, we had people here until about 7pm just doing what they could, moving the water to start with and then come up with a plan."

Set against a scenic native bush backdrop, the track has a special character.

The on-track action is due to start about 9am on Saturday and Sunday.